Revision Seminar

Twelve Angry Men is not a play about finding a boy innocent of a crime he didn’t commit. Rather, it’s a vivid depiction/portrayal/representation of...

‘In reaching a verdict, the jurors reconsider both their understanding of the case and their understanding of themselves.’ Discuss.

i. “It’s not easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.” ‘The 8th Juror is the only member of the jury who values the life of the boy who is on trial.’ Do you agree?

ii.‘Twelve Angry Men highlights the importance of seeing things from more than one perspective.’ Discuss.

iii.‘Twelve Angry Men is a play about how power can be misused.’ Discuss.

iv.‘Twelve Angry Men is less about guilt or innocence than about reasonable doubt.’ Discuss.

v. Why is it so difficult for the jury in Twelve Angry Men to reach its final verdict?

Past essay questions

Essay response task

i.‘In reaching a verdict, the jurors reconsider both their understanding of the case and their understanding of themselves.’ Discuss.Write the numbers 1-12

Group them

The 8th JurorIs the first character to vote ‘not guilty’

Does not necessarily believe that the boy is innocent, but believes that they ‘can’t decide in five minutes’

Is separated from the rest of the characters at the beginning by the stage directions which have him gazing out of the window and not responding to questions

Of all the characters, we learn the least about the 8th jurors background, although there is the rather curious story about him wandering the neighbourhood of the murder and buying a switchblade similar to the murder weapon, which may suggest that he is familiar with the area

He only ever asserts that he is trying to do what is ‘supposed to be happening in a jury room’, and even suggests that he will change his vote if all of the other jurors maintain their ‘guilty’ vote during the second count

This is the juror we all love to hate. His argument rests upon his own prejudice and life experience

The 3rd Juror

The 3rd juror is a self-made man, who believes in rough justice

He is the last juror to change his mind

His relationship with his estranged son determines his prejudice and attitude to the case, although he is the first to declare ‘I have no personal feelings about this’

Unlike many of the other jurors, he uses definite words like ‘I know’, ‘You can’t refute facts’ and ‘You’re absolutely right’

This juror is in many ways the foil for the 8th juror - he is the logical side for the prosecution

The 4th Juror

The 4th juror describes himself as a broker, and his arguments are punctuated by numbers, that lend him more logic and reason than the observations the other jurors offer

He lacks the imagination to put himself in the position of the accused, distancing himself from the ‘filthy neighbourhood’ that is a ‘breeding ground for criminals’

In many ways, the 4th juror is blinded by his own logic - he cannot imagine that his careful ordering of the world is wrong

When the 8th juror demonstrates that he doesn’t know all the pertinent details about the films he has recently seen, it doesn’t change his mind

Only by comparing himself to the spectacle-wearing witness, does the 4th juror finally (2nd to last) change his vote

This juror is one of the loudest opponents of the innocence of the boy

The 10th Juror

The 10th juror is loudest in his opposition to ‘those’ people

Unlike many of the other jurors he is not interested in seeing justice done - he thinks the boy is guilty, but when opinion swings the other way, tries to convince the 4th and 3rd jurors to ‘just quit’ because he doesn’t want to ‘break [his] brains over scum like that’

He is prejudiced against the boy he describes as a ‘common ignorant slob’ but derides the logic and intelligence of others - ‘everyone’s a lawyer’

A baseball fan, this juror tries to expedite the whole process so that he can watch a game

The 7th Juror

The 7th juror represents Rose’s understanding that not all citizens will give justice its due consideration

He tries to play cards, noughts and crosses (tic, tac, toe)

Finally votes not guilty because ‘all this yakkin’s getting us nowhere’

This is the ageing juror and he brings insights into some of the witnesses

The 9th Juror

The 9th juror is first introduced as the juror in the lavatory, the Foreman has to ask him to hurry up, which gives us an insight into others’ perception of ageing

This juror most strongly identifies with the witness who ‘saw’ the boy fleeing the scene

He is the first juror to change his vote, recognising the importance of the boy’s life and the relative unimportance of spending more time in the jury room - ‘it’s only one night. A boy may die’

He is disgusted by the 10th juror

The foreman is a reluctant leader who tries very hard to maintain impartiality

The Foreman

The foreman tries to make the dialogue within the jury room proceed in an orderly fashion, asking the jurors to ‘go in order here’ and to ‘keep it peaceful’

He is challenged by both the 10th and the 12th juror, but tries to be fair to all jurors, even though he thinks the boy is ‘guilty’

He facilitates all enquiries by asking the guard to retrieve various pieces of evidence

He changes his vote after the switchblade discussion in an ‘almost embarrassed’ manner

This is the juror with the German accent - a watch-maker who believes in the justice process

The 11th Juror

In Act 1, the 11th juror has little to say, raising small points of evidence - such as the witness, the time and the knife

Towards the end of this act (a short time after he tells us of his profession) he corrects the grammar of the 10th juror and begins to ask some serious questions about the case, saying ‘I don’t believe I have to be loyal to one side or the other’, finally concluding he has ‘reasonable doubt’

He defends the 8th juror even when he believes the boy is guilty, upholding the principles of democracy

The ad man who is the only juror to change his vote twice

The 12th Juror

Like the 7th juror, the 12th is seemingly disengaged from the case at the beginning, doodling on his paper, although he claims it helps him ‘think more clearly’

He is the juror that asks them each to take a turn, but seems uncertain, ‘it’s just a quick thought’, ‘I...No! I don’t think so.’

He says, ‘This is a pretty complicated business’ and seems to epitomise the difficulty facing the 12 men

The ‘working man’ (house painter) with an intuitive sense of justice

The 6th Juror

Begins by thinking that the case is ‘pretty obvious. I mean, I was convinced from the first day’

Articulates the concern that the jurors release the boy and ‘the kid really did knife his father’, highlighting again the difficulty of the situation

Raises the question of motive

Has only two lines (apart from voting) in Act 2

Mildly spoken, first questions the ‘evidence’ of the knife

The 2nd Juror

The 2nd juror has little specific to say about the case other than ‘I don’t know, it was pretty interesting’

He does not even defend his guilty response when the foreman goes around the table, saying, ‘It’s hard to put into words’

He offers cough drops all round, but in Act 2 when the 10th juror asks for a cough drop responds, ‘They’re all gone, my friend’

Changes his vote in the beginning of Act 2

The juror from the slums who most sympathises with the defendent.

The 5th Juror

Although we know from early on that the 5th juror has ‘lived in a slum all [his] life’ and has nursed ‘that trash in Harlem Hospital’, he starts by thinking the boy is guilty. When asked to defend his position he says he will ‘pass on it’

Is accused by the 3rd juror of changing his vote (because of the revelations of his background); later changes his vote in Act 1

Gives crucial evidence about knife fighting

Introduction

In Twelve Angry Men Reginald Rose has created a set of characters who...

Topic sentence

Many of the characters...

Some of the characters...

Two of the characters...

One character in particular, the ...th juror,....

In a body paragraph

There are no names in Twelve Angry Men. Thus the characters come to symbolise...

No Names

Words are used to label not who characters are but what they are perceived to be.

Label what, not whoBoy

Kid

Man

Dangerous killer

Punk little kid

Ignorant slob

Very old man

Woman

Smart bastards

This guy

Smart guy

You people

3rd Juror

Now listen to me, you people. I’ve seen all kinds of dishonesty in my day - but this little display takes the cake. You come in here with your sanctimonious talk...you start getting through to some of these old ladies here. We’ll you’re not getting through to me. p. 47

11th Juror

This is not why we are here, to fight. We have a responsibility. This, I have always thought, is a remarkable thing about democracy. That we are notified by mail to come down to this place and decide...We have nothing to gain or lose by our verdict. p. 50

Character conflict

The jury room is both a personal and impersonal space. On one hand, without names, that characters are...On the other hand, characters connect to and are confronted by the case and each other in highly personal ways. For example...

ThemesIn 12 Angry Men, justice can be fragile and tenuous because...

Prejudice can exist inside every person, even those who...

Innocence and justice are two different notions, because...

Everyone can have an agenda when judging the justice that causes them to...

SettingThe scarring of the table and the stark image of the knife still stuck in the middle of it at the end of the play reveal that...

The heat, locked door, confined space and lack of cooling all emphasize...

NarrativeAs each point of evidence is debated, the preconceptions of the jurors is challenged. Some of these points of evidence symbolically represent the feelings of the jurors. For example, the scene in which the third juror acts out the stabbing of the boy...Moreover, the last evidence debated is that of the woman who claimed to witness the killing. The revelation that she wears glasses and may not have been able to see anything clearly at all, also represents...

ViolenceAs the process of justice challenges the character’s personal values, the jury room becomes violently charged. Threatening others with violence becomes a way for jurors to protect...