Twelve Angry Men

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3. In Twelve Angry Men the characteristics of gentleness and rationality are valued all above else. Do you agree? In Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men, twelve ‘white’ Americans were chosen to be jurors to discuss a first murder case. As Rose put two main characters: 3rd and 8th Juror into juxtaposition, he was able to establish the argument that kindness and rationality were crucial and important to every human being, which they should process this nature. 8th Juror was the best example of representing gentle and rational throughout the text. He was shaped as a calm, reasonable and intelligent character. He often empathized the significance of being logical and reasonable, as one human life is on stake. He once said, that it wasn’t ‘easy’ for him to send a boy off to die ‘without thinking about it first’. His approach of keep questioning were viewed as unknowledgeable and illogical, as all the evidences were against the defendant. ‘Facts’ were being thrown around the room without much thought. For 10th Juror, he kept using ‘facts’ to attack groups of people, claiming they were ‘born to lie’. But nobody knows if they really are. Since personal emotions had been involved, not many jurors were able to construct arguments without their prejudice. As for 8th Juror, although he might seem to be sympathetic to the unfair judicial system to the defendant, but he could still present his ideas without personal feelings involved. That was why he appeared to be different than the others. Apart from using 8th Juror to strengthen the importance of being gentle and rational, 3rd and 10th Juror were also used to express the same idea through a different way. They tended to be impatient and defended their arguments with sophistry. Both of them had prejudice towards a certain group of people, which made them unable to determine the ‘facts’ and make the right judgment. Also,

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