In a warm 1950s jury room overlooking a city's financial district, tensions arise when 12 jurors must decide the verdict for a boy accused of killing his father. In Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose, the balance between the social classes in the courtroom and the social class of the accused determines the final verdict given by the jury. Coming from different ethnic and social backgrounds, the men fight for a consensus on the sentence. Their interactions inside the jury room represent how different social classes treat each other in everyday life. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Within the realm of the courtroom, jurors are “cut off from the world” and the substance of their daily lives” (Munyan 1997 ). The trial forces them to create their own world in which to carry on their experiences to solve the case. “The experiences, perceptions, and attitudes accumulated over a dozen disparate lifetimes [are concentrated in] a comparatively few shared hours” (Munyan 1997). and their decisions throughout the show reflect the social classes in which they grew up. Juror 8, who implies that he endured slum life as a young man, has sympathy for the accused because he recognizes how negatively the rich treat the poor. “This boy has been kicked around all his life. Do you know why kids from the slums get like that? Because we hit them in the head once a day, every day” (Rose, 5). Juror 8 provides an example of what led the boy to be the way he is and suggests that the other jurors owe him a few words. The boy grew up in an environment surrounded by violence and crime, which influenced his criminal record. Representative of the rich and privileged party, Juror 10 rejects his statement. “We owe him nothing” (Rose 5). The rich never experience what the poor suffer and, in turn, fail to understand the difficulties of living a lower class life. Juror 10 then says, “Do you know how much this trial cost? He's lucky to have gotten it” (Rose 5). This statement reflects the way the upper class looks at the lower class: the rich are superior to the poor. The rich don't even think it's worth wasting money on a trial on that guy simply because he comes from the slums; the wealthiest believe him guilty, whatever happens. This young man's life is at stake and the jurors will decide whether he lives or dies. However, for upper-class men, the lines between work and play blur as they focus more on their frivolous privileges than the boy's accomplishments. The poor see the urgency and importance of the situation while the rich, eager to complete the trial, callously declare the boy guilty. Juror 7's first line: “It better be quick. Tonight I have tickets to The Seven Year Itch,” suggests his lack of interest or care for the accused because he sees the poor as inferior and unimportant (Rose 3). When Juror 8 asks the others if they still believe that the boy lied about his alibi, Juror 7 says, “We could stay here all night,” once again evoking his negative feelings towards the boy (Rose 10). fact that the jury duty interferes with his plans, but projects his negativity onto the boy on trial by raising juror 7's awareness of the important situation, juror 9 thenhe responds by saying, “It's just one night. A man can die" (Rose 10). Juror 9 thinks more deeply about the issue at hand and knows what is at stake. It doesn't treat this case simply as something to overcome, but as a complicated battle with real people that could lead to more social dysfunction and more deaths than a simple isolated murder. Jurors who clearly grew up privileged talk about poor people and slum life in a way that critically illuminates how the rich live and act. They associate all lower class people with crime, disobedience and violence. The boy's lower class background puts him at a disadvantage not only because the upper class generalizes about him, but also because they ignore him as a person. As Juror 8 points out: “Somehow I got the feeling that defense counsel never conducted a thorough cross-examination. I mean, he was appointed by the court to defend the boy. He seemed not very interested” (Rose 8). The man who was supposed to fight for the boy to live and be free seemed indifferent to the case, indicating that he considered it unimportant. In fact, the defense lawyer did not take the case seriously simply because the defendant did not live up to specific social standards. Juror 10, described as “judgmental without right,” says: “A boy kills his father. Bing! That's right. Well, it's the element. They let the kids run wild. Maybe he's okay with it” (Rose 1 and 3). He argues that these crimes happen all the time in slum life because, well, that's just how slums are. However, jurors from lower social backgrounds talk about the boy without consciously referring to his social status. Juror 9 serves as the voice of reason in this case, as he believes there is no need to generalize about a person based on socioeconomic background. “Since when is dishonesty a characteristic of the group? You do not have a monopoly on the truth” (Rose 5). The choice of the word monopoly is specific to the character Juror 9 is addressing. Because he speaks to Juror 10, one who has known the benefits of money all his life, Juror 9 knows that the rich man will recognize the power that comes from monopoly. Juror 9 then says, “What this man says is very dangerous” (Rose 5). If the rest of the world takes on the idea that the rich have control over what is true and accepted and that people from the lower classes are unimportant and untrustworthy, the world will be dangerous for anyone who opposes the upper classes. After making his convincing argument demonstrating the dishonesty of poor people, Juror 10 attempts to validate the testimony of a woman, who indicates that she saw the murder happen. In response, Juror 8 asks him: “How come you believed her? She's one of "them" too, isn't she? (Rose 7). Juror 10 realizes his mistake in contradicting his previous statement that stereotyped all poor people as dishonest. Juror 3 is a representative of those who blame the poor for the collapse of society. When he first mentions his son, he says bitterly, “I have a son” (Rose 8). He tells the others that he beat his son so that he would become a man. His son left home and Juror 3 hasn't seen him since. His attitude suggests that he sees his son in the accused boy and vents his anger on him. He also vents his anger towards the poor and slum life because he thinks these forces caused his son to leave and become who he is. Juror 4 attacks the lower classes and their way of life when he says, “Children who come from a slum are potential threats to society” (Rose 8). Juror 10 agrees.. 2016