The Runaway Jury

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of addiction and emotional abuse.

The various phone calls that take place throughout The Runaway Jury, particularly Marlee’s calls to Fitch, are a motif that inform themes related to manipulation and influence. The first appearance of a phone in the novel is when Fitch’s female operative gives Nicholas her phone number at work after smoking inside the store. The woman hopes that Nicholas will call her not because she is romantically interested in him but so that she can gain more intel about him for Fitch to exploit. Marlee in turn manipulates Fitch via phone calls, turning the manipulation on its head. She calls Fitch repeatedly to predict what Nicholas will wear, what magazine another juror will carry, or how the jury will behave. These predictions manipulate Fitch into trusting her, allowing their phone calls to increase in frequency in tandem with the increase in Marlee’s influence over Fitch. While Fitch works to manipulate the jury, Marlee manipulates Fitch. In addition, Marlee calls the deli to delay the lunch on the first day of the trial, allowing Nicholas to assert himself as the leader immediately and gain influence over his fellow jurors.