‘Twelve angry me highlights the importance of seeing things from more than one perspective.’ Discuss
Reginald Rose’s play Twelve Angry Men emphasises the importance of seeing things from more than one perspective. Rose highlights how important it is that the jury discuss all of the evidence from the case in detail and from several angles. Displaying these values was the 8th Juror who is willing to acknowledge alternative views and interpretations. From the outset of the play he goes against the crowd voting “not guilty”. He then considers all of the details of the evidence including the old man’s testimony and the boy’s inability to remember the movie he saw. In contrast to this character, are Jurors 3 and 10 who are portrayed as the antagonists because of their narrow mindedness and arrogance. They are very firm in the way they apply their single minded world view and they have an unwillingness to recognise another truth. Rose uses characters without an identity but yet each represent different classes and social groups of American democracy during 1950’s allows him to express juror 5’s upbringing, juror 9’s experience and juror 4’s logic to provide insight and in turn open up understanding to reach a justified verdict.
From the beginning of the play Juror 8 exemplifies seeing things from more than one perspective by voting “not guilty” against the other jurors. Many of the jury members in the case believe that the trial is “obvious” and does not need much discussion. However the 8th Juror believes in civic responsibility and the defendant’s right to a fair trial. He doesn’t necessarily believe that the defendant is “innocent” however he understands the seriousness of the case and finds it difficult “to send a boy off to die without talking about it first.” Juror 8 is able to put himself in the position as if he was the one on trial. As he believes that the accused’s trial deserves some discussion, “it’s just that were talking about someone’s life here. I...