On the Waterfront, the 1954 film directed by Elia Kazan, depicts the moral development of the main character Terry Malloy. Terry was once a talented boxer with aspirations of success and a goal to make a name for himself. However, Terry’s reliance on the mob, run by corrupt union leader, Johnny Friendly, derailed his boxing career, forcing him to become a longshoreman and low-level member of Friendly’s crew. Terry lacks a strong moral code at the beginning of the movie and is heavily influenced by the corrupt mob. However, after Terry unknowingly plays a role in the murder of his friend Joey Doyle, he goes through a moral awakening. This transformation is aided by much persuasion and encouragement from Edie Doyle, Joey’s sister, and Father Barry—all of whom have strong moral codes that they are willing to defend even when other longshoremen are against their beliefs. His character development mirrors Lawrence Kohlberg’s six stages of moral growth he theorized in 1958. When examining Terry’s development through the lens of Kohlberg’s stages, the question becomes whether Terry is acting on his own accord or if the decisions he makes are too heavily influenced by the people around him to the point where he is no longer acting for himself. If the latter were true, this would threaten the legitimacy of Terry’s moral development. But in fact, Terry accomplishes four stages of Kohlberg’s model with help and guidance from Father Barry and Edie, and while the values he develops throughout the movie are largely derived from their influence, Terry only makes decisions on his own terms—not on those of Father Barry or Edie.

Most of Terry’s life was spent in Kohlberg’s first stage of moral development: the punishment and obedience orientation. The first stage focuses on children whose decision-making involves avoiding punishment. If a child chooses to disobey their parents, they run the risk of punishment.1 Although Terry is an adult in the movie, Friendly’s crew forces him to obey with threat of punishment much like a child. Terry’s loyal obedience to his mobster brother Charley and Friendly dates back to when he was a rising boxer looking to make a name for himself. He was talented and ambitious: as Terry passionately explains to Charley, “I coulda had class, I coulda been a contender, I coulda been somebody.”2 However, before the title fight his brother told him that Friendly and his people were placing money on the opposing fighter and that Terry needed to throw the fight. He obeyed and intentionally lost the fight and all of his chances at fame. Terry grew up in a children’s home where he did not have the proper influence necessary to develop morals,3 so he was unable to see the immoral behavior of his brother and that his chance to make it big was more important than some bet made by Friendly. He could not make his own decision because he did not know what the right decision was—all he knew was Friendly would punish him if he won. Terry’s lack of morals is further shown with Joey Doyle’s murder. He is unaware of Friendly’s plan to kill Joey, but knows that the mob will at least “lean on him.”4 At the beginning of the movie, Terry is still stuck in stage one and unable to see that even if Friendly was just going to injure Joey, aiding the mob is still immoral. All Terry knows in life are the values of the mob and that Friendly looks out for him, so to avoid punishment, he must do as he is bid.

Joey’s death is the beginning of Terry’s moral development—his first step out of Kohlberg’s first stage. Immediately after Joey was pushed from the roof, Terry feels conflicted: he begins to question the motives behind Friendly’s operations. Following the scene of Joey’s death, Terry is clearly overwhelmed and remorseful: as a couple mobsters joke about Joey’s death, Terry ignores the joke while mournfully staring at the scene that began with his actions.5 He feels guilt but is unsure of what to do about it. According to Kohlberg, people are not magically born with morals—they have to be developed, learned, and taught, and Terry never received the help necessary to learn and develop them until Edie Doyle and Father Barry lead him in the right direction.

As Terry talks to Edie he moves into Kohlberg’s second stage of development: individualism and exchange. Individuals in this stage socialize with others and exchange their differing values and morals.6 At this point they begin to realize that there is not one universal code that everyone follows—it differs greatly from person to person based on the situation the individual experienced growing up.7 While Terry is stuck in stage one, Edie shows him values of empathy and opens him up to the idea that morals vary and that people can operate in the world with different values. She asks Terry, “Shouldn’t everybody care about everybody else?… I mean isn’t everybody a part of everybody else?”8 He scoffs at this notion and explains his values: “Do it to him before he does it to you.”9 The difference here can be attributed to their respective upbringings and livelihoods. Edie had parents growing up to show her right from wrong and she only strengthened her morals while learning to be a nun. Terry, on the other hand, grew up in an orphanage without the necessary guidance to develop the ability to discern right from wrong. This inability was further exacerbated under Friendly’s control and influence, and now he lives under the assumption that people inherently want to do harm. Although he believes Edie’s values are too idealistic and inapplicable to the real world, Terry sees her defending her values even as she is criticized. He takes a big step towards the development of a moral code: he realizes and understands that people live and fight for different beliefs.

Father Barry, like Edie, plays an important role in helping Terry down the path of moral development. While Edie teaches Terry of love and empathy, Father Barry is much more dutiful and helps Terry develop a sense of duty. His advice and influence help Terry develop the morals necessary to make the decision to tell Edie of his involvement in Joey’s death and to testify against Friendly. As Terry explains his role in Joey’s death to Father Barry, he sounds very distraught and looks incredibly remorseful—his voice quivers and he scrunches his face indicating true guilt for Joey’s death.10 Terry wants to tell Edie about his involvement in Joey’s death but also does not want to lose her. Father Barry sees this and understands that Terry is incapable of making a decision this large without some help. He even explains that he is “not asking [Terry] to do anything,” and rather that it is Terry’s “own conscience that’s gotta do the asking.”11 Although Father Barry encourages Terry to tell Edie about his involvement, he is never forced to do anything. His decision to tell Edie marks his transition into the third stage of Kohlberg’s moral development: good interpersonal relationships. In this stage, the individual makes decisions in order to be seen as a good person by others.12 He applies Father Barry’s values of honesty and duty into his decision to tell Edie, but does not specifically do it to look good for Father Barry. He rather does it to appear an honest person for Edie who deserves to know the truth.

Terry’s testimony against Johnny Friendly marks his transition to Kohlberg’s fourth stage of moral development. However, an important accompanying question that must be answered is whether Terry’s decision to testify was made on his own accord or whether Father Barry made the decision for him. Kohlberg’s fourth stage of moral development, maintaining social order, is when the individual “becomes aware of the wider rules of society,” and makes decisions based on upholding the law and avoiding guilt.13 In the fourth stage, however, the person has not created their own morals, but rather bases their code on the people around them. Kohlberg theorized that this stage is where the majority of society operates. Charley’s murder compels Terry into action and his mind shifts from not wanting to incriminate his brother in court to bloodthirsty revenge. Terry’s first thought is to take a gun and attack Friendly and his crew—here he has not moved on to stage four because taking action with violence does not uphold a well-functioning society. He needs Father Barry to talk him down in the bar because he is blinded by the thought of violent revenge and does not know any better. Father Barry does his best to reason with a distraught Terry by explaining that fighting Friendly “like a hoodlum down here in the jungle” is not an efficient way of finishing him because it’s what Friendly wants—Terry would end up dead and he would just plead self defense.14 The best way to fight the mob is to attack them in court where Terry could finish them without violating laws and disrupting the social order by killing people. When he decides to go to court, he moves into stage four—he is maintaining social order by upholding the law, expunging the guilt he felt for Joey’s murder, and taking revenge in a moral way. Although Father Barry provides guidance, Terry reaches the decision on his own. Father Barry could have forcefully taken Terry’s gun away but instead trusts him to make the right decision. He wants revenge but is unaware that avoiding violence is the best way to achieve it, so Father Barry simply points him in the right direction. This is important because Terry applies the morals of justice and social order that he learned from the people around him to make a decision on his own terms.

Terry’s moral development satisfyingly ends with him defending his decision to testify by going to the docks knowing he will be treated with hatred. However satisfying the end may be, Terry never fully reaches Kohlberg’s final two stages, and ends up stuck in stage four. Kohlberg theorized that few people have the abstract thinking necessary to reach stages five and six where the individual develops their own code of morals that may go against those of the greater society or may be unlawful. Terry never develops his own morals but rather takes influence from Edie and Father Barry and bases his code on their values. He does, however, achieve an important aspect of these two final stages: he willingly defends his decision to testify even though he knows it is an unpopular one among the mob and the longshoremen. Terry wants to prove that he “ain’t a bum” by going to the docks and confronting Friendly.15 Despite knowingly putting himself in danger, he defends the principles of justice, freedom (from the mob in particular), and social order that he fought for by testifying.

Morals are not something that are magically developed—they often require good teaching and plenty of influence from the individual’s life. There are many people in the world who are in the same position Terry found himself at the beginning of the movie. Many have difficult lives growing up or they associate themselves with the wrong people and this leads to individuals with underdeveloped morals making bad decisions. Although Terry ends up making the right decision, he only does so because he receives help from the people around him. Many people do not get this help and are forever stuck in a place where they feel they have to act in a certain way to avoid punishment or they find themselves at a moral crossroads: they feel badly about their actions but are unsure of what to do about it. This group needs guidance like Terry received in order to uphold a well-functioning society.

Bibliography

Notes

1. Saul Mcleod, “Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development,” Simply Psychology, accessed September 20, 2019, https://www.simplypsychology.org/kohlberg.html.

2. On the Waterfront, directed by Elia Kazan, Los Angeles: Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1954, 1:12.

3. Ibid, 0:38.

4. Ibid, 0:04.

5. Ibid.

6. Saul Mcleod, “Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development.”

7. Ibid.

8. On the Waterfront, Elia Kazan, 0:39.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid, 1:01.

11. Ibid, 1:02.

12. Saul Mcleod, “Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development.”

13. Ibid.

14. On the Waterfront, Elia Kazan, 1:25.

15. Ibid, 1:35.