False Stereotypes In Monster By Walter Dean Myers

The verdict of the jury was, Steve was declared not guilty,

While the reader knows that Osvaldo is a backstabbing liar. The jury has every reason to believe Osvaldo’s testimony because they don’t have very much context or any other reason to have any disbelief. Osvaldo said that Steve was untrustworthy, and he showed a lot of emotion in his testimony when he says that “ he was afraid of bobo and James hurting him” (page 87). This gives the jury no evidence to refute Osvaldo's claim to Steve's guilt.

He doesn’t believe the boy, yet believes the woman. Showing equality can’t be achieved. Then, there is a lot of information given throughout the trial that links the boy to the murder. However, when the jurors go in for deliberation, Juror Eight starts out and is the only one that says not guilty. He just wants to talk about it a little longer because this is a case that will kill the boy if he is convicted. He continuously takes out evidence and testimony including: the use of the knife; the old man’s testimony; the woman’s testimony; his whereabouts; and that the knife is one-of-a-kind (Rose 23-62). That is just a little bit of what is done. There are a lot of things here that show how there is not equality in the courtroom. The main point is that Juror Eight spent so much time investigating the facts of the case, instead of only listening to the prosecution and the defense. He went out of his way to try and prove the boy not guilty. This shows how he tried to make it two against one for the defense. He was only for getting the boy off instead of looking at both sides of the case. He deliberately went through all of the facts like a defense attorney. He thought that he needed to give the boy more help, effectively giving him two different lawyers looking at two totally different things. This shows how you can’t be equal in a courtroom, because

The appropriate careful and sincere discussion in regards to the trial is participated in by most, however, other are unable to dispose their own personal opinions. Jurors 8, 9, 11 and 4 for the most part show more strongly than the others, a logical point of view. These jurors take their duties very seriously and make their decisions based on the dissection of the evidence give. Juror 11 demonstrates this logic through the comment “we have nothing to gain or lose by our verdict.” This reasonable stance is used in Rose’s construction to align the audience with these Jurors as they value both human life and the American court system. These qualities are conveyed as important by Rose through the creation of this play. Conversely Jurors

This causes another juror to vote not guilty. The 11 jurors initially chose to vote guilty because they believed the young man was bad and it is morally “acceptable” or right to punish those who commit horrible crimes, like murder. They did not think about other confounding variables and whether or not to question the testimonies of witnesses and the evidence. The 11 jurors wanted to be righteous. Both attributions and stereotypes heavily influenced the jurors’ thinking into voting guilty. In regards to stereotypes, one of the defendants chose to vote guilty because the defendant grew up in a slum and the particular juror believes that all those who are born in a slum are criminals. In regards to attribution, one of the other jurors thought the defendant is guilty on the sole basis of the knife’s presence. An example of normative social influence is the juror who is sick and sneezes quite often. He mentions the comment of “There always has to be one”. This occurs when Henry Fonda’s character votes not guilty. The juror initiates this attitude and makes the particular comment in order to convince everyone else to cast the same

Angry! Hostile!” This causes him to not listen to the other jurors opinions and block out any idea of the defendant being innocent. His prejudice is further understood when he says “this kid is guilty. He’s got to burn. We’re letting him slip through our fingers here.” Juror #3 is only able to see the young boy on trial as a symbol of his own son and is therefore unable to look past his own anger towards his son and see the case for what it really is. It is only through the help of juror #8 does juror #3 finally let go of his personal prejudice and sees the truth about the case and changes his vote to not guilty.

Gentleman of the jury, I would like you to take a look at this man, the man I am defending. His name is Tom Robinson. Tom is a diligent man. On a daily basis, he would walk to work, and when the time came after a day of long, hard work, he would walk home. He did it to provide for his family. Now, every day, on his journey to and from work, Tom would pass by the Ewell home, and Mayella Ewell would call him, from her yard, for help. Like anyone else in this town would’ve, Tom decided to help. He never wanted to harm Mayella. In fact, he felt sorry for her. How peculiar, in our society, for a black man to feel sorry for a white woman, a person who has more privileges and rights. Yet, he still felt sorry, and have had a good reason to feel sorry

You're not gonna tell me you believe that phony story about losing the knife, and that business about being at the movies. Look, you know how these people lie! It's born in them! I mean what the heck? I don't even have to tell you. They don't know what the truth is! And lemme tell you, they don't need any real big reason to kill someone, either! No sir! [Juror 10, page 51] This type of prejudice offended many of the other jurors, especially Juror 5 who is of similar race to the accused.

These juxtaposed outcomes of the trials can be attributed to two factors unrelated to the plot. First, it reflects our nation?s growing sensitivity toward stamping out racism. A black man prosecuted for a crime against a white person had terrible

Including from their own lives each juror has gone through a point in time were even they were stereotyped by the world. The jury has been convinced that the boy has been severely stereotyped through the whole case and court. The 3rd juror let the case come into his own life and he made his own opinion on the boy without even paying attention to detail, he reflected his own life in his argument with stereotypes (72). The lives of the jurors have all been affected by the acts of stereotyping and see the effects of it that can have on someone. A boy that at the beginning almost lost his life due to the people just looking at him was saved by the fact that the jury looked past all that.

Juror Three applies the stereotypes of the youth and his view of his son to the boy on trial, causing him to declare the boy guilty with no fair judgment.

The deliberately constructed character relationships undoubtably establish that there can be fallibility in a courtroom and that certain jurors can be unreliable. In the play there is a diverse amount of continuous disagreements and major conflicts between the 12 members of the jury. Since each jury member has an extensive personality it results to the major personalities coming together and exchanging their opinions on the case. This causes altercations as they view and approach the case differently and then this leads to poor assumptions and incorrect guilty verdicts. The main two characters who don't see eye to eye in the play are Juror 3 and Juror 8. Juror 3 is described as extremely opinionated and demanding, whereas juror 8 is a gentle kind man who wants justice

Unlike them, he had shown remorse and believed that the defendant deserves another chance because otherwise they wouldn’t be called to discuss it in the first place. His character can be seen as what the American democracy wants to achieve, in a direct quote by John F. Kennedy, a decade after the play was written, “...all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.” But this didn’t immediately convince all the other jurors because not only is it hard to eradicate something the society has ingrained in one’s mind but also there is nothing in it for them so there isn’t any reason as to why they should care. In the end, irrationality is innate to human beings, it just leaves people questioning whether anyone can even uphold a jury duty and furthermore be left in charge of someone’s life. Each person has their own beliefs and values that blur the line between what feels right to them versus what actually

The danger of a single story is that they let the powerful downgrade the weaker because they create stereotypes, they can hurt the people, and no one gets represented from the culture.

When miss O'Brien loses hope others around her can tell, not by what she says but by the way she acts,”She thinks I’m guilty. I know she thinks I’m guilty. I can feel it when we sit together on the bench they have assigned for us.” Steve can tell that O'Brien doesn't have hope in him, just by the way she acts towards him. Because O'Brien doesn't have hope in Steve, Steve doesn't have hope for himself. In the beginning O'Brien looks at Steve as he's just another case, and that to her he doesn't really matter.”My job is to make sure the law works for you as well as against you, and to make you a human being in the eyes of the jury.” The way she talks says it all she doesn't really care for Steve to her he's just another notch in her belt O'Brien wants to help Steve, she wants to prove to the world that Steve isn't a Monster. To do this she must help Steve prepare for court ”We're going to play a game” She wants Steve to be ready to prove himself to the jury, to prove that he's not a monster and that he didn't do what everyone thinks he did. But she wants him to do it the right way, the truthful