Watchmen by Alan Moore and David Gibbons makes many comments on the good and evil of humanity. The heroes in the book are very human and thus are very flawed. Most of the time, it is hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Quite frankly, the heroes themselves are relatively bad people and show the inner darkness that humans possess. However, there still seems to be a representation of the good in people. In this panel, there are many aspects that draw on the idea of the evil and good of humanity. This panel is able to capture so much of the story at once and it also presents the reality of what Veidt did. Even more so than the destruction caused, it is the images of the two Bernies, the “Black Freight” magazine, and representation …show more content…
Therefore, the Bernies corpses holding each other really shows the impact of what was lost as well as humanizes the experience for the reader, and the magazines with the headline “WAR?” reminds the reader what this sacrifice was meant to prevent. This leads the reader to contemplate if the ends justify the means, and to think about how this event will make a “stronger loving world.”
Another element that speaks to the nature of humans is the “The Black Freighter” magazine with the words “The Veidt Method” in the back. The comic“The Black Freighter”, seems to represent how far humans are willing to go in order to get what they want, and more importantly, it represents how easily humans can do terrible things despite having good intentions. This seems to be a parallel to Veidt’s method of dealing with things, which is to sacrifice the lives of many in order to save more lives. However, unlike the protagonist in “Black Freighter”, Veidt does not seem to have as much of an internal struggle with the means and is only focused on the results. On the surface, his intentions of world peace sound grandiose, but also altruistic and noble. However, his intentions might not be so selfless. Veidt seems to have a big ego and creating world peace, is something that no one else has ever done. Even though the public cannot not know what he did to achieve it, he still feels as though by doing this, he will become
In the short book of “No Heroes, No Villains” by Steven Phillips On June 28, 1972, a Transit Authority patrolman, John Skagen, was on his way home from testifying at court for an arrest he made a couple of weeks prior. Skagen was taking the train home to the Bronx when he saw and stopped James Richardson who was awaiting the subway train which would take him to work at Lincoln Hospital. Skagen ordered him to “put up your hands, and get against the wall”. Skagen’s actions seem unprovoked and unnecessary. After a short tussle the two men exchanged shots and Richardson fled the scene on foot. Two other officers that were on the main street above the subway station rushed to the scene.
The brutalities of war is not just in the battlefield, as a classmate of Paul’s, Kemmerich, is slowly dying of gangrene, and only the use of morphine will get him through the days while in the hospital. When he realizes he no longer has both his legs he loses hope of living at all as he argues and laughs “I don’t think so”(27) while Paul tries coming up with excuses of why Kemmerich should fight to live. As Kemmerich dies, readers are left with images of how Kemmerich’s “flesh melts” (28) as “the forehead bulges”(28) and how his “skeleton is working itself through”(28) The first death readers experience is Kemmerich’s, young and naive he symbolizes innocence and the brutalities within a
Taking place in the middle of the Cold War Era, the Vietnam War was a war not only over land but for many a battle to protect democracy and to fight communism. Much like any other account of a war, the details are gruesome and it is even more difficult to imagine. However, following the Vietnam War one author, who served in the war, decided to take up the task and make an historic account of one of them most grueling wars ever fought. Tim O’Brien is a Vietnam veteran who wrote the novel The Things They Carried. There is a fine line to be walked when writing the accounts of the war in a way that not only informs but also entertains; however, Tim O’Brien walks it successfully. In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried,
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a superhero as, “a fictional character who has amazing powers (such as the ability to fly)” or “a very heroic person”; yet, many of the characters in Watchmen have no supernatural power and are immoral by most precedent societal standards. Alan Moore, in the graphic novel Watchmen (1986-1987), asserts Rorschach as an example of deontology. Moore supports his thoughts through dialogue and illustration. The author’s purpose is to juxtapose philosophical beliefs by comparing their varied flaws through differing narrators’ points of view. The author takes a condescending tone in an effort to enrage his target audience of adult males. This paper seeks to illustrate, qualify, and challenge Moore’s claim that Rorschach is a deontologist.
Death defines life; it has the ability to reinvent the living for better or worse. “The Things They Carried”, by Tim O’Brien, provides a non-linear, semi-fictitious account of the Vietnam War that poignantly depicts the complicated relationship between life and death. His account breathes subtle vitality and realism into the lingering presence of the dead, intimating that the memories they impart have as profound an impact as the living.
In the world of sex, drugs, and baby cloning you are going to be in many situations where you feel like the world we live in should be different. In the story Brave New World, they had sex with multiple partners along with a very bad use of drugs.
Looking at the Watchmen’s actions, the dystopia suggests that self-interested humanity brings chaos and suffering. The moral justice cannot exist when there is a self-interested human nature that people try to be something that they are not such as normal people trying to be “heroes”. Humans make mistakes and faulty decisions; however, they try to believe that they did the morally right things. It suggests that humans are the ones who create goodness and badness in the world, but it is does not have black and white facets. It is not always easy to judge if certain actions are morally right or
In The Moral Instinct, Steven Pinker cites Haidt’s “primary colors” of the moral sense (329). Pinker believes that all moral decisions can be categorized with these primary colors and, though everyone can see these colors, they are prioritized differently by different people. Haidt identifies five primaries—harm, fairness, community, authority, and purity—all of which make up the moral spectrum. These recurring moral themes can be found everywhere from cultural norms to the decisions and beliefs of individuals. Though the themes can be identified in works regarding ethics and morality, they—if applied correctly—can also give insight into the way the author prioritizes the moral colors.
In response to police brutality, The Invisible Man was written by Ellison demonstrated that through his life racism was entirely present. Ellison, in fact, was faced with police brutality throughout the novel. Ellison wrote a scene in which his narrator dealt with police brutality after giving a speech at an eviction. The police threatened to shoot him and beat all of them. Ellison wrote that his character had known it was due to the racism during the time period. Even so, the rest of the novel involved rebellion groups in which responded to the police brutality and racism. Ellison wrote the book to demonstrate the racism and brutality within society for African Americans. Even so, the effect of police brutality was involved within the book. This made other African-American questioned their identity as to why they were being beaten and abused. Ellison’s work addressed the response to other police brutalities in earlier times.
Anthropology and genetics are two fields that, when put together, discover some amazing things. Most of these amazing things are written in the book The Journey of Man, by Spencer Wells. In it, he explains where humans originated from, and how we came to populate the entire globe. It is both humbling and riveting, and a great start to understanding how much work truly goes in to studying our past.
History has a tendency to repeat itself. One of humanity’s most popular ways of getting its point across is through violence. When words are no longer enough to argue a point, human casualties not only directly solve the problem, but symbolically send a message to all those affected as well. Just as the American colonies fought against the British for Freedom when their voice was no longer heard, and just as the Islamic extremists used terrorism to send an evil message to America, both V and Chancellor Sutler used violence to gain a voice in a world of chaos.
Evil is in the eye of the beholder, sometimes a daily reality. To present the problem of evil you must first know that evil exists. Since God reveals himself as the all-powerful, all knowing and all good, how can the same God allow evil to exist and for bad things to happen to good people? Our suffering, as well as the suffering of others, vividly marks the presence of evil in our world. The majority of us struggle at one time or another in life with why evil happens to our family, friends, nation and ourselves. In recent news we also hear about particularly disturbing instances—a child raped, a school shooting, genocide in another country, a terrorist bombing. In this paper, I will review the literature from authors Robert M. Adams (2006), James Cain (2004) and Richard Hauser (1994) on the topic of theodicy and how they align with my viewpoint. I will discuss the virtual certainty in loving any human would not have existed in a world that does not contain evil, how God bestowed upon us the freewill to allow the existence of evil in our lives and how God’s plan for humans involves temporary evil for the greater good
The horrifying brutality of mankind is the idea that people are not innately good, but rather people are selfish when nobody is watching. The old man with the eye patch is talking
“I believe that the root of all evil is power,” (Patricia Cornwell). I think this quote says a lot about the power of power. Let’s think about some people who were incredibly evil. Hitler killed 11 million people (Schwartz), 49 million deaths were linked to Joseph Stalin (Ghosh), and Kim Jong-Un has executed 70 officials since coming into office in 2011 (Omara). That doesn’t even include all of the other people who have died because of him or who will die because of him in the future. What do all of these people have in common? Power. If none of these people had power, millions of lives could have been saved. But with all power comes evil, as proven by these three horrible people. Now, power may not be taken to this extent all the time. As
The essay “The Naked Face” written by Malcom Gladwell is about the ability of recognizing the meaning behind someone’s facial expressions. He starts the essay with a life or death situation between an inner city police officer and a suspect that both are pointing guns at each other. The officer clearly has the right to shoot the suspect, but decided not to base on a hunch that the armed suspect was not a threat (Gladwell 24). Gladwell then demonstrates that the police officer is one out of a thousand people that scored really well on a psychology test to determine if someone is lying or telling the truth based on facial expressions (Gladwell 59). Gladwell’s essay then continues with