Similarities Between To Kill A Mockingbird And 12 Angry Men

To Kill a Mockingbird and Twelve Angry Men are both stories that are mandatory for sophomores enrolled in American Literature at Upper Dublin High School to read. To Kill a Mockingbird is a story told through the 1st person point of view of Jean Louis Finch. The story starts when Jean, nicknamed Scout, is in the 1st grade and she begins telling of how Jem, her brother, broke his arm when he was thirteen. Thus, the story of the Finch’s and everyone else that lived in Maycomb, Alabama began. Twelve Angry Men is a play about twelve separate jurors and their journey on deciding the verdict of a case, ultimately that would save or send the defendant off to his death. In To Kill a Mockingbird and Twelve Angry Men both authors, Harper Lee and Reginald

Rose, Use point of view to influence the views and opinions of their audiences.
To begin, In To Kill a Mockingbird, one way that Lee uses point of view to influence the audience's opinions and views is by characterizing the characters in the story based off of Scout’s interpretation and past experiences with them. Scout’s character is one who grows and develops as the plot grows and develops, so at the beginning of the book she is little, innocent, and somewhat ignorant to her surrounding situations. When she describes situations to the audience, she allows her biases and own views influence how the characters are portrayed and characterized. For example, Scout, Jem, and Dill would play the “Radley Game” in which they would depict Arthur Radley’s life as joke, and a simple and fun game for them to play. The parts were being divvied up between the children, as scout described, “ I was Mrs. Radley, and all I had to do was come out and sweep the porch. Dill was old Mr. Radley: he walked up and down the sidewalk and coughed when Jem spoke to him. Jem, naturally, was Boo: he went under the front steps and shrieked and howled from time to time” (51-52). The ways the children acted out their parts, as well as how they referred to Arthur as Boo, show’s how the whole family was characterized as scary and almost taboo. However, as the story advanced and all the main characters grew, the perception of Boo and all other characters in the story became more realistic. Scout, at the end of the story begins to refer to Boo by his real name, Arthur. She also meets him in real life, after he saved Jem and her’s lives, and is able to show how much her interpretation of him has
changed, thus the audience’s perceptions changed.
Similarly, in Twelve Angry Men, Rose also uses point of view to influence the audience’s views by how the characters are conveyed.

Although the point of view in the play is 3rd person limited and the way the characters are characterized is different in Twelve Angry Men then in To Kill a Mockingbird. Back to the point, Rose allows all 12 men on the jury to characterize themselves with their dialogue and actions. Some of the major men in the play were characterized by their views on the case and opinions on the verdict. Particularly, the 7th Juror was able to show his stubbornness for the case when he abruptly stated, “ I think the guy’s guilty. You couldn’t change my mind if you talked for a hundred years” (12). His own voice with no other biased input, like Scout’s in To Kill a Mockingbird, compelled the audience to form their own assessments on the 7th Juror. Another example of how characterization was affected by the point of view in the play is by the 8th Juror. The 8th Juror is the the first man to vote guilty and give the defendant a chance, and he added that he did so because, “ It’s not easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first” (12). Both characters manage to share their personal traits in short phrases said by themselves, allowed by a 3rd person limited point of

view.
Also, another factor that contributes to how the point of view in To Kill a Mockingbird affects the reader's opinions is that of the narrator. The story told through scouts words is influenced by her age and her own opinions. The lessons she learns, the situations that she experiences and what she gathers from them differ at the beginning of the story, when she is young and innocent, then at the end, when she is older and more mature. What she experiences at the beginning of the book and how she describes it might influence the reader in one way, rather than if someone who is old and wise were to experience the same thing and describe it to the audience. For instance, after Scout flew down the street in the tire and ended up on the Radley’s lawn and began to run back to safety she described the situation as, “ I ran back to them as fast as my shaking knees would carry me” (50). The impression on the audience was that the Radley’s and their house were scary and dangerous. Then, at the end of the book
Boo speaks his first and last words said in the book, “ Will you take me home?” (372). Scout then accompanied Boo back to his front steps and never heard from him again. The switch of Scout’s views contribute to the reader's own opinions on Boo and the Radleys.
Likewise, the way the story is portrayed through a 3rd person limited point of view in Twelve Angry Men also attributes the to audience’s views. The twelve separate men on the case allow for the audience to gather their own impressions on the case, and make their own inference on whether the defendant is guilty or not. Differing from To Kill a Mockingbird the twelve separate personas grant the readers the opportunity to form their own ideas. The jurors are able to chime in and voice their thoughts, but not one juror is more prominent than the others. Especially with the clashing opinions of the men, the audience is more independent when it comes to the final decision of whether the boy is guilty. An example of this is when Juror 8 is trying to show how it was impossible for the old man in the apartment below the boy’s to get to his door as fast as he said he had and juror 6 said, “ You’re crazy. You can’t recreate a thing like that” (45). Both sides of the argument were shown and both had solid points, but it was up to the audience to form their own opinions.