Summary: Act II, Part 1 

The same. Immediately following.—The 7TH JUROR stands defeated. 

The jurors are recovering from the altercation at the end of Act I. The guard, hearing the yelling, comes in to check on them. The 11th Juror points out that they have a responsibility and that it’s their duty to democracy to come to a verdict rather than getting caught up in internal fighting. The jurors talk about the fact that a storm is coming. The room has gotten darker. The jurors decide to have an open vote. The vote comes out tied six to six, with the 2nd and 6th Jurors changing their votes. The men fight. It begins to rain. The Foreman begins to talk about a football game he coached that happened in the rain, with a special player he was impressed by. 

The 3rd, 4th, and 10th Jurors talk in the washroom. They think the other six are not going to change their minds. The 10th Juror wants to quit so that the jury will be hung. The 3rd Juror is offended by the suggestion, saying that it’s a dishonest thing to do. The 10th Juror says he doesn’t care what happens. He leaves the side conversation in the washroom and suggests declaring a hung jury. The 7th Juror agrees. The 11th Juror says that maybe he doesn’t know what the term reasonable doubt means. The 7th Juror gets angry because the 11th Juror is an immigrant, and he says disparaging things about his ethnicity. 

The 8th Juror points out that it would be hard for the defendant to remember details after an emotionally intense experience. He says that it makes sense that the boy couldn’t remember the specifics of the movie even though it was his alibi. The 4th Juror disagrees. The 8th Juror asks the 4th to remember the details from a movie he saw a few days ago. The 4th Juror cannot remember everything and gets details wrong.  

The Foreman points out that a psychiatrist testified that the boy was capable of murder. The 10th Juror says that psychiatry isn’t a valid profession. The 11th Juror points out that a few of the jurors might also have the subconscious desire to kill but that doesn’t make them guilty of murder. The 10th Juror argues, saying that the psychiatrist testified the boy was capable of murder. The 8th Juror points out the 10th Juror’s inconsistencies, that he professes both not to believe into psychiatry and to use the psychiatrist’s testimony to prove the boy’s guilt. This angers the 10th Juror. 

The 2nd Juror points out that the downward angle of the stabbings doesn’t make sense, given that the boy was 7 inches shorter than his father. He uses the knife to demonstrate that it’s awkward to stab that way. The 3rd Juror demonstrates on the 8th Juror how the angles could’ve made sense, but the 5th Juror argues that you hold a switchblade underhanded. The 8th Juror asks the 12th Juror what he thinks, and the 12th Juror says he doesn’t know. The 7th Juror changes his vote to “not guilty” because he’s had enough. This angers the 11th Juror, saying he’s playing with a man’s life and that he doesn’t have the guts to do what’s right. The 7th Juror admits he’s convinced that the boy isn’t guilty. 

Analysis

This section introduces the storm, which symbolizes the atmosphere of conflict that mounts in intensity throughout the second act of the play. A storm forms when hot air collides with cold air, and in the same way, two opposing forces clash in the jury room, the hot, angry force of those who are voting guilty and the cool, more level-headed force of those who are voting "not guilty." Everyone in the jury room is waiting for the storm, and as a result, as it is mounting, the storm intensifies the sense of tension and anticipation within the room. When the storm finally comes to a head, it breaks the tension created by the heat, and the jury room begins to cool down. In the same way, after the confrontation of the deliberation comes to a head, the cool breeze of reason prevails until the entire jury votes not guilty. The last line of the play is that rain has stopped, indicating that the conflict, like the storm, is over. 

This section also explores the theme of the discomfort of uncertainty and doubt. In the discussion about the psychiatrist’s testimony, the 10th Juror expresses two conflicting ideas. First, he argues that psychiatry is an unreliable science and dismisses it wholesale as invalid. Then, once the other jurors argue that the psychiatrist’s testimony doesn’t prove that the boy is guilty, the 10th Juror tries to argue that it does. This contradiction represents how difficult it is for the 10th Juror to tolerate his own uncertainty and the doubt that the other jurors are expressing. Then, when the 4th Juror argues that the boy should remember the details of the movie he saw that night, he contradicts his argument by being unable to remember the details from a movie he recently saw. His argument for certainty is upended by his own fallibility. This further emphasizes how difficult it is to know things for certain. In order to grasp for certainty, the jury often tries to hold the boy to unrealistic standards, standards they themselves are unable to live up to. These two incidents together illustrate how the jurors struggle with the fact that they don’t know what occurred and stretch and bend reality to try to make it fit their ideas of what happened.  

Throughout the play, the men in the jury often share traits with the accused boy, suggesting that each of them could be in the boy’s position. For example, the 3rd Juror screams that he’s going to kill the 8th Juror, though he doesn’t mean this as a death threat but an expression of a violent rage. This parallels the boy screaming that he was going to kill his father. Like the boy, the 4th Juror forgets the details of a movie he saw recently, underscoring the unreliability of memory especially in emotionally fraught circumstances. In discussing the psychiatrist’s testimony, the 9th Juror points out that any of the men could be capable of murder as the boy is said to be, though that doesn’t equate to committing it. Many of the men display anger or seem intent on causing each other physical harm, too, driving home that they are capable of committing violence. These similarities emphasize the folly of judging the boy too harshly and the need for compassion in the case.