Twelve Angry Men

As the play’s title suggests, anger is a crucial motif in Twelve Angry Men. The most stubborn jurors—the 3rd, 7th, and 10th Jurors—act more from deep anger and prejudice than a commitment to justice. Their anger prevents them from evaluating the trial evidence fairly and often leads to insults and aggressive conduct between themselves and the other jury members. For example, at the close of Act I, the 3rd Juror almost attacks the 8th Juror when provoked, exclaiming, “I’ll kill him!” (Act I, 63). This threat echoes the accused’s alleged threat toward his father, creating symmetry between the anger the accused felt toward his abusive father and the anger the 3rd Juror feels both toward the 8th Juror and—privately—toward his own estranged son. Anger thus emerges as one of the universal impulses in human conduct—a dangerous impulse that transcends both racial and class differences.

This universality is somewhat ironic, given that the play also depicts anger as the basis for prejudice. The 10th Juror’s prejudice against racial and class minorities takes outward form in his angry, out-of-control outbursts. The 10th Juror projects his own anger and desire for violence onto the minorities he fears, ranting, “[T]hey don’t need any big excuse to kill someone […] That’s how they are by nature, y’know what I mean? Violent! Human life don’t mean as much to them as it does to us” (Act II, 82). The hypocrisy of his claims becomes clear when he admits to having violent desires himself toward the very group he has accused: “I say get him before his kind gets us. I don’t give a goddamn about the law. Why should I? They don’t” (Act II, 84). Prejudice, the play repeatedly implies, is a form of anger that is both socially disruptive and potentially deadly.

The alleged murder weapon is a switchblade knife, and when it surfaces in the jury’s deliberations during Act II, it becomes an important symbol of class differences and cycles of violence. The knife reminds the 5th Juror of his own troubled neighborhood: “Too many of them [fights]. On my stoop. In my backyard. In the lot across the street. Switch knives came with the neighborhood where I lived” (Act II, 79). In describing a community where violence is so commonplace that “switch knives came with the neighborhood,” the 5th Juror helps to illustrate the difficult circumstances the accused has known all his life, while also calling attention to the deep social and economic divides in American society. As a weapon associated with both the “many” fights the 5th Juror has witnessed and with the murder itself, the switchblade knife also symbolizes the cycles of hatred and violence that undermine American ideals of social justice and equality.

The 4th Juror’s eyeglasses symbolize the importance of being able to “see” clearly in both a literal and metaphorical sense. When the 9th Juror asks the 4th Juror about the indents his eyeglasses form on his nose, a discussion opens up about the credibility of the female eyewitness’s testimony. In debating what the female eyewitness could or could not have seen on the night of the murder, the jurors are also helping to improve their own “sight”—they are becoming less blinded by prejudice and preconceived notions about the trial, guided by a willingness to “look” at the evidence from multiple angles to determine its validity. As the 8th Juror warns the others: “[P]rejudice obscures the truth” (Act II, 84). Doubt, on the other hand, creates room for more open-minded inquiry. The more the jurors put aside their prejudice, the more clearly the jurors can “see,” and the more likely they are to ensure a fair verdict for the trial.