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Monstrosity In The Dark Knight

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“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” There is a certain monstrosity that lives inside of everyone, and all it takes is a certain situation to highlight this truth. Monstrosity destroys the categories that humans tend to place objects and people into. When one contemplates what classifies as monstrous, many immediately consider biological categories that a monster might shatter. Nevertheless, a monster’s actions can also lead to a fracturing of categorization, such as in The Dark Knight (2008) when Gotham’s district attorney Harvey Dent becomes the villainous Two-Face. Throughout the movie, Dent evolves from a symbol of hope and justice, to a vengeful anarchist determined to decide various characters’ …show more content…

He is described as “the face of Gotham’s bright future” (The Dark Knight). Not only is he determined to liberate the city of Gotham by putting every criminal behind bars, he’s also resolute that he will do so without straying from his morals. He believes in fairness, and will not compromise this conviction simply to raise his success rate as a district attorney. As he places more and more criminals in prison, he becomes a hero to the law-abiding citizens of Gotham. Batman might have been a darker kind of hero to Gotham, but Dent was a hero that everyone could agree was beneficial for the city. Even Batman stated in the movie that “Gotham needs a hero with a face” (The Dark Knight). Overall, Dent is the polar opposite of a monster for the majority of the movie, however, this changes when the Joker flips his life upside down and influences him to use his faith in fairness to seek …show more content…

In 2008, the United States still had millions of soldiers overseas in war with Iraq. With the effects of 9/11 still fresh in everyone’s minds, in 2003 the U.S. invaded Iraq in an effort to heighten the war on terrorism (Rationale for the Iraq War). This seems to make sense on the surface, however, if the United States was seeking vengeance for the death of thousands on 9/11, directly attacking Al-Qaeda would have made the most sense. Moreover, none of the 19 men who were members of Al-Qaeda and contributed to the hijacking of the four planes were from Iraq. Actually, 15 of them were from Saudi Arabia, which should have meant that Saudi Arabia would be enemy number one for the United States after the attack. Similarly in the film, Dent goes after people who, while they might have played a miniscule role in Rachel’s death, were not directly responsible. The Joker, the one who formulated the elaborate plan that led to her demise, somehow escapes Dent’s rampage, however, innocent people such as Gordon’s family and gangster Salvatore Maroni’s driver are placed in harm’s

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