Preview

12 Angry Men Rhetorical Analysis

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
141 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
12 Angry Men Rhetorical Analysis
In the 1957’s movie 12 Angry Men, it is about twelve jurors who have to come to a verdict whether or not the young boy is guilty for murdering his father. All but one juror said guilty. In the movie we see that jurors are using the arguments made by the witnesses and evidence found which were presented in court to help justify their decision and come to a conclusion on whether he is or isn’t guilty for killing his father. During this deliberation we can see emotion, reason and sense of perception being used by each juror to decide upon their verdict. Some questions that were raised during the movie were, do we make decisions based on our emotion? To what extent does the juror show to be rational or irrational? And In what ways are the eyewitness

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In Twelve Angry Men, a boy is convicted of the murder of his father and 12 jurors are chosen to decide his fate. In the beginning, all of the evidence points to him being guilty. However, after a little bit of analysis of the evidence, there is some reasonable doubt. Slowly all of the Jurors accept the boy as innocent except for one very stubborn juror: Juror 3. The differences and similarities between the stage directions and the directors shot selection in the film and in the text affect the readers interpretation of the final scene where Juror 3 says not guilty greatly.…

    • 1036 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the play Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose, Juror 4 undergoes a series of questions regarding his confidence that a young man is guilty of murder. From the beginning to the end of the play, Juror 4 gradually changes his mind about his initial vote, through the constructive discussions lead by Juror 8. Juror 4 moves from a belief that all legal witnesses are faultless to truly experiencing some sort of “reasonable doubt.” He is left with a clearer picture of the case, looking beyond his personal prejudices and biases.…

    • 1257 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The movie 12 Angry Men depicts a typical scene today: twelve jury members meeting to discuss a case presented to them and determine guilt or innocence of a young man accused of killing his own father. Usually the jury room is a place for discussion and debate, but the evidence has swayed all but one of the jurors into voting guilty. The group in the movie is a jury of 12 men with various backgrounds and age groups. They were placed in a deliberation room where the entire move took place.…

    • 1676 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Twelve Angry Men is a book written by Reginald Rose and takes place late one hot summer afternoon in the jury-room of a New York Court of law. The story revolves around a Jury that is trying to judge a murder trial. The 12 jurors must decide whether the defendant is guilty or not. The power of persuasion does not only influence characters in the book, but also persuades us to rethink, ‘Should something be changed in the judicial system?’…

    • 583 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As Edwin Starr’s famous anti-war song goes, “War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothin’!” and if Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five had a theme song, this would be the perfect song. Slaughterhouse Five is one of the greatest anti-war books of all time- it even says so on the back cover. In order to convey his anti-war attitude to the readers, Vonnegut uses many different rhetorical devices in Slaughterhouse Five, including analogy, irony, and satire.…

    • 1059 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the play, Twelve Angry Men, juror #3 is an excitable, stubborn, and prejudiced man. He seems to be of middle class background because he can afford to look down on people from slum areas. From the way he refuses to listen to any other person’s opinions, if it contradicts his own, juror #3 marks himself as an ignorant and obstinate individual. He is quick to judge and eagerly jumps at any opportunity to engage himself in an argument, such as the dispute he starts with juror #5 over a changed verdict: “We’re trying to put a guilty man in the chair where he belongs and all of a sudden somebody’s telling us fairy tales – and we’re listening.” The third juror uses ethos to no avail and comes across as an unpleasant, partial, and uneducated man.…

    • 609 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Twelve Angry Men, written by Reginald Rose in 1957, portrays the intense discussion between 12 jurors in the American jury about a 16 year old boy, who is accused of killing his own father, and charged with “premeditated homicide”, the most serious charge in court. It explores the flaws of human nature, and the impacts of misinterpretations of the case can have on the defendant. However, they play also illustrates when jurors reassess the case and themselves, they will finally follow the judge’s words, which is to “separate the facts from the fancy.” Throughout the play, all jurors reconsiders about the case and themselves, nonetheless not all succeeds. The 4th Juror is the only character which successfully renewed his knowledge about the case and himself. Characters such as the 6th juror develops new understanding of the case but is still a few steps from truly knowing himself. While jurors such as the 10th juror, is forced to alter his vote despite rejecting all of other juror’s arguments.…

    • 880 Words
    • 26 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holden notices two nuns with cheap looking suitcases. He immediately judges them based on the appearance of their suitcases.Holden says that he doesn’t like cheap suitcases because they do not look as nice. He is not just talking about suitcases, he means people who are in different economic positions than his. This shows how Holden, who grew up going to private schools where almost all the boys were from rich families, wasn’t used to being around someone who was from a lower class or someone who wasn’t as rich as he was. Holden talks about his old roommate, Dick Slagle who had an inexpensive suitcase wanted to be perceived as rich and looked upon as a higher classman from his peers. This is an example of the 1950’s superiority complex, Dick…

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the drama Twelve Angry Men, by Reginald Rose, there are twelve jurors to discuss and deliberate if the murder in the first degree is guilt or not. Because the verdict must be unanimous, twelve jurors have a critical thinking in their discussion and finally made the vote from eleven jurors vote for guilty to unanimous vote for not guilty. During the development of the voting, Juror Three is hardly to persuade because he has a serious prejudice to the murder. If Juror Three does not admit the murder is not guilty, they cannot settle a lawsuit. Therefore, Juror Three’s prejudice should be the key to get the final verdict.…

    • 653 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    12 Angry Men Flaws

    • 1116 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Throughout the years of America, we had many juries during criminal trials to decide if the defendant guilty or not guilty. In the 1957 movie, 12 Angry Men shows the best representation of American jury system and how people change their minds. 12 Angry Men shows that personal feeling get in the way in their votes. The movie is about how 12 jurors decide the fate of young boy that persumed he killed his father, while during the initial vote only Juror 8 raised his hand not guilty. Then throughout the movie and script each of the 11 jurors for various reason change their votes to not guilty. The 12 jurors change their votes from guilty to not guilty through character flaws, positive personality traits, expertise on the evidence, and pattern of behavior.…

    • 1116 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Reginald Rose’s play, Twelve Angry Men, is about a jury’s decision making process in a murder trial. The facts in this play become blinded by the prejudices that some Juror’s possess. A prejudice jury became formed due to a biased testimony and the facts became clouded as generalisations were formed by the Juror’s. Some Juror’s bigotry can be based on their past experiences and discrimination didn’t only happen to the defendant, but it was also experienced by Juror’s themselves…

    • 853 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “If at least someone listens…” This is what Holden Caulfield from the novel “the Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger wants. It is about a sixteen year old boy, Holden Caulfield, isolated by society, as a result, he attempts to change others way of thinking to his own, acting as “the Catcher in the Rye”. Tone, symbolism and irony are used to demonstrate his separation from the outside world and himself.…

    • 492 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Analysis Of 12 Angry Men

    • 610 Words
    • 3 Pages

    With a wide cast of characters, it is truly courtroom television. Almost the entire movie is filmed entirely in the jury's deliberation room. At the beginning of 12 Angry Men(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050083/), the characters have just heard the testimony and evidence against a man accused of murder. The case initially seems to be obviously against the defendant, and 11 out of 12 jurors agree that he is guilty. One juror remains who is not entirely convinced that the man is guilty of murder. Over the course of the film, this individual gradually swings more and more of the jury to his side of the argument.…

    • 610 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Michael Kimmel is an sociologist who specializes in gender studies and also is the spokesman to the National Organization for Men Against Sexism. Every generation has its’ own major social problem and for my generation it has been gender inequality. In his TEDtalk “Why gender equality is good for everyone - men included” Michael Kimmel argues for men to fight for gender rights to achieve true gender equality to an audience of educated middle aged adults. Kimmel uses personal stories, statistics, repetition, and humor. Kimmel wants his audience to engage young boys and men in the fight for gender equality by making them aware of gender issues and how to solve them. Kimmel’s strong use of rhetorical strategies and easy going delivery of his speech…

    • 1323 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Twelve Angry Men, a play by Reginald Rose, was written in 1955 at a time when America was involved in a cold war with communist countries. It shows the strength of a deliberative process that enables individuals, who have “nothing to gain or lose,” to reach a verdict. In the American jury system “everybody deserves a fair trial” and in Twelve Angry Men the defendant gets a very fair trial. All the jurors have their own opinions on the case but in the end a decision is made. The jury, and the audience, never discovers if in fact the defendant did murder his father. His guilt or innocence seems to be almost irrelevant. At the beginning of the play the vote was 11-1 in favour of guilty but the 8th Juror convinces the others to have another vote. As the play progresses more and more jurors being to change their vote and by the end of the play the vote was 11-1 in favour of ‘not guilty.’ The defendant does get a fair trial because throughout the play there was enough “reasonable doubt” for him to be guilty. The 10th juror had no intentions on giving the defendant a ‘fair trial’ and just wanted him to be sent to the “electric chair.” By the play’s end all twelve men had agreed to a “not guilty” vote. The 8th Juror had managed, by simply pointing out “sometimes the facts that are staring you in the face are wrong!” to convince even the strongest advocates of a “guilty” verdict that reasonable doubt exists and therefore the defendant gets a fair trial.…

    • 1132 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays

Related Topics