How Does Terry Malloy Use Injustice In On The Waterfront

In an attempt for an Individual to resolve societal issues and problems that he deals within his society, one shall consider tackling the root of the problem rather than alleviating the problem itself. The rebellious film of Elia Kazan “On the Waterfront”, is set to bring up the idea of how people allow injustice such as corruption to happen within society; creating unpredictable results. In the film, the protagonist, Terry Malloy, eagerly tries to stop the injustice through making changes in the lakefront with the help of Father Barry who also condemns the union’s deliberate actions. Additionally, Kazan uses Terry’s experiences to explore the themes of Justice, Judgement and Crowd Psychology through Henry David Thoreau’s ideas in “Civil Disobedience”

Terry, who's one of them criticizes Johnny Friendly’s way of treating the workers. In one of the scenes, Terry’s older brother Charley invites him to join the mob so he could earn an income without doing any work, yet he is unwilling to it as he doesn’t want to commit more actions for friendly. He says that “You don’t understand! I could’ve had class. I could’ve been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it. It was you Charley.” Terry’s language demonstrates the cohesive aggression that the workers also show off from their social status; e.g.: of their denial to accept Father Barry’s sermon in the ship where the workers started to throw things off him just to let him leave so that he won’t have to get them in trouble. Furthermore, this also shows Terry’s resistance to unequal trade-off of character in the film, which is supported by Thoreau’s dollar Analogy which is “ If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are cheated,...but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount, and that you are never cheated again.” Terry’s wasted reputation excerpt Kazan’s illustration of how Individuals sell out their whole being into a piece of money which the workers in the mob working for the union

Characters in the book commit crime, yet this only occur as a result of the systemic privilege which a few of the Characters have in the film. For an instance, Friendly’s ability to control the mob because of the privilege that he has to pay them for their job is an immoral act that upholds the injustice within the Waterfront. Thoreau claims to let “(Our) your (lives) be a counter friction to stop the machine. What (We) have to do is...that (We) do not lend (ourselves) to the wrong which (We) condemn.” which means that an Individual within a given society should not be tolerant against the negative situation that one faces in an unfair society. Therefore what that Individual has to do is to address these flaws of government in order to fix it. Terry shows this embodiment by transcending beyond his limitation as a worker and testified against the corrupt Johnny Friendly. And Even though he has spent a huge part of responsibility of taking own matters in his own hand, he still does not have to do everything since Thoreau’s understanding about the inaction to injustice is that “(We) came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.” as an Individual, one should also not just be an agent to this