12 Angry Men: prejudices always obscures the truth

« Lorena PERROTTA T5 English Essay Question 2 : Juror 8 states "prejudice always obscures the truth".

How does 12 Angry Men show that prejudice can obscure the truth? (300 words) Since always, prejudices are anchored in people’s mind.

Consequently, it happens that they distort the truth, as the people’s opinions aren’t objective.

In the movie Twelve Angry Men, we can clearly see that a certain number of the Jurors are full of prejudices toward the accuse.

The core question at stake is: how does this movie show that prejudice can obscure the truth? First, one of the most prejudiced jurors against the boy is Juror 10, who uses no facts to justify his opinions, but rather prejudices about the boy's social condition and his own fears to justify them.

He refers to "those people" from the slums as scum, so much so that he declared the boy guilty from the moment he saw him, and he sees no point in "wasting time" arguing his innocence.

Moreover, he ends up voting "not guilty" only because he wants the session to end, not because he has changed his mind.

All of this shows that throughout the session, juror 10 did not try to prove anything because his opinion is so skewed by his prejudices, that he is not just lying to himself, he has convinced himself of the boy's guilt.

In addition to this, we have juror 3 who is prejudiced against the boy because of his own experience.

Indeed, the latter had a bad experience with his own son.

Because of this, he refuses to listen to the facts because he sees the accused as his son.

He is not able to get past his anger and see the case for what it really is; he does not see the truth because his personal prejudices override his ability to think.

In conclusion, even if prejudices obscure the truth, it is clear that personal prejudices do the same and not only prevent us. »