How does Reginald Rose establish and maintain a sense of tension in Twelve Angry Men?

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Sean Okundaye

English Coursework

Mr Cook

How does Reginald Rose establish and maintain a sense of tension in Twelve Angry Men?

When analysing Rose’s techniques in “Twelve Angry Men”, one has to recognise the time period that this is play set in. It is 1950s New York, a time when many people from different cultural backgrounds are flooding into the country and settling in places such as New York. A lot of these migrants settle in slums and then racial tension starts to set in amongst different communities within a country. Therefore, one could say that these sorts of social issues will be apparent in possibly some of the jurors and indeed this becomes true as the play unfolds.

However, when we first see the jurors in the jury room they are mostly very reserved and polite towards each other. What first pops up however is the enclosed room. With harsh lighting and shabby décor, a very old and haggard image is created. There is also a window with a view of New York in Croydon and a clock ticking away (this will be very important later on as it will represent the time ticking away). With all these factors it is very likely that tensions could possibly build up and people will become irate, with the stuffy and hot conditions not helping, especially considering that there is a fan which doesn’t seem to be working. In terms of the jurors, we know very little about them so there is not so much a sense of tension but a sense of anonymity. We do learn a bit about these jurors such as juror 3 who runs a messenger service called “The Beck and Call Company” and juror 4 who is a broker. Apart from this we do not learn much although it does seem that juror 7 is an avid baseball fan; “He shoots his hand forward and out to indicate the path of a ball,”, and we see that the 2nd juror is quite shy and meek in his speech and mannerisms. It is only when we get to page 7 of act one where we finally get a momentum of tension. This is the moment where juror 8 decides to vote not guilty. Almost immediately we get annoyed reactions from the jurors in particular juror 10 who is rather vocal about his views: “Boy-oh-boy! There’s always one.” Though it is not blatantly obvious, it is quite possible to say that this is going to be very vocal throughout this debate. Indeed as we watch more of the play, we see different personalities amongst the jurors, with juror 7 being rather laid-back yet sarcastic, in contrast with someone like juror 4 who is polite, well-spoken and civil. Suddenly however, what was originally an attack to discredit juror 8’s doubts about the boy’s guilt suddenly turns into a personal issue. This is the case when on page 15 where juror 4 makes the claim that “slums are breeding grounds for criminals”. Juror 10 adds his own views, claiming, derogatorily, that people who “crawl outta those places” are real trash. The 5th juror interjects and mentions the fact that he himself came from a slum and nurses “trash” in Harlem Hospital six nights a week. Whilst juror 1 ( the foreman) and juror 3 try to console the 5th juror, telling him that nothing personal was meant, the damage clearly has already been done as the 5th ha s already taken offence to juror 10’s comments. Indeed we already get a sense of bitter tension as the stage directions show that jurors 5 and 10 were out of their seats and arguing loudly. It is evident that these two could clash in the future.

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 Indeed, as the audience watches further into the play, we get a degree of tension that is consistently fluctuating, with the jurors becoming increasingly hot and being forced to take of their jackets with sweat patches being noticeable. This is a good, subtle effect because it leaves the reader anticipating a sudden break in the calm only to be left hanging on. An example of this is when juror 3 pulls out a knife identical to that of the murder weapon and although there is outcry and exasperation from some of the jurors, there is never really a full-blown ...

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