Through the character Rorshach, The Watchmen explores the issues of nature verses nurture for him. Moore adds that a super hero, can be a psychological argument. A super hero is neither born nor shaped by environment, it is the creation of an alter ego to suppress childhood conflicting inner issues. Rorshach dealt with issues as a young child that rationalized in his mind to hide behind a costume and a mask in order to live.
The first character the book introduces to the reader to is Rorschach, Walter Joseph Kovacs, one of the main characters. Rorschach reveals his past and why he wears a mask on page eleven. Walter’s past is revealed in chapter six when he is examined by a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist gives Walter ink blots and his first vision is of his mother and a man. Also on chapter six, the reader, see that his mother was a prostitute who worked out of her home. Her reasons for practicing prostitution appear when she interacts with Walter. On page four of chapter six, Walter walked into his mother’s bedroom while she was entertaining a man. As soon as his mother realizes he is watching she hits him across the face. "You little shit! You know what you cost me, you ugly little shit. I shoulda listened to everybody else! I shoulda had the abortion." (Pg.4, chap.6, panel 6-7) Walter’s mother did’nt hesitate to physically or verbally abuse him. Her first reaction was to punch him in the face. This reflects the issue of a chain of a abuse. Walter’s mother was probably abused in more ways than one by her parents. Through her behavior of name calling and the rage she portrays it is most likely she was subjected to the same as a child. She basically told Walter that she didn’t want him and regretted having him. She neglects Walter of attention and love, just as she was by her parents. Both Walter and his mother are dealing with issues of neglect and a craving for attention. As a prostitute, we see on page three in chapter six Walter’s mother substitutes sex for love, attention, beauty, and care. She begs her male friend to stay, "Oh baby, please, listen. he’s kinda backwards. Please don’t get mad." She begs the man to stay because having sex makes her feel beautiful because the men want her and touch her. In chapter 6 on page three she says, "Oh you’re hurting me." She says this to her male customer, she did not make him ...
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... therefore he is taught and did not inherit. Moore explores both of these issues in depth, and creates a third element. This third element is the most controversy. People are not born to be good or bad, nor are they raised to be good or bad. Psychologists would say they are either natured or nurtured to be good or bad. Rorschach is a good example of both of those. He is also a confusion in the argument because he develops himself into a super hero. His mother did not influence him in anyway, either through gene heritage or observational learning to become a super hero. Through creation of this alter ego Walter receives attention. When he is dressed up he is no longer vulnerable to his mother or society, now he is feared and respected. He can hide from his memories of abuse because his sole concentration is on being a super hero. Even though he can forget, the memories still exist and therefore effect the rest of his life. Moore adds the third element to a psychological argument that disrupts the whole concept of either beliefs. Rorschach is a developed image in Walter’s mind that allows him to act as what he sees as a psychologically sound human being, with an average up bringing.
The main characters are David, his mother, and father. David, the abused child, cannot escape his mother’s punishments. David’s mother is a drunken, abusive mother that refers to her child as “It”. David’s father is caring and understanding, but cannot help David escape. The mother and father drastically change after the alcohol abuse. David also changes in his attitude towards his parents.
1. Walter - His dreams of owning a licquor store conflict religiously with Mama's value system. The conflict between Mama and Walter is amplified by the fact that it is Mama's apartment in which the family lives and Walter is unable/unwilling to make decisions because Mama is so domineering. Ironically, it is the one decision that she eventually lets Walter make which nearly destroys the family.
Watchmen takes place during one of our country’s most recent politically intense era’s. The fear of government corruption along with the fear of the Soviet Union and nuclear warfare was very much a real thing. Alan Moore uses political symbols, real and fictional, to represent this rough time and create a realistic setting to an otherwise fictional plot of superheroes. By incorporating mature messages and illustrations it does not only appeal to young adults looking to be entertained by a picture book. It allows Watchmen to stand alone in the category of graphic novels and be looked at as an icon of its time.
In Alan Moore's The Watchmen, Moore presents the reader with two drastically different characters who have one strikingly similar trait. Ozymandias is a handsome, rich, public, and powerful man. Rorschach is an ugly, poor, private, and almost worthless man. Despite all of these contrasts, they share a common philosophy: they believe that the ends justify the means. This is a major theme of the story, and through it Moore causes the reader the ask themselves the question - do the ends justify the means?
The theme that has been attached to this story is directly relevant to it as depicted by the anonymous letters which the main character is busy writing secretly based on gossip and distributing them to the different houses. Considering that people have an impression of her being a good woman who is quiet and peaceful, it becomes completely unbecoming that she instead engages in very abnormal behavior. What makes it even more terrible is the fact that she uses gossip as the premise for her to propagate her hate messages not only in a single household but across the many different households in the estate where she stays.
It is understandable to think that Rorschach is the most influential character in Watchmen, however it is clearly The Comedian due to his incredible influence of all the characters and the fact that his death sets the main plot in motion. Though his heroic code is not as strong and stable as Rorschach’s, The Comedian understands the world perfectly, but “he doesn’t care” (Moore, 4.19). Both of these characters saw the “true face” of this reality, one just fought against it while the other became a parody of it.
Walter and Beneatha’s relationship is very complex. The spiraling tension between the two siblings causes confrontation to form and creep into the Younger household. Walter needs his family to respect him as the man of the family, but his sister is constantly belittling him in front of his mother, wife, and son. This denigrating treatment taints Walter’s view of himself as a man, which carries into his decisions and actions. Beneatha also subconsciously deals with the dysfunctional relationship with her brother. She desires to have her brother’s support for her dream of becoming a doctor, yet Walter tends to taunt her aspiration and condemns her for having such a selfish dream. Mama as the head of the family is heartbroken by the juvenile hostility of her adult children, so in hopes to keep her family together she makes the brave move of purchasing a house. Mama’s reasoning for the bold purchase was,“ I—I just seen my family falling apart….just falling to pieces in front of my eyes…We couldn’t have gone on like we was today. We was going backwards ‘stead of forw...
The most interesting character in Watchmen is Walter Kovacs, also known as Rorschach. He grew up with an extremely abusive mother and without his father, who he knew very little about. Kovacs was also bullied as a child, thus ruining his faith in other people. In this case, it was not Kovacs that voluntarily ignored optimism, he was forced to live and grow up in (what seemed like) Hell-on-earth. That whole experience just turned him into something different that no one had ever seen, something fierce and emotionless. Like he said, “Saw the world’s black underbelly and never surrendered. Once a man has seen, he can never turn his back on it.” The moment he truly turned into Rorschach was when he found out about what happened to Kitty Genovese. She was raped, tortured, and killed while almost 40 neighbours did nothing to help. Instead of trying to get his life to a point where he had a 9-5 job and a family to take care, he focused on what he thought was right; punishing criminals for the horrible things they have done, no questions asked. For example, after finding the hideout of a man who had kidnapped a child, Kovacs realized that the bone the two German Shepherds were fighting over was a human bone; the little girl had been fed to the dog...
Marie, who is a product of an abusive family, is influenced by her past, as she perceives the relationship between Callie and her son, Bo. Saunders writes, describing Marie’s childhood experiences, “At least she’d [Marie] never locked on of them [her children] in a closet while entertaining a literal gravedigger in the parlor” (174). Marie’s mother did not embody the traditional traits of a maternal fig...
I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me"(Moore 194). As to reiterate his reputation of never being scared by any situation and to portray that he is not afraid of his situation. With the use of his mask and scare tactics Rorschach uses psychological warfare against his Veidt is fashioned like a hero, but acts like a villain. He can be misinterpreted as a villain but in fact is a superhero.
Rolph is introduced as an innocent young boy early on in the story. He “doesn’t speak up all that often” (1) and is “too young to notice” (1) the extremely sexual relationship between Mindy and Lou. The generalization Mindy brings forward for Rolph is “structural affection” (5) in which Rolph “will embrace and accept his father’s new girlfriend because he hasn’t yet learned to separate his father’s loves and desires from his own” (8). Rolph’s fragile depiction foreshadows the importance of nurturing vulnerable children. If a child is already susceptible to emotional confusion or damage in their youth, it is important to provide them with an extremely positive upbringing to give them confidence to make their own decisions as they mature. In the case of Rolph, however, he does not receive the support he needs to make a healthy transition from childhood to
Everyone dreams of being a hero however the path is narrow. The mantle of responsibility is important aspects and the presence of the heroic traits must be shown in some form. However, there will always be outliers and deemed delusional who attempt to be heroes. In Watchmen, Moore creates an omnipotent hero who lacks humanity in the portrayal of the Dr. Manhattan as a psychopathic anti-hero.
Mother is introduced to us from “The Rescue” and we continue to learn of her tortures throughout the book. Mother is a woman who is angry, specially towards Dave, specially when he is in need of punishment. Mother does not take care of her appearance anymore, she walks around in robes all day, watches tv, never bothers to put on make up, and often smells of alcohol. She is vindictive, cruel and abusive, always barking orders, assigning impossible chores and coming up with more sickening ways to break Dave. Mother attacks Dave’s self esteem by making him repeat and believe that he is a bad boy. Dave’s self esteem deteriorates even more as she treats him worse than one would a dog, yet acts towards his brothers with care and affection and even goes on to teach them to look down on Dave.
Through vivid yet subtle symbols, the author weaves a complex web with which to showcase the narrator's oppressive upbringing. Two literary
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.