Personal Beliefs In Twelve Angry Men By Reginald Rose

When it comes to one's personal experience the way in which one understands and views the case at hand can become heavily influence because of these said beliefs. In psychology this is commonly known as belief perseverance, this is when people cling to their beliefs, even when faced with contrary evidence. Throughout the film “Twelve Angry Men” by Reginald Rose, one can clearly see how these personal beliefs and experience cloud the mind and judgement of the jurors because of this it takes a very long time for a clearly innocent man to be seen as innocent due to the personal beliefs of some of the jurors and because of those beliefs they were only able to see the innocent as guilty. However, at the same time one's own personal experience can
To elaborate, experiences are like clay, when wet and fresh it easy to manipulate and shape into whatever you want and then once your done sculpting the clay it hardens, which are called beliefs. With that in mind, one can clearly how some of the jurors own personal experiences had prevented them in accepting the child on trial as innocent. For example, when it came to juror number 3, he had a son who ended up abandoning his father because of his poor treatment of him. This can be seen in the play when he states “I’ve got a kid. When he was eight years old, he ran away from a fight. I saw him. I was so ashamed, I told him right out, "I'm gonna make a man out of you or I'm gonna bust you up into little pieces trying." When he was fifteen he hit me in the face. He's big, you know. I haven't seen him in three years. Rotten kid! You work your heart out....” (Rose 8). This quote shows that due to juror number 3’s own personal experience he became blinded by his belief perseverance. Due to his own experience, he is only able to see this child as guilty and throughout the film one can clearly see him holding onto every single bit of evidence that helps support his own beliefs. Furthermore, as each piece of evidence is evaluated and proved incoherent and unreliable, juror number becomes increasingly agitated because deep down he knows that the boy is innocent but, he’s unable to shake off his belief
To elaborate, throughout the film one can clearly see the jurors review the evidence provided in the case and during these reviews some of the jurors are able to use their own experiences to break down the evidence being provided which in turn helps shine some light upon the case. An example of this in the film is, when the jurors were analysis the stab wound and how the boy stab his father by it went down and in, although this may seem logical for the average person, juror number 5 who used his own personal experience to explain why this boy wouldn’t do stab his father like that, to support this in the film he started, “In the vacant lot across the street, too many of them. Switch knives came with the neighborhood where I lived. Funny I didn't think of it before. I guess you try to forget those things. (Flicking the knife open) Anyone who's ever used a switch knife would never have stabbed downward. You don't handle a switch knife that way. You use it underhanded” (Rose 25). This show how one's personal experience can be used in a positively. Due to the fact that the boy on trial has been in knife fights before thus making the stab wound on the father incoherent to the boys past. Another example of personal experience being useful in a case is when the jurors question whether or not the woman who claimed she saw the murder occurred and upon investigation as well as personal