Tragic Hero In Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight
The clown’s maniacal cackle intensifies, his sardonic and scarred grin widening. Acting as an agent of pure chaos, the Joker’s jocular moral corruption of Gotham is crystallized ironically by the shining white knight of Gotham, district attorney Harvey Dent. A pawn in the Joker’s game, he loses his fiancé and half his face in an orchestrated explosion. Dent, the once heroic emblem of justice, is perverted by a demented individual to his ultimate physical and ethical demise, culminating in a homicidal rampage and eventual death. As Dent himself articulates, “[y]ou either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain” (Nolan). Harvey Dent in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is a modern tragic hero, in that his undoing
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Ostracised and essentially exiled from her hometown of Laurel, Mississippi, Blanche retreats to the only place she has left to go: her sister Stella’s two-room apartment in New Orleans’ French quarter. When she strikes up a relationship with Mitch, Stanley investigates her past to find information that would drive a wedge between them. He eventually reveals to Mitch her history of promiscuity, which achieves the intended consequence: “I don’t think I want to marry you any more. You’re not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother” (150). On the surface, Blanche seems culpable for her own actions, but what might first be perceived as a foible of unfettered lust is in actuality a coping method for the emotionally debilitating wound of her husband’s suicide. Stanley however, is unconcerned by his own contextual ignorance. His proclivity to inflict pain on Blanche continues when he once again wields Blanche’s past against her, buying her a bus ticket to Laurel, where he knows that she is too infamously licentious to return. This has an acutely agonizing effect on Blanche, as “she clutches her throat and then runs into the bathroom. Coughing, gagging sounds are heard” (136). The full extent of Stanley’s viciousness reaches a climax of cruelty when he rapes Blanche on the night Stella is in the hospital giving birth. Stanley uses this unfathomable act of violation to utterly shatter Blanche, providing a death knell for whatever dignity she still maintained. Shortly after, Stella calls for a doctor to institutionalize Blanche because she “couldn’t believe her story and go on living with Stanley”
Ostracised and essentially exiled from her hometown of Laurel, Mississippi, Blanche retreats to the only place she has left to go: her sister Stella’s two-room apartment in New Orleans’ French quarter. When she strikes up a relationship with Mitch, Stanley investigates her past to find information that would drive a wedge between them. He eventually reveals to Mitch her history of promiscuity, which achieves the intended consequence: “I don’t think I want to marry you any more. You’re not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother” (150). On the surface, Blanche seems culpable for her own actions, but what might first be perceived as a foible of unfettered lust is in actuality a coping method for the emotionally debilitating wound of her husband’s suicide. Stanley however, is unconcerned by his own contextual ignorance. His proclivity to inflict pain on Blanche continues when he once again wields Blanche’s past against her, buying her a bus ticket to Laurel, where he knows that she is too infamously licentious to return. This has an acutely agonizing effect on Blanche, as “she clutches her throat and then runs into the bathroom. Coughing, gagging sounds are heard” (136). The full extent of Stanley’s viciousness reaches a climax of cruelty when he rapes Blanche on the night Stella is in the hospital giving birth. Stanley uses this unfathomable act of violation to utterly shatter Blanche, providing a death knell for whatever dignity she still maintained. Shortly after, Stella calls for a doctor to institutionalize Blanche because she “couldn’t believe her story and go on living with Stanley”