Ngoc's Corner of Language Arts 10th

In the movie, On The WaterFront, we see Terry develop and change his opinions on being a "stool pidgeon," and an "informant on criminal activity" constantly. At first, he believed that he, or anyone that were to rat out the mob would be a stool pidgeon. However, later on, as he is influenced by the priest and Edy more, he changes his believes. Edy puts pressure on him to tell the truth, while the priest tells him that if he were to tell the truth, he would be helping everyone out and being an informant on the corruption of the mob instead of being a stool pigeon. The last thing that makes him lands in the decision that telling on the mob is making him an "informant on criminal activity" is the death of his brother, Charlie. He knew that they were doing the wrong thing by killing people and keeping their mouth shuts. In all this, we see that Terry believes that he isn't a traitor, but a whistle blower. To him, a whistle blower is someone who informs others on criminal activity, while a traitor is someone who turns against you for wrong reasons. Terry didn't believe that he turned against the mob for wrong reasons. He did for the correct reasons because they were corrupt. Also, a traitor wouldn't have to risk anything by tattletaling on someone, while a whistle blower will. In Terry's case, he was a whistle blower since he justified his actions not for his own selfishness, but for the betterment of others. He had nothing to gain in his actions. Instead, he probably put himself at risk by turning against the mob. These were the actions of a whistle blower, not a traitor and these traits in Terry's mind were the traits of a whistle blower, not a traitor.

On my opinion, a whistle blower is someone that most agree would agree to if they were allowed to do so without any fear. A traitor, on the other hand is someone who would tattletale because he will benefit from it, not because others will benefit from it. It would appear to me that anyone that is an informant on criminal activity would be a whistle blower since they are doing so for the betterment of others, not just themselves. In contrast, a traitor would tattletale in order to get benefits for himself, such as for revenge or similarly along those lines. Most of us can be considered traitors since we tell on others to feel good because we got revenge for something they did to us, thus only benefiting ourselves. The actions of a traitor and a whistle blower cannot be determined easily because we may not be able to see what they are justifying in their head, but if we can determine that, it is easy to distinguish one from a traitor and a whistle blower. However, sometimes a whistle blower can be distinguished as a traitor at first. My research, on the Civil rights movement, was started by people we refer to as whistle blowers and ethic crusaders, however at the time were considered traitors to most people. Looking back upon that, most of us see him as a hero that stood up for what he believed was right and made changes in society that stay with us till today. The question of whether who is a moral crusader and who is a traitor still lingers with us, but it all depends on the person. Only the one who committed the action knows if they are a traitor or a moral crusader.