To Kill a Mockingbird Compared to Twelve Angry Men Essay

The book To Kill a Mockingbird is directly comparable to the movie 12 Angry Men. Both Texts show the theme that true understanding takes time, study, and effort, but To Kill a Mockingbird shows what happens when people do not take the time to obtain a true understanding. In the book Tom Robinson is convicted for allegedly raping a teenage girl even though there was sensible doubt that Tom did not rape the girl and there was no concrete evidence. In the film a teenage male Puerto Rican was accused of murdering his father. All the evidence and the defendant weak testimony made him look so guiltily that 11 out of 12 jurors voted guilty in the preliminary vote. Both these texts have a setting of trial and in order to come up with a verdict in an equal opportunity court of law, the jury must have a true understanding of the entire hearing.

In To Kill a Mockingbird Tom Robinson, a crippled African-American man, was accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a female teenager from a poor, racist family. The setting of the book was a small, prejudice town in Alabama. Even though the facts testified against Tom Robinson were weak and he was physically unable to beat and rape Mayella do to a gimp arm, he was still found guilty by the jury. If the jury were to have had a true understanding that Tom could not have physically done the crime, and took into consideration the varied testimonies of the prosecutors witnesses, then they would never of have found Tom guilty. The jury was too quick to assume that charges brought to a black male by a white female were true. The Ewell vs. Robinson case was won by the prosecution in the secret court of mens hearts before the trial was brought to the Maycomb County Courthouse.

The movie 12 Angry Men exemplifies the theme "true understanding takes time, study, and effort." The movie follows the case of a young Puerto Rican boy who is accused of murdering his father. The majority of the jury had quickly concluded that the boy was guilty. During the preliminary vote on the verdict of this case, 11 out of 12 jurors voted guilty. Even though the evidence and testimony against the boy was strong, Mr. Davis voted not guilty in order to take a better understanding of the trial before "flipping the switch" on the teen. Through much debate and heated argument, the jurors gave their views on why they believed the boy to be guilty. As each of the jurors discussed why they believed the boy was guilty they began to doubt themselves and realized that they did not take the time to study the trial thoroughly enough to make an educated decision on the verdict of the case. Eventually the vote was changed to not guilty (12-0).

Both Texts show the theme that true understanding takes time, study, and effort, but both the texts show this theme in different ways. In To Kill a Mockingbird the jury did not study the strong evidence that Tom was unable to, and did not, rape Mayella. Tom was guilty until proven innocent in the secret court of mens hearts where they do not base a trial on a true understanding of a case but rather the color of their skin. In 12 Angry Men the majority of the jury acted the same as the jury in To Kill a Mockingbird in the beginning until Mr. Davis expressed that he would like to talk about the trial because he believed that the boy accused of killing his father was not guilty. Mr. Davis made the jury take a true understanding and it was then, once all of the jury had a true understanding of the case, that vote was changed from 11 to 1 guilty to 12 to 0 not guilty. This saved the boys life and, in my opinion, makes Mr. Davis a true hero.