Harvey Dentor's Scapegoat In The Dark Knight

254 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Scapegoat theory sociology

Societies prevent themselves from suffering a meltdown into generalized chaos and or into a war of all against all by scapegoating. According to Renee Girard, scapegoating occurs in society when anger and violence must be released.To release this tension of violence, they must together as a society choose a surrogate victim, the scapegoat, to take on all of the blame for causing this anger, and the victim is then sacrificed - or turned against by society. In The Dark Knight, Batman serves as Gotham’s scapegoat. However, throughout the film both Harvey Dent - the white knight - and Batman - the dark knight - take turns serving as the scapegoat. Both make it very clear that they are willing to be whatever Gotham needs them to be in order to

Show More
Related

  • Use of Scapegoats in The Lottery and in Our World

    1646 Words  | 4 Pages

    Scapegoats appear abundant in the world today. Political parties and businesses consistently seem to find a person or small group that takes the blame for serious issues. This can cause problems and arguments that sometimes lead to something serious like wars. Scapegoats are just a way of passing blame off of oneself and on to others, just so reputations can remain intact. This sort of attitude shows how lethargic the world has become, where people don’t even take responsibility for their actions. Many people from older generations complain about how all the new generations become too comatose and unwilling to take on their own actions and indiscretions. With attitudes like this, peace will never be found and will inevitably lead to conflict. Something must be done to stem the flow of scapegoats which have been utilized far too much over time.

    Read More

  • The Dark Knight Rises Deviance Analysis

    1425 Words  | 3 Pages

    It has been eight years since the ending of the previous movie, The Dark Knight. At the end of this movie, Batman took the blame for the people killed by Harvey Dent, the district attorney who set out a war against crime. During The Dark Knight, crime had decreased dramatically because of him and Batman. Numerous criminals were placed in prison because of him. Therefore, Batman took the blame for his murders because he understood that a discovery of Harvey Dent’s killings would allow the numerous criminals that he imprisoned to be set free.

    Read More

  • Betty G. Farrell's Family: Idea Institution, And Controversy?

    1393 Words  | 3 Pages

    I wonder why. Maybe because “scapegoating” speaks to the paranoia in all of us: the anti-immigrant or the anti-minority, the bigot or the conformist—the side of us that fear change because we have gotten too comfortable in our own little world. Maybe because it also speaks to our self-denial, to stick to such ideology that somebody else is responsible for our failure and misfortune, instead of facing our own individual responsibility and moral obligation. I truly do not understand such ideology; however, one thing I have fully understood—the society makes it seem as if embracing change can be pretty

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas And The Lottery

    635 Words  | 2 Pages

    A scapegoat is a person or group who take blame for another’s actions. In both short stories, the population believes that an offering was needed for its survival. The “winner’ in “The Lottery” was stoned to death by the town to trade a year’s worth of sins for good fortune and continuation of tradition. In “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, a tortured child was locked in a basement for the prosperity of others. The citizens are selfish and brutal towards the chosen victim. The purpose a scapegoat served in the short stories “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson was to sacrifice for the happiness

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of The System-Blame Approach

    156 Words  | 1 Pages

    There are two sociological ways to approach social problems, one being the “system-blame” approach and the other being the “person-blame” approach. With the “system-blame” approach, the responsibility or “blame” for social problems is put on the institutions as a whole, such as the government, religion, etc. The other, the “person-blame” approach , is a bit more narrow-minded in that it focuses on the individuals affected by the social problem. For example, a person using this approach may argue that the wage gap between the sexes exists because women just aren’t working hard enough, that they work for less hours than men, or that they just seek out low-paying jobs. On the opposing side, someone using the “system-blame” approach might argue

    Read More

  • Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas

    754 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although, There is child who is locked up in a closet like room, and everyone knows that the child is there suffering. The reasoning behind the knowledge and unwillingness to help the child, “...They all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city... depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.” Although this child is suffering the society as a whole depends on it’s misery. Just like with the three children the society maintains peace through a scapegoat. In Mcdonald’s article expresses that a scapegoat is chosen at random and everyone unites against it. McDonald summarizes the idea of mimetic violence and scapegoating,” While mimetic violence divides each against each, scapegoating violence unites all against one. Thus the destruction of the scapegoat produces a genuinely unifying experience… Ultimately this ritualized violence becomes the basis for religion, mythology, kingship, and the establishment of those differences in a role that are so essential to bring about internal peace.” Based on the text that this mimetic or ritualized violence turns into religion, mythology, etc, it suggests that it has happened throughout human history and will continue to do so. Again this mimetic violence eventually leads to

    Read More

  • St Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolf Analysis

    553 Words  | 2 Pages

    Scapegoat is defined as one that bears the blame for others or one that is the object of irrational behavior. Even though in retrospect the scapegoat has in some way failed in their own goals, we use scapegoats because it’s easy. When we don’t succeed in a particular goal or feel we are going to embarrass ourselves the person we blame is the person we assume to be the weakest. The weakest person is usually different from the norm and not the most popular they dance to their own beat.

    Read More

  • The Crucible Red Scare Research Paper

    929 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hysteria, it causes humans to afflict others by the guile of another. “As the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s, hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. became known as the Red Scare” (History.com, n.d., para.1). It was called the red scare because the reds were communists that were in allegiance for the soviet flag. America was finding communists in the country so they could keep it pure and this all started because of Joseph Mccarthy.(quote from the crucible). A similar situation happened three hundred years ago in the salem witch trials and a play named The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller.

    Read More

  • Analysis of the Movie, The Dark Knight

    844 Words  | 2 Pages

    Batman (Christian Bale) is hoping to hand on his crime fighting duties to D.A Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) yet when Batman’s cards are on the table the twisted mastermind who goes by the name of the joker (Heath Ledger), forces the masked vigilante to go against everything he ever stood for.

    Read More

  • Importance Of Scapegoating

    881 Words  | 2 Pages

    Scapegoating is a better way to experience success. Margaret Atwood speaks the truth when she states “When societies come under stress these kinds of things happen. People start looking around for essentially human sacrifices. They start looking around for somebody to blame.” In “Half- Hanged Mary” by ……. they used Mary as a scapegoat by blaming everything on her which lead to her hanging. Therefore I defend Margaret Atwood that a world under stress will eventually lead to people being demolished so they can feel better about themselves.

    Read More

  • Arthur Miller's The Crucible

    738 Words  | 2 Pages

    When lies are taken as the truth by scapegoating it can kill innocent people and have adverse effects on the other community members.

    Read More

  • The Scapegoat: An Analysis

    1847 Words  | 4 Pages

    Although Girard’s second chapter of The Scapegoat may discuss persecution among certain groups of people because of false perceptions, it is really about people's desires to utilize scapegoats as a way of justification for their misfortunes, but their reasoning for scapegoating is ultimately irrational.

    Read More

  • Connections Between "The Social Reality of Violence" and "Violent Crime"

    1261 Words  | 3 Pages

    Henry Brownstein’s book, The Social Reality of Violence and Violent Crime, and Joel Best’s books, Random Violence and Damn Lies and Statistics, have various connections. “The social world is which we live is designed by us in the context of our own values and interest,” per Brownstein. Those values and interest are placed into social context by those in power to design policies and procedures. Social problems start out with a typifying event and then attention by the media to publicize the event. The publication of the event then attracts the attention of the government to impose policies to solve the social problem.

    Read More

  • The Crucible Margaret Atwood Analysis

    852 Words  | 2 Pages

    ¨When societies come under stress these kinds of things happen. People start looking around for essentially human sacrifices. They start looking around for somebody they can blame.” Margaret Atwood proposes this in an interview with Bill Moyers. The kinds of things she is speaking of is exactly what we observe in The Crucible by Arthur Miller which tells the story of the Salem witchcraft trials where many were punished and killed. In Arthur Miller’s ¨Why I Wrote The Crucible¨ we witness innocent people being blacklisted for conspiring with communists. All of these defend what Margaret Atwood declared in her interview. When a society comes under stress, we always find someone to blame.

    Read More

  • The Lottery Themes

    1574 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the story there is always a sacrifice at the end of the ritual. They are all susceptible to the hypothetical crass theory that if they murder the masses will flourish. May discusses how the heart of the story is based on this old concept: “the notion of the scapegoat”(2451). It is not a new theory as it is presented with grandiose to unsuspecting citizens. Jackson also hints at a comparison to the “holocaust” as “the townspeople are unable to fully question or prevent the brutal lottery process”(Moss, Joyce, and Wilson, 236-237). Making this theme hard to swallow and all too soon for some readers. Jackson repeatedly proves her bravery in her writing by touching such untouchable

    Read More

More about Harvey Dentor's Scapegoat In The Dark Knight

Open Document