Monday, March 2, 2015
Pt. 1: 1A
Time and time again throughout the play, jurors rejected each others' stances on the trial based on their personal prejudices. Whether it be classism against the defendant or racism against their fellow juror, all of their viewpoints are altered by them. Juror 10 is particularly vehement, going on to rant for quite some time about how those in the lower class "get drunk, and bang, someone's lying in the gutter. Nobody's blaming them. That's how they are. You know what I mean? Violent!" (Rose 59). Unfortunately for Juror 10, it was those very prejudices (and that very rant) that ended up discrediting everything he said. Everyone, including those with their own, knew that his prejudices were getting in the way of him seeing things in a different light (whether that be what really happened or not). Because of his beliefs, it took every single piece of evidence he thought about to be disproved for him to even consider the others' viewpoints.
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I love this! You brought up some very good points, and I'm glad you mentioned that his bias made him slower to believe that the defendant was innocent. Whenever I wrote about Juror 10, I mentioned that his bias made his points ignored by the rest of the jurors, but I didn't think about how they were affecting him. While many people believe that sticking with a negative way of thinking is easier than training themselves to get out of it, it actually makes things harder for that person. No one will listen to them, and they will listen to no one. It's the quickest way to become the old book on the shelf that no one wants to read.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with this! Juror 10 is a bitter man who judges books by their cover; for instance, like what you said, he says that lower classes constantly get drunk and are up to no good, which is why he is one of the last three jurors to hold out a guilty verdict. From the beginning of the play you can tell that he doesn't want to be there and that he strongly agrees that the defendant is guilty just based on his background. The only facts that he states is that the defendant is from the slums and because of this he must be guilty.
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