The Graphic Novel Is Narrated in the Third-Person Omniscient Point of View Common to Most

Ben Meadows Mahoney AP 12 Literature 3-30-10 Watchmen By: Alan Moore

The graphic novel is narrated in the third-person omniscient point of view common to most comic book narrative styles. The focus shifts quickly from one character to another, often back and forth several times within a single set of graphic panes. This technique would not be possible with more traditional fiction, but with the assistance of the artwork, the shifts are easily followed. The point of view is appropriate for the graphic novel which relates a story spanning many decades and two planets, involving a very diverse cast of characters. Many have two identities and can be contrasted through their beliefs and reactions to human beings. This underlies the ironic core values within the graphic novel that reveals the hidden darkness within some characters that as superheroes they believe they can kill people for the greater good in society. Through analysis of each character you can perceive the true inner human being inside each superhero who are really no more than super humans. However, there is one character known as Dr. Manhattan that is truly an omniscient being that was once human, but forgets his human qualities and actually deserts his thoughts about the world and all that is within it.

The graphic novel's protagonists are all costumed heroes. They're vigilantes who patrol the streets and prevent crime without any special commission from the State. Rorschach's final comment sums up the major theme of the novel. “Evil must be punished” (Moore chap.2 p.21).

The novel's primary plotline focuses on the origin of the costumed hero from 1939 continuing through 1977 until 1985. The original group of costumed heroes, the Minutemen, banded together to enjoy the synergistic capabilities of a group in fighting evil. As the original generation of costumed heroes retired or were killed, they were replaced by a second generation 2 of costumed heroes, the Watchmen (The Comedian, Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, Nite Owl, Laurie

Juspeczyk, and Ozymandias), which modernized their view on retaining society and saving humans from themselves.

At the start of the graphic novel a former costumed hero known as The Comedian

(Edward Blake) is hurled out of a window falling to a tragic death. This begins the main story line in Watchmen in where an assassin is assumed to be targeting and killing off costumed heroes. The Comedian was a part of the original group of New York superheroes known as The

Minutemen. Only sixteen when that organization formed, he is the only one of that group to continue fighting crime into the decade in which the story takes place. One of the contributing factors of the disbanding of the Minutemen was The Comedian’s attempted rape of Silk Spectre.

Which can be correlated to the attitude that the Comedian has towards the public is similar to that of the Joker in The Dark Knight. He claims to be teaching the public a lesson about the cruelty and randomness of the world by embodying it. Edward Blake’s joke is the irony that the people to whom he is cruel are the ones from whom he derives his license for cruelty. Despite fighting crime, he thrives on chaos and destruction. He ignores all social conventions in an all- encompassing expression of total philosophical nihilism. What this reveals about his character is significant and to some extent redeeming. Edward Blake went through years of interacting with the worst of humanity. The best he could do to deal with that was to enact it. In order to fight the monster that he had internalized.

Rorschach, the graphic novel's primary protagonist, was born Walter Joseph Kovacs in

1940, in a tenement slum to Sylvia Joanna Kovacs, a drug-using prostitute. In 1951, at the age of

11, Walter was attacked on the street by two teenage bullies. In the ensuing fight, Walter was easily victorious, but partially blinded one of the older boys by sticking a lighted cigarette into 3 his eye. The resultant investigation uncovered Walter's seriously deficient living conditions, and was taken into the State's Child Protective Services program. Walter's mother never made an attempt to contact him. When Walter was notified of her death in 1956, he appeared unaffected by the loss, which can be directly compared to the becoming of age of Rorschach. His harsh living style as a kid and feeling no compassion can be foreshadowed to the reasons behind his unforgiving actions as a masked hero. Rorschach appears as a dark and tormented individual with the basic beliefs of killing people that may be corrupted in order for the betterment of society.

"Rorschach's Journal. October 12th, 1985. Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on

burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended

gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over all the

vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about

their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'Save us!'...... and I'll

look down and whisper 'No.'(Moore Chap.1 p.1)

This directly explains how Rorschach perceived the world and all of society. That those that inhabited the world were all evil doers and those that do evil must be punished and shown no mercy. The shadows of the city were filled with filth and lies, and Rorschach attempted to cleanse the darkness with the violence of squashing any hope of a criminal to escape the shadows of justice. This can also be compared through character analysis to a classic literary work done by William Shakespeare known as Hamlet. Both characters Rorschach and Hamlet can be compared through their mindset of death and revenge. They both experienced a close death and traveled through harsh events and battled socialized issues in order to restore revenge. Each 4 character possessed rage and vengeance as motives behind their actions and vindictive behavior throughout their individual novels.

Perhaps the most undeniable and indisputably most powerful member of Watchmen is

Doctor Manhattan. Like some blue tinged Greek god of the atom age, this fascinating being wields awesome cosmic powers of matter manipulation. He's not only indestructible, but also ageless and can among other things teleport around the galaxy in an instant. There seems to be no limit to his abilities, yet surprisingly the lies of mere humans do affect him tremendously.

Dr. Manhattan is as close to "perfection" or certainly far more perfect than any human intellect or even a super computing artificial one of which he clearly points out several times in the graphic novel. His brain not only surpasses a supercomputer, but he can wink in and out of time in terms of perception. For a pop culture science fiction comparison, he's much like Q - the mischievous energy beings of the Star Trek universe which plagued Captain Picard's Starship Enterprise and

Captain Janeway's Voyager. Comparisons can also be made through biblical analysis about Dr,

Manhattan. Like shoring off biblical Samson's flowing locks of hair robs him of super strength, compared to the uniquely human art of deception seems to rob Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen of his star spanning wisdom.

Another key plot point in Watchmen depends on Dr. Manhattan believing he's spread cancer to humans through his radioactive nature during an open question interview at the news studio. However, an omniscient entity like Dr. Manhattan believing this seems pretty mind- boggling. How could a creature that sees all of time simultaneously be fooled by a cancer ruse?

More to the point, why in all 46 years of his researching his own powers, would he not discover a cancer risk by his own super mental abilities? It strains credulity to think he'd be even slightly bothered by obvious, poorly fabricated deceit. Moreover his irresistible powers could most likely 5

"cure" cancer instantly. This can be a literary comparison to the ignorance of Jim in The

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Jim fell for some of Huck’s false actions such as his act of faking his own death. Compared to the ignorance of Dr. Manhattan that he could utterly even posses the thought of giving humans cancer and buying in to other people’s deception when he possess such vast knowledge and perception of time.

After the interview and falling of deception Dr. Manhattan appears enraged about the possibility of hurting people around him. As the crowd swarms Dr. Manhattan in order to push more questions he bursts out in rage stating…

“Please…If everybody would just go away and leave me alone…I said leave me

ALONE! (Moore chap.3 p.17)

Vanishing in an instant Dr. Manhattan teleports himself to Mars, where he sits alone to meditate. This depicts his separation from his once human qualities before he became an all powerful entity. Now that he posses this more unlimited knowledge and perception of time; he views himself separate from the world and all that inhabit it, and desires to be alone and states that there really is no saving a planet that has a forthcoming annihilation.

The Nite Owl can be considered as the sanest among the unusually disturbed set of characters in the graphic novel. He is the ultimate gadget boy in the group. In a way, he resembles Batman because he uses his wealth to make the technology needed in his crime fighting antics. Among all the characters, he is considered the most stable for although he also has the desire to do evil, he suppresses it and opts to do good and has a genuine inclination to help people. However, this very trait is also his weakness as a normal person without the costume. This can be intertwined with the character known as Laurie Juspeczyk, whom never 6 really wanted to become a masked vigilante, but was forced into it because of her mother, Sally

Jupiter. Laurie is bitter about her fate and is trapped by her dark past. And for someone who does things for the good of society, Laurie defines the characteristics of a livid superwoman. Together

Nite Owl and Laurie Juspeczyk can be related to Adam and Eve in the Bible. The superhero tandem compare to Adam and Eve in the correlation that they both are good people with good intentions but are engulfed by the darkness of society and fall within the grasps of evil.

Adrian Veidt, otherwise known as Ozymandias, has been deemed the "smartest man in the world" by many, mainly the media, though this title is deserved. Veidt deftly built both a legitimate and criminal empire large enough to become a global threat through his exploitation of advanced technology and genetics. In one scene, he is shown viewing a wall filled floor to ceiling with television screens, each showing a different image, in order to demonstrate his ability to pay attention to each one simultaneously. From the juxtaposition of these numerous images, he is able to deftly paint a picture of the current political and social climate, from which he can predict future trends and make plans accordingly. Adrian depicts his ambition by matching his intelligence, evidenced by his successful execution of a plan to help Earth towards utopia by ending international hostilities. He is shown to be a ruthless master strategist, swiftly eliminating anybody who dares to get in the way of his plans, while maintaining total secrecy.

However, these contrasts help to set up the book's key twist, which first tries to engage the reader's sympathy for Veidt's plan in the name of the greater good. Just as Rorschach actually needed no help and had already freed himself from his prison cell when Nite Owl and Silk

Spectre flew in to rescue him, the world began to come back together on its own at the last minute in spite of itself precisely when Veidt's alien monster teleported in destruction and chaos, killing them in the name of the future's benefit. In effect, for all his outward high intention, 7 internal conflict, and congruence to the book's own theme of doubt and complexity, Veidt is in spite of himself the smiley face on which Rorschach is the stubborn bloodstain.

Adrian Viedt: The only person with whom I felt any kinship with died three hundred

years before the birth of Christ. Alexander of Macedonia, or Alexander the Great, as you

know him…His vision of a united world... well, it was unprecedented. I wanted...

`needed` to match his accomplishments, and so I resolved to apply antiquity's teaching to

our world, `today`. And so began my path to conquest. Conquest not of men, but of the

evils that beset them. (Moore ch.10 p.19)

Although all of our heroes had experienced a deconstruction, Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias faces those closest to the tragic flaw. This probably has to do with his picturesque do-gooder attitude, similar to Alexander the Great’s – a man who had also wished to unite the world, yet failed to because of his untimely death. Adrian Veidt may have created unity in the world, but for how long, no one could ever be sure due to the conflict of human influence and the corruption it had placed upon society. Which brought forth Adrian’s tragic flaw, short- sightedness; that both he and Alexander alike seemed to be short sighted men of power. Men who never considered who would take their place after death.

Alan Moore’s graphic novel Watchmen brings out more than just a story but can relate to our modern reality. Its complex point view puts costumed superheroes in a corrupted society filled with the dark actions of humans. Moore constantly provides scenarios that can be directly interrelated to higher issues in biblical terms or even compared to modern literary works and televised entertainment. Though there are many characters in the graphic novel, they all have depth and complexity; where each character possesses their own story and contains their own 8 individual connection to society. The comic has so many storylines and characters that it can be difficult to keep up. Each part though, is vital in telling the overarching story that isn't necessarily about superheroes, but more about humanity and what we do to satisfy our needs and desires. This causes symmetry between the quandaries of society versus the world. Symmetry itself is violent as it can only be achieved by deconstructing the world of the comic. Its people and places become the layout, leaving readers in a constant search for a formal symmetrical structure. The motivation for the search lies in the need to produce a single unified meaning that the various characters and images signify – a reconstruction of what was already deconstructed.

Works Cited

Moore, Alan. Watchmen. New York: DC Comics, 2005. Print.

The Bible

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Harcourt. 1963. Print

SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Hamlet.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2007.

Web. 1 Apr. 2010.