Lack Of Punctuality In Alan Moore's Watchmen

2052 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The effect of technology on modern society

Watchmen’s Lack of Punctuality Postmodern literature techniques reflect on many works of the 20th century. Coming from modernist literature, postmodernism begins to focus on contemporary ideology like phones, computers, and television that is currently enveloping today’s society. Every day, people are seen talking on the cellphone with their grandmother before they transition to watching television with their children, completely void with what is happening outside their windows and within their city streets. With this new advance in technology, Alan Moore’s graphic novel, Watchmen spotlights this change from real-time events to a digital reality. In Watchmen, a member of a group of city vigilantes of sorts has just died. As many of the …show more content…

Manhattan does not feel the same connection to technology as most humans do now that he has turned into a ‘super-being.’ Jon Osterman had his whole life ahead of him and after his transformation he lost contact with everybody he loved. He does not need a cell phone or need to watch television to be updated on the news because he can basically predict the future. These complicated things make him forget that less complicated things are important as well. At the beginning of chapter four, Dr. Manhattan narrates: “It’s October 1985. I’m on Mars. It’s July 1959. I’m in New Jersey, at the Palisades amusement park” (Moore 111). Moore has Dr. Manhattan speak in the present tense, even if he is talking about events in the past or future, showing that Dr. Manhattan has no sense of time. Jon Osterman is no longer acquainted with human life, as to him Earth is only a tiny blot in the universe. As his transformation happened, Jon held onto a watch which grants him the ability to travel through time. His view of time is not linear, so his views of human nature are irrelevant to him which explains why Jon only cares for himself. Along with Dr. Manhattan, Rorschach is a character that can cut through all the nonsense and put his morals above

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Scannell's Article 'Dailiness'

    463 Words  | 1 Pages

    I was able to understand this idea through Scannell’s use of the news to still be a recurring aspect for most families’ daily rituals. As Scannell says, ‘the care structures of news are designed to routinise eventfulness’ and in this way “news is part of the fabric of days for us’. This has allowed me to acknowledge and comprehend the nature and extent as to which these temporal qualities impact our life. It has given me reason to believe that these ‘care structures’ is actually something that provides us with order and organises out daily routines to sync up with media events, this is how our private life, through mediation connects to the public sphere. However, one could bring up the argument to Scannell as to whether technologies as the internet which allows live s=and 24/7 streaming of television programs, is resulting in a time shift to which traditional daily counties is moving away from television broadcasting structures. In this contemporary sense, I found that Scannell’s analysis of these broadcasting technologies is gradually becoming expired in light of these new “time shifting technologies” such as Netflix and

    Read More

  • Douglass Rushkoff"s Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now

    1162 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...er for each scenario throughout the book. However, it is not until late in the final section of “Apocalypto” that he offers his solution to the issues that create our present shock. Rushkoff says “the solution, of course, is balance” (Rushkoff 265). He suggests that we, as individuals, find a balance between living our lives truly in the present and our need for technology and media. He describes a pause and un-pause feature in our lives. We need to control our need for technology in order to avoid our technology controlling us. Although the majority of his book describes how we have little control over the developments technology causes in our lives, he believes with moderation we can live in the present both virtually and physically.

    Read More

  • Social Issues in America in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

    883 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the mid-1900s, the Unites States was rapidly changing from the introduction of a new standard of technology. The television had become the dominant form of entertainment. This seemingly simple thing quickly impacted the average American’s lifestyle and culture by creating new standards for the average household. New, intimidating concepts came about, and they began embedding themselves into American culture. It became clear to some people that some of these ideas could give rise to new social problems, which it did. Sixty- five years ago, in a library basement, a man named Ray Bradbury wrote a book called Fahrenheit 451, which was able to accurately predict social problems that would occur because he saw that Americans are addicted to gaining quick rewards and new technology, and also obsessed with wanting to feel content with their lives.

    Read More

  • Amusing Ourselves To Death and Lies My Teacher Told Me

    502 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the first chapter of Amusing Ourselves To Death , Neil Postman's major premise is how the rise of television media and the decline of print media is shaping the quality of information we receive.Postman describes how the medium controls the message, he uses examples which include the use of clocks, smoke signals, the alphabet, and glasses.Postman says a society that generally uses smoke signals is not likely to talk about philosophy because it would take to long and be too difficult. Postman also describes the way television changes peoples way of thinking; a fat person will not look good on TV and would less likely be elected President. On the other hand someones body is not important as their ideas when they are expressing them through the radio or print. On TV, visual imagery reigns. Therefore the form of TV works against the content of philosophy. Postman shows how the clock has changed. Postman describes how time was a product of nature measured by the sun and seasons. Now, time is measured by a machine using minutes and seconds. The clock changed us into time-watchers, then time-savers, and finally time-servers. Thus, changing the metaphor for time changed how we view time itself.

    Read More

  • A Comparison Of The Joy Of Reading And Writing: Superman And Me?

    1446 Words  | 3 Pages

    In a world dominated by technology, reading novels has become dull. Instead of immersing into books, we choose to listen to Justin Bieber’s new songs and to scroll through Instagram posts. We have come to completely neglect the simple pleasures of flipping through pages and getting to finally finish a story. Sherman Alexie and Stephan King’s essays attempt to revive this interest in books that has long been lost. They remind us of the important role that reading plays in our daily lives. “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” for instance, demonstrates how being literate saved the narrator from the oppressive nature of society. The author explains that even though he was capable of reading complex books at an astonishingly young

    Read More

  • General Overview of Chapter 11: The Huxleyan Warning

    676 Words  | 2 Pages

    The many evils that exist within television’s culture were not foreseen back when televisions were first put onto the market. Yet, Postman discovers this very unforgiveable that the world did not prepare itself to deal with the ways that television inherently changes our ways of communication. For example, people who lived during the year 1905, could not really predict that the invention of a car would not make it seem like only a luxurious invention, but also that the invention of the car would strongly affect the way we make decisions.

    Read More

  • Alan Moore's Watchmen

    1154 Words  | 3 Pages

    Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” focuses on several characters throughout the novel making the idea of a main character moot. However, one character can be described as the most influential to the plot of the graphic novel. Rorschach can be seen as such due to the fact that he narrates a large portion of the novel, and his heroic code that he follows. Not only does he influence the plot by those two reasons, but also by uniting the characters after a long silence. The Comedian is the only character that almost perfectly fits as the character with the most influence on the plot of “Watchmen.” The death of his character allows for the plot to be set in motion. He has not only has he shaped every other character in the novel, but the symbol that represents his character can be found throughout the graphic novel. Although Rorschach can be interpreted as the most influential character of “Watchmen,” The Comedian influenced more aspects of the plot than any other character of the graphic novel.

    Read More

  • Heroism in Watchmen

    971 Words  | 2 Pages

    In their graphic novel Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons establish their story during the Cold War period, when a group of superheroes tackle the task to save humanity from a potential World War III caused by tensions among governmental powers. Managed by the intelligence of Adrian Veidt, the worst was avoided after the attack of alien forces causes the death of millions of New Yorkers that leads to a temporary world peace. The representations of the Watchmen superheroes of Moore and Gibbons, particularly Rorschach, display the concept of heroism being a part of the real world, among the regular public of our society.

    Read More

  • Alan Moore's The Watchmen

    1623 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...ulture. Together the characters of Watchmen reflect an unflattering image of American identity. We sacrifice morals to defend principles rather than saving people. We sacrifice ourselves for commercial gain and for the fame that comes from the worship of strangers. We worship our own achievements, obsess over time and in the end we lose what makes us human as we continue down a path that takes us farther away from each other and deeper into ourselves.

    Read More

  • Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman

    1131 Words  | 3 Pages

    Nevertheless, Neil Postman wrote a very thought-provoking novel that should make all Americans rethink their lives, even if it is just a little bit. Postman was very critical in his novel, but he provides a wakeup call for everyone that has not come into contact with the nasty reality technology can have on society.

    Read More

  • Violence In Watchmen

    769 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, interprets the achievement of order and law through the use of power and violence by superheroes. This novel consists a total of seven different characters to demonstrate how superheroes obtain peace in society through the use of violence. The writer portrays the plot in different characters’ perspectives by guiding readers in their point of view. This motivation also assists readers to examine the loneliness and the feeling of isolation during Dr. Jonathan Osterman, Walter Joseph Kovacs and Laurie Juspeczky’s life experiences.

    Read More

  • Postmodernism in Pulp Fiction

    1676 Words  | 4 Pages

    Ten years before Tarantino made Pulp Fiction, the academic and critic Frederic Jameson identified some of the key features of postmodernism, and debated whether these were a true departure from modernism, or just a continuation of the same rebellious themes. His paper on postmodernism tends towards the latter view, but at the same time prophetically pinpointed the essential departures that postmodernism has made from what has gone before. Tarantino’s film does not continue the debate in an academic way, but instead presents a virtuoso visual performance of the ideas that Jameson could only dimly perceive. These ideas include pastiche, a crisis in historicity and a blurring of the distinction between high culture and low culture.

    Read More

  • Watchmen Movie Vs Book

    1869 Words  | 4 Pages

    As put by Richard Corliss of Time.com, “The best and worst thing to say about the Watchmen film

    Read More

  • Rorschach Sexism In The Watchmen

    1488 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the story, we are told that Rorschach chose his name because he enjoys the black and white colors of a Rorschach. Philosophically, we can assume that they reflect his black and white world view; however, there is a hidden irony here that reflects Rorschach’s hypocrisy. Rorschach images, while indeed black and white, are highly up to interpretation. They’re used because many people interpret a Rorschach in a completely different way than the other, and these varying interpretations can give insight into the mindset of a patient to psychologists. This is quite the opposite of a black and white worldview, and we see in the story that Rorschach behaves in ways that harm other people because he believes that he must do so in order to achieve the goal he believes is more important than treating the men in those bars ethically: namely, finding out who is killing the former watchmen.

    Read More

  • Postmodern Film

    2291 Words  | 5 Pages

    The postmodern cinema emerged in the 80s and 90s as a powerfully creative force in Hollywood film-making, helping to form the historic convergence of technology, media culture and consumerism. Departing from the modernist cultural tradition grounded in the faith in historical progress, the norms of industrial society and the Enlightenment, the postmodern film is defined by its disjointed narratives, images of chaos, random violence, a dark view of the human state, death of the hero and the emphasis on technique over content. The postmodernist film accomplishes that by acquiring forms and styles from the traditional methods and mixing them together or decorating them. Thus, the postmodern film challenges the “modern” and the modernist cinema along with its inclinations. It also attempts to transform the mainstream conventions of characterization, narrative and suppresses the audience suspension of disbelief. The postmodern cinema often rejects modernist conventions by manipulating and maneuvering with conventions such as space, time and story-telling. Furthermore, it rejects the traditional “grand-narratives” and totalizing forms such as war, history, love and utopian visions of reality. Instead, it is heavily aimed to create constructed fictions and subjective idealisms.

    Read More

More about Lack Of Punctuality In Alan Moore's Watchmen

Open Document