Prejudice In Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men

“No matter where you run into it, prejudice obscures the trues” (page 66). Prejudice can be a dangerous thing, especially when it comes to adjusting somebody’s life. At that time in America a jury consists of twelve men can determine the life or death of one person by giving a unanimous verdict. A typical reflection of this reality is an influential drama “Twelve Anger Men”. Reginald Rose wrote this drama inspired by his experience of being a juror on a manslaughter case to reveal a common social phenomenon of prejudice. To stress the main idea that, Rose presents the key points that biased individuals are less rational or blinding themselves with an unfair judgement about one’s guilt. Moreover, she conveys the facts that stereotype produces an effect on one’s statement. Furthermore, prejudice constantly affect other jurors’ opinion, intentionally or unintentionally. With Rose’s vivid description and clear contrast between each juror, he emphasizes the existence of prejudice and further to spread an idea that prejudice influence the outcome of the trial.

Personal bias constantly influences one’s rational judgement. People use their personal experience to convince themselves that what type of person one should be, which is not a fair judgement about individual guilty.

3rd juror sees the antagonistic relationship with his own son mirrored in the defendant and his father.

He stereotypes the boy: “That goddamn rotten kid. I know him. What they’re like” (page 71). He already convicts the defendant in the very early until end and his prejudice attitude makes him a hyperbolic stubborn man. He wishes to punish that defendant for the depression his own son inflected on him. He personally longs for that punishment, not because of fact. Another point that should be noticed is that 3rd juror’s bias on children makes him fail in analyzing every piece of evidence and view them from only negative side, which leads to his failure of deliberating

rationally.
Further on, the stereotype affects one’s statement. Several jurors openly state their bias against the defendant, 7th juror comes up with the boy’s previous criminal record, 10th juror says: “You can’t believe a word they say. I mean they’re born liars” (page 12) and 4th juror also stereotypes those who lived in slum to be inherent criminals. Those jurors use their preconceived notions as strong evidences fight against those who voted innocent. A record or living environment does not equal to evidence of any particularly behaviors ,and obviously cannot be used as evidences to proof that the boy committed the murder, those are just personal biases.
Individuals’ prejudice not only influence themselves but others’ opinion. First of all, some of the jurors don’t concern about it and vote guilt merely because conformity. This can be observed by the process of initial voting: “several others go up more slowly” (page 11). A person with different opinion against others would be considered as an eccentric and be repelled, which frightened most jurors. But for 8th juror standing alone, the boy’s death almost comes to a decision, his non-biased attitude eventually turns this situation around. Meanwhile, those who have prejudice strongly support each other. The louder their voice are, the more they get stuck in their biased preconceived opinion. The stubborn 3rd juror even becomes the last bastion of preventing the consensus.
In conclusion, individuals’ prejudice influence the outcome of the trial by convincing their own preconceived opinion as well as their wrong interpretation of evidence. Besides, personal biases produce strong effects toward others. Using skillful manipulation of language, Rose successfully depict twelve vivid jurors with complex characterizations, which makes it to be a marvelous drama in the world.