'the Defendant in Twelve Angry Men Is the Dominant Character in the Play Even Though He Plays No Active Part.' Do You Agree?

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In ‘Twelve Angry Men’, the playwright Reginald Rose presents a jury of twelve men from contrasting backgrounds that has to decide the fate of a young defendant. Rose wrote the play after being on a jury himself, and therefore wanted the audience to known about the role of the jury and the due process. In this play, the defendant plays a dominant role as without him there would be no case and hence no jury. However Rose deliberately chose not to have the defendant make a physical appearance in the play as this would influence the audience’s opinion and focus their attention on the crime rather than the conflicting jury and their objectivity. Therefore Rose introduced the audience to jurors like 3, 4 and 8 who play a significant role in exposing the Juror’s duty. Juror 4 relies on logic and is in the play to simple put forward the information from the courtroom for the audience. Without Juror 8, the play would be completely different as he is the only Juror to vote ‘not-guilty’ and who wanted to ‘talk about it first’. Juror 3 on the contrary is the last one to change their vote to ‘not-guilty’ and creates tension in the play as he is full of anger and prejudice... Throughout the play, the exposed biases and flaws of the jurors along with the facts and evidence of the defendant take the audience on a journey of what it is like to be on a jury. The play revolves around the defendant even though he does not appear on stage because Rose wanted the audience to be concerned about the jury rather than the boy. This sixteen year old boy from the slums is the reason the jury is brought together. ‘One man is dead. The life of another is at stake.’ The boy’s life in rested in the jury’s hands. The jury is there to weigh up the defendants actions and decide his fate. Rose purposefully chose not to show the boy in the play or expose anything about the boy’s physical features to

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