Values in On the Waterfront

1. Values in On the Waterfront

2. Learning objective • To analyse the social, historical and/or cultural values embodied in the text

3. Vocabulary • Values n. • A person’s principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgement of what is important in life. • They internalise their parents’ rules and values • Embodied v. • Be an expression of or give a tangible or visible form to (an idea, quality or feeling) • The team embodied competitive spirit and skill

4. Vocabulary • Social adj. • Of or relating to society or how it is organised • Alcoholism is recognised as a major social problem • Historical adj. • Based on an analysis of its development over a period • For the Darwinians, biogeography became a historical science • Cultural adj. • Of or relating to the ideas, customs and social behaviour of a society • The cultural diversity of the world’s peoples.

5. Think, pair, share • Identify five values that are embodied in On the Waterfront • Now identify whether they are social values, historical values and/or cultural values (they may be a combination)

6. Some values • Individual choice • Personal responsibility • Conscience as a guide • Truth • Women as primarily caregivers • Loyalty • Intellect over physicality • American individualism- the power of the individual to change their circumstances

7. Example value: loyalty Loyalty, a value that is both social and cultural, is embodied in the characters and action in On the Waterfront. The longshoremen are loyal to Johnny Friendly as the penalties for betraying him are harsh. Terry is loyal to his brother Charley, and to Friendly, and expects loyalty in return. Charley, though initially compromised, finally expresses his loyalty to Terry by refraining from killing him. The cab scene illustrates how failing to be loyal to his brother makes Charley less of a man.

8. Example value: loyalty Terry values the loyalty of pigeons, which are ‘very faithful’ and ‘get married, just like people’. In the rooftop scene where Terry gives Edie the pigeon egg, Terry’s reference to the loyalty of the pigeons also suggests that Terry would be a loyal husband to Edie. (1.09) Father Barry is loyal to his parishioners, asserting that ‘THIS [the hold] is my church’. He puts himself in harm’s way in an effort to serve those he is bound to lead. Edie is loyal to her brother. She determines to find out ‘who killed [her] brother’.

9. Sample body paragraph The social value of loyalty is embodied in the characters of On the Waterfront. Edie, Charley and Father Barry all display loyalties. The longshoremen, too, are loyal to Friendly’s gang, they “don’t ask no questions” and they “don’t answer no questions”. Their loyalty is at its foundation a false camaraderie as the longshoremen are essentially obeying and following a corrupted system. The failure to be loyal, and the various costs associated with this failure, are depicted in the violence that befalls Joey Doyle, Kayo Dugan and Charley the Gent. On the rooftop, Terry explains to Edie that his pigeons are ‘very faithful’ suggesting they are the key to an alternative way of thinking. The value of loyalty reflected by the pigeons is corrupted when Terry uses them to lure Joey Doyle to his death. Terry, at this stage, remains impotent, unable to assert his dormant values. Terry eventually asserts his loyalty to Edie, Father Barry and his own brother when he testifies against the Mob union. Like the pigeons he admires, Terry “really lets ‘em have it” in court, realising that his actions in court will have greater impact on his community, to which he is loyal, than would violence.

10. Writing task • Select one of the values from the list you made earlier • Brainstorm the ways this value is made manifest (embodied) in the text – consider film technique, plot, setting, sound, dialogue, etc. • Write one body paragraph analysing how this value is embodied in the text • Use appropriate metalanguage