12 Angry Men Rhetorical Analysis

Father and Son

In the play, Twelve Angry Men, juror #3 is an excitable, stubborn, and prejudiced man. He seems to be of middle class background because he can afford to look down on people from slum areas. From the way he refuses to listen to any other person’s opinions, if it contradicts his own, juror #3 marks himself as an ignorant and obstinate individual. He is quick to judge and eagerly jumps at any opportunity to engage himself in an argument, such as the dispute he starts with juror #5 over a changed verdict: “We’re trying to put a guilty man in the chair where he belongs and all of a sudden somebody’s telling us fairy tales – and we’re listening.” The third juror uses ethos to no avail and comes across as an unpleasant, partial, and uneducated man.
Juror #3’s relationship with his son does not appear to be very strong, as he lets slip a memory from raising the boy: “When he was sixteen we had a battle.
He hit me in the face. He’s big, y’know. I haven 't seen him in two years. Rotten kid. You work your heart out…” He also replaces the defendant with his son in his mind: “That goddamn rotten kid. I know him. What they’re like. What they do to you. How they kill you everyday.”
From the very beginning of the play, he has been very outspoken about his opinion and makes it very clear that he believes the defendant to be a cold-hearted killer. Every time a testimony or piece of evidences’ accuracy is questioned he dismisses it and ignores the new standpoint. He then continues to use the evidence and testimony that was contradicted.
As the number of people who think the defendant is guilty starts to dwindle, he chooses to use derogatory phrases such as “bleedin’ hearts” to try and persuade people to change their votes. He prefers to use brute force and voiced anger instead of logos to influence people. Although juror #3 frequently contradicts his argument, he dismisses it refuses to admit his
mistake.
Even at the very end of the play, when the verdict is eleven to one in the favor of not guilty, he doesn 't acknowledge the proof the other juror’s give of the defendant’s innocence. The third juror appears to be struggling with some kind of emotional struggle as he correlates himself with the dead defendant’s father: “That whole thing about hearing the boy yell? The phrase was ‘I’m gonna kill you.’ That’s what he said. To his own father. I don 't care what kind of man that was. It was his father…My God, don 't you see? How come I’m the only one who sees? Jeez, I can feel that knife goin’ in.” This last sentence really shows Juror #3’s broken relationship with his son. It also speaks some remorse and exhibits the knowledge of the error of the way he brought up his son. It was the most difficult to persuade juror #3 of the defendant’s guiltlessness because of the strong personal and emotional prejudice factored in.
Only until the other jurors realize the connection between the 3rd juror’s son’s betrayal and the defendant, does juror #3 relent and change his vote to not guilty. The change of mind shows that the juror realizes with a jolt, the wrong of his ways. He would have willingly sent an innocent man to the electric chair all because of an emotional prejudice. This realization however painful, was well worth the time and heartbreak.

Works Cited: Rose, Reginald. Twelve Angry Men. London: Penguin Classics, 2006. N. pag. Print.