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?
Before looking at the concept of the ends justifying the means, it is important to understand just how different the characters of Rorschach and Ozymandias are from each other. Rorschach is strongly right wing, even to the point of fascism. He believes that "the whole world stands on the brink, starring down into bloody hell, all the liberals and intellectuals and smooth-talkers"(Volume 1 page 1) Rorschach is also an ardent subscriber to the New Frontiersman, a right-wing conspiracy magazine. Ozymandias is an extremely rich philanthropist, who once gave his entire fortune to charity. Ozymandias was the first of all the super heroes to go public, two years before heroes were required to unmask themselves by law. Rorschach never went public, choosing to live as an outlaw rather than give up his identity. Ozymandias is considered by many to be the most handsome man in the world, while Rorschach is an ugly man who does not even bathe on a regular basis. Ozymandias runs an international conglomerate, while Rorschach does not have enough money to pay his rent. These differences present the reader with two extremely different characters, their only similarities being their staunch belief that the ends justify the means.
Moore presents ...
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...11, page 25) Within the next few pages, he reveals his massive plan which is to teleport an alien like creature to New York, which will kill half of the people living there. While ultimately this did work, there is no denying that he used a terrible means to achieve his ends.
Throughout the Watchmen the reader is presented with many different characters. The characters of Rorschach and Ozymandias have a manichaean relationship. The line between good and evil has been blurred with these two characters: it is unclear to the reader which of the two is good, and which is evil. One is rich, liberal, and handsome. The other is poor, conservative, and ugly. However, despite all of their differences, these characters share a common philosophy: they believe the ends justifies the means.
Works Cited
Moore, Alan. Watchmen. 1-12. Canada: DC Comics, 1986-1987. Print.
3. What was Eric’s final modified plan to escape after he calmed down and used his brain on page 211?
of killing him he tried to find some way of saying that he was not guilty. He
‘Cold command’. The use of the letter ‘c’ helps to create aggression and reflects the hard nature of Ozymandias. The use of this technique has enabled the reader to realise Ozymandias is a cruel dictator who abuses his power. ‘Boundless and bare’. The alliteration has been used to show that one of the voices has no sympathy after his statue is no longer there. It also emphasises the emptiness of the desert which has survived far longer than the statue as it is now lifeless. Readers can understand that his power has become irrelevant and the statue is no longer respected or cared
John Wilkes Booth originally planned to kidnap the president, but eventually decided that instead, he would kill the president, and he would have his co-conspirators kill the vice president and secretary of state.
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.
Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias" portrays the past power of authority symbolized by the once great world power of Egypt. William Butler Yeats' "The Second Coming" portrays the past power religion once had over the world, gradually lost ever since the end of Shelley's era of Romanticism. "Ozymandias" was written in a time when human rule coupled with religious guidance, but was slowly easing away from that old tradition as they entered the highly progressive era of the Victorians. In his poem, Shelley was comparing the formally powerful Egyptian pharaoh's "antique" and prideful form of rule with the unsuccessful future the "traveller" met in the desert with the ruins of the king's "shattered visage" (Longman, Shelley, p. 1710, l. 1 & 4). In a sense, Shelley was also saying that human rulership was just as easily able to fail as the once great and powerful world rule of Egypt once did, for ages. Yeats also is alluding to this idea, but imposing his view on another type of rule once great for hundreds of years of its rulership, that of Christianity or religion in general. In "The Second Coming" he envisions the "falcon" of humanity drifting away and ignoring "the falconer," Christian religions (Longman, Yeats, p. 2329, l. 2). "The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/ Things fall apart" says Yeats, depicting how human reliance on religion has become cold and disinterested in its lead anymore due to human progress of science, thus their loss of reliance and trustworthiness of religion's claims.
Dietrich, B.D. “The human stain: chaos and the rage for order in Watchmen”. Extrapolation 50.1
The plan really came into action when it talks about in chapter 19 the title is called “The PEACE CONFERENCE”. No one is forcing him to do this, but his personal code of ethics compels him to dig to the bottom of the corruption. For when it comes to sheriff Teasle from the first look at Rambo he didn’t like him because of the way he carries his self forgetting not to judge a book by it cover but did it anyways. So, he tries to get Rambo to leave out his town about three times and when that didn’t work he took him to court and had him spend 35 days in jail but didn’t even make it past day one in jail. He wanted Rambo out of his town because he felt like Rambo was going to bring bad news but he the one that cause the problem in the first place Rambo even said it on chapter 6 “You don’t even like this place. It doesn’t even interest you. If Teasle
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.
One of the most important structures for a story is the ending, and the question that always should be asked is “How effective is the ending?” The purpose of the ending is to try to clarify to the readers the message that was trying to be said throughout the book, and looking at how well this is done is answering the question “How effective is the ending?” In 1984, written by George Orwell, we will see how effective 1984s ending is, and how well it was written.
By recognizing evil as banal, society is forced to face the reality that monstrous acts are not committed by those carrying an abnormal trait. It is the normality and mediocrity which terrified Arendt, along with others who study the Eichmann trial. It is the way in which evil became so average that makes Eichmann as dangerous as he was considered, not just the thoughtless acts he committed. By changing views on evil, however, society will be able to makes steps toward understand how events such as genocide can occur within the larger society.
Bonnie Crabb Humanities 340 Rough Draft Literary Criticism Can you imagine walking where the streets are dark and cold with no glimmer of excitement and joy as security cameras watch your every move? Alan Moore certainly could. In fact, he felt like he was living in such a place. He saw 1980s England as a fascist society where the lower class were being oppressed. In Moore’s graphic novel, V for Vendetta, he depicts that point in history through the story of future London under the Norsefire Regime.
He ended up wanting to scare his victims so much he had lighted fuse cords hanging from his hat to make it so he always had a cloud of smoke around him. He was so committed to be feared of he had 6 pistols strapped to his chest.
In order to do this he is led on a path of multiple murder and deceit.
What images do these words bring to mind? For many people, they illicit scenes of Batman and his sidekick Robin, fighting their way through a legion of bad guys while arriving only seconds after their arch-villain has escaped. From these short, succinct, nonsense words, images of battles are painted over a much larger canvas; the delicate balance and constant struggle between good and evil is illustrated in black and white terms. Unlike comics or television, life does not fit within these binary opposites. In a war there are good guys, bad guys, and everything imaginable in-between. ZONK! POW! Did a bad guy get thrown into a pile of crates or did our hero get knocked out from behind? These simple words are not enough for us to distinguish the difference between good and bad or right and wrong. At the same time, no artist or writer or illustrator could ever hope to present a situation in its entirety. How would a sentence like, ‘the hero, who although he treats his wife in a derogatory manner, punched a bad guy to save a damsel in distress’ serve as a gauge of morals or justice? It is not the creator’s job to portray an entire event, but rather, to present the event in a way that the audience can understand and draw their own conclusions from.