Topic > Prejudice in Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose

In a jury, feelings of prejudice should be suppressed. However, many people have difficulty ignoring their negative feelings towards others who are different. This situation can lead to incorrect assumptions and possibly knee-jerk guilty verdicts. In 12 Angry Men, prejudice is present in almost all of the jurors. This leads to false arguments based on ethnicity, age and appearance. In this essay I will present four examples where prejudice is seen in Twelve Angry Men and how these examples show how prejudice interferes in the course of justice. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay This first example shows how personal experience can influence your point of view in a situation, and how basing it on what you've experienced can blur the line between assumptions and facts. In Act One, page 14, Juror 3 says, "That man is a dangerous killer." You might see it.' Here he takes it for granted that a murderer must "look" a certain way, indicating his prejudice against those who resemble the defendant. The comment is followed by the statement: "They sent him to reform school for stabbing someone." He assumes that since the boy may have stabbed someone in the past, he is certainly guilty in this case. Juror three also implies his prejudice against the young defendant when he says that “this boy is guilty. It must burn. We're letting it slip through our fingers here. He most likely has prejudices against the young defendant because of his experiences with his son. He argued with his son, the son punched him, he ran away and he 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 that boy and what happened? When he was sixteen we had a fight. It hit me in the face. It's big, you know. I haven't seen him for two years. Gross kid." This further explains his prejudices, suggesting that he has a negative view of all young people. Juror 3 is only able to see the boy on trial as his son, so he is unable to look past his own anger towards his son and see the case for what it really is. In the first act we see that all the jurors judge each other based on how they look, how they sound and even how much money they have or earn Juror Three says of Juror Four, “Ask him to hire you. He's rich. Another form of prejudice is seen in Juror 7, Juror 7 doesn't care about the case or fact at all and is perfectly willing to let the innocent man die or the guilty man go free, as long as he makes it to the baseball game. Later, we see that he is ethnocentric and a little racist because he insults immigrant Juror 11. When he changes his vote to "Not Guilty" because he had enough, Juror 11 gets angry and basically attacks him by saying that he has no rights. play with that man's life in this way. Juror 7 responds to Juror 11, stating that he is superior as an American citizen. Jurors 7 and 11 constantly argued over Juror 7's unnecessary comments, based primarily on Juror 11's ethnicity. Please note: This is just one example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay In conclusion, prejudice is everywhere in Twelve Angry Men, some are just hard to see because they are subtle. Bias is found primarily in Jurors 3, 7, and 10, but there is a possibility that each juror has some type of bias, which.