12 Themes and 12 Angry Men

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The book To Kill a Mockingbird is directly comparable to the movie 12 Angry Men. Both Texts show the theme that true understanding takes time, study, and effort, but To Kill a Mockingbird shows what happens when people do not take the time to obtain a true understanding. In the book Tom Robinson is convicted for allegedly raping a teenage girl even though there was sensible doubt that Tom did not rape the girl and there was no concrete evidence. In the film a teenage male Puerto Rican was accused of murdering his father. All the evidence and the defendant weak testimony made him look so guiltily that 11 out of 12 jurors voted guilty in the preliminary vote. Both these texts have a setting of trial and in order to come up with a verdict in an equal opportunity court of law, the jury must have a true understanding of the entire hearing. In To Kill a Mockingbird Tom Robinson, a crippled African-American man, was accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a female teenager from a poor, racist family. The setting of the book was a small, prejudice town in Alabama. Even though the facts testified against Tom Robinson were weak and he was physically unable to beat and rape Mayella do to a gimp arm, he was still found guilty by the jury. If the jury were to have had a true understanding that Tom could not have physically done the crime, and took into consideration the varied testimonies of the prosecutors witnesses, then they would never of have found Tom guilty. The jury was too quick to assume that charges brought to a black male by a white female were true. The Ewell vs. Robinson case was won by the prosecution in the “secret court of men’s hearts” before the trial was brought to the Maycomb County Courthouse. The movie 12 Angry Men exemplifies the theme "true understanding takes time, study, and effort." The movie follows the case of a young Puerto Rican boy who is

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