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  • Essay / Prejudice in Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose

    In a jury, feelings of prejudice are supposed to be suppressed. However, many people have difficulty ignoring their negative feelings toward others who are different. This situation can lead to incorrect assumptions and possibly impulsive guilty verdicts. Throughout 12 Angry Men, bias is visible in almost every juror. This leads to false arguments based on ethnicity, age, and appearance. In this essay, I will present four examples in which prejudice is visible in Twelve Angry Men, and how these examples show how prejudice interferes with the course of justice. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay This first example shows how personal experience can affect your perspective in a situation and how basing it on what you've experienced can blur the line between assumptions and facts. In the first act, page 14, Juror 3 says: “This man is a dangerous killer. You could see it. Here he assumes that a killer must "look like" a certain way, indicating his prejudice against those who resemble the accused. He followed this comment with the following statement: “They sent him to a reformatory for stabbing someone. » He assumes that because the child may have stabbed someone in the past, he is definitely guilty in this case. Juror three also implies his bias against the young defendant when he says, “This kid is guilty. It must burn. We're letting it slip through our fingers here. He is most likely prejudiced against the young accused due to his experiences with his own son. He fought with his son, he hit him, ran away and hasn't seen him since. We see this on page 18 when he says, "Yeah, well, I have one." He is twenty years old. We did everything for this boy, and what happened? When he was sixteen, we fought. He hit me in the face. He's big, you know. I haven't seen him in two years. Rotten child. This further explains his prejudices by suggesting that he has a negative view of all young men. Juror 3 is only able to see the young boy on trial as his son, so he is unable to look beyond his own anger towards his son and see the case for what it really is. Throughout the first act, we see that all the jurors are judging each other. others based on how they look, sound, and even how much money they have or earn. This bias is noticeable when juror three says of juror four, “Ask him to hire you.” He is rich. Look at this trial! ". Another form of prejudice is visible in Juror 7, Juror 7 absolutely does not care about the case or fact and is perfectly willing to let the innocent die or the guilty go free, as long as he makes it to the match baseball. Further on, we see that he is ethnocentric and somewhat racist because he insults immigrant juror 11. When he changes his vote to "not guilty" because he has had enough, juror 11 gets angry and he basically attacks by saying he doesn't have the right. playing with this man's life. Juror 7 responds to Juror 11, stating that he is superior as an American citizen. Jurors 7 and 11 were constantly having arguments due to Juror 7's unnecessary comments, which were primarily based on Juror 11's ethnicity. Keep in mind: This is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay In conclusion, prejudices are everywhere in Twelve Angry Men, some of them..