The classic drama On the Waterfront (1954) is a film based on true stories that bring to life the realism of the corruption, extortion, racketeering, and union violence within the longshoreman Union local 374 in New York’s Manhattan and Brooklyn waterfront neighborhoods. The movie was filmed in the communities and docks within New York and New Jersey. The film itself was nominated for twelve Academy Awards and won eight. The film portrays a local union of longshoremen in New York that is subjected to control and mistreatment by union leaders that are connected to the local mob. Johnny Friendly, also known as Big Johnny, is the union boss who has control over the union, community, and waterfront employers.
Priestly presents Mr Birling and the Inspector in two different lights. Mr Birling right from the very start showed no empathy towards Eva smith and doesn't start to either throughout the play. He is more interested in his knighthood and doesn't want to admit he has done wrong. “I can’t accept any responsibility. If we were all responsible for everything that happened to everybody we’d had anything to do with, it would be very awkward” this further emphasises Birlings ignorance and cowardice attitude towards responsibility within society.
The older and younger generation are represented clearly from the start of the play. There are differences between the generations when concerning the characters attitudes and how much responsibility they take, this is represented, mainly when the Inspector reveals what has happened to the young girl, Eva Smith/Daisy Renton. The older generation include Mr and Mrs Birling and the younger, Sheila and Eric, whilst Gerald fits into both at different times as he is between the ages of the two groups, though he mainly falls into the older generation. Mr Birling believes that socialist ideas that stress the importance of the community are "nonsense" and that a "man has to make his own way", completely contradicting the overall message of the play and creating a character that the audience severely dislike. He cannot see that he did anything wrong when he fired Eva – he was just looking after his business interests.
They never really got along, however he continues in the text saying that after his father’s death he began to contemplate and wonder why this was. He came to the retaliation that his father was very paranoid even with his own family. Before his death, he stopped eating food from his family because he believed they were trying to poison him. The rest of his essay speaks of the harsh society during the era of the civil rights movement. His father despised white people and barely ever trusted any of them, which was the stem of his paranoia.
1. ‘There’s one thing we have in this country, and that’s ways of fighting back.’ How does On the Waterfront explore the power of the individual? Elia Kazan’s film, On The Waterfront, demonstrates the extent to which a corrupt group can eliminate the rights of a town, yet empower an individual to make a change. Set in 1954, the film portrays the realism of desperation and corruption in the city of Hoboken, New Jersey. The opening scenes of On the Waterfront outline the intense control the mob have over the workers at the Waterfront.
As the police question the spectators, even Pop Doyle sticks to being “deaf and dumb” and shushes the woman who speaks up. Clearly, the threat of the mob can sever family ties. The same “D and D” attitude is displayed after the crushing murder of Kayo Dugan, the second “cheese-eater”. Despite the camaraderie between the longshoremen, they do not react or avenge their colleague’s death, but ignore it as they themselves are scared. Without the support of a large group, the powerlessness of the single man is
In Mikal Gilmore’s personal narrative “My Brother, Gary Gilmore,” he describes his two brothers and father as the “teenage rebellion of the fifties” (1) for the fact that they each looked “for a forbidden life” (2). It was a life where they just did what they wanted to do without anyone stopping them. For example, “They would smoke cigarettes, drink booze and cough syrup, skip and ditch class” and sometimes “take part in gang rumbles” (2). The Gilmore Family has no authority and rules made for them to follow. They live in a life of unstructured hierarchy in the sense that no one in the Gilmore family has total power to control the actions of those committing crimes, which helps us understand why the Gilmore brothers and even the father choose to be living a forbidden life.
Being a nigger, Crooks is hated by the whites at the ranch and he resents this. As he says "If I say something, why it's just a nigger sayin' it" and this shows his anger at being pushed to the side. Being troubled has made him seem cruel and gruff, but also has turned him to self-pity and the idea that he is a lesser human. He says to Lennie, "You got no right to come in my room.....You go on get outa my room. I ain't wanted in the bunkhouse and you ain't wanted in my room."
Throughout his essay, Kozol has highlighted the premise that the lack of understanding for these human beings and their circumstances leads to the lack of empathy and misplaced aggression. Kozol’s essay also points out that not only adults are mistreated, feared, and loathed, but homeless children are also shunned and viewed through the very same judgmental eyes. When I was working for the Portland Hilton as a security officer, part of my job was to provide the guests with a secure environment free from unruly individuals and
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus defends Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman, in a court trial. The town of Maycomb turns against him due to this. Atticus, furious about the reaction from his town, explains, “…why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a negro comes up, is something I don’t pretend to understand” (Lee 88). Atticus does not have any racial biases, and he does not agree with the views of the majority of the people of Maycomb. Atticus, describing his beliefs to Jem, “…The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be