Culture. 28.4 (1995): 171-178. EBSCO. Web. 2 April 2015.
Brody’s article has three parts: Freudian theory on trauma and the ego, Batman in comics, and Batman the Movie starring Michael Keaton. Looking at Freudian theory, Brody integrates real life examples of what happens to the child’s psyche when confronted with trauma. He uses examples from the kidnapping of children in Chowchilla and the Buffalo Creek Disaster and compares the trauma these children faced and their reactions to Bruce’s trauma and his reaction. Arguing that the ego is fractured by the “suddenness and unexpectedness” (172), Brody reveals how the child Bruce needed to find a way to heal and cope with his trauma- in this case, he shows how Anna Freud’s theory on external trauma becoming internal resulted in the identity of Batman. Using the first appearances of Bruce/Batman in comics and Batman the Movie, Brody reveals how “Batman’s symptoms, personality fragmenting, and recovery, are all consistent with psychiatric trauma literature” (177). Despite focusing on two other texts, the psychological profiling of Batman will help my thesis by supporting my claim that Batman and Bruce are the same person, just separated by trauma.
Donovan, Sarah K., and Nicholas P. Richardson. “Under the Mask: How Any Person Can
Become Batman.” Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul. Hoboken:
John Wiley & Sons, 2008. 129-141. Print.
Donovan and Richardson use Nietzsche and Foucault to argue that everything known about identity and the self is a social construction. They disagree with the idea that Bruce and Batman are one person on the basis that each is performing a separate identity- rich heir and dark caped crusader. They “reject the idea that there is some true self underneath Wayne or Batman that connects them” (129). However, they negate their own arguments in their paper. By arguing that identity is a performance they use Althusser’s concept of the ideology, which is defined by the majority of people being unaware they are following one (131). However, in order to understand that another form was needed to fight crime, Bruce had to be aware of the ideologies of Gotham. Donovan and Richardson even state, on the very next page, that “Batman lost faith in the rules of society. As an adult Wayne decided to stop being afraid and create his own order” (132). Not only do these two men use the names of Bruce and Batman interchangeably, but being aware of social constructs means that Bruce knew he needed another identity that could put fear into the corrupt and could fight in all levels of social class. He purposely created his other persona, Batman; he had the manifest his traumatic promise into something else and so divided his self: the rich Wayne heir and the vigilante crime fighter.
Jensen, Randall M. “Batman’s Promise.” Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of
the Soul. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. 85-100. Print.
Jensen postulates that the promise to continue ‘cleaning’ up Gotham Bruce/Batman made to his parents in that dark alley of their death overrides everything else in his life. In Miller’s work Bruce gave u crime fighting because of the death of Jason Todd, “his career ends as it began: with a promise” (85). But the older promise was stronger than the new and so Bruce donned the Batman cape once more. Jensen argues that Miller shows this in Book 1, when he states “’in trying not to be Batman, Bruce has made himself into a ‘walking dead man’. His promise to his parents and the project which gave birth define who he is’” (85). With this Jensen reaffirms my argument that Bruce and Batman are one person. Without Batman, Bruce is not whole and it is the trauma of his parent’s death that led to the “birth” of Batman- a darker side of Bruce’s self that manifested into another form to fight corruption in Gotham to keep a young boy’s promise to his parents.
Meyer, Eric C., et al. “Acceptance and Action Questionnaire—II Scores as a Predictor of
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms Among War Veterans.” Psychological
Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy 5.6 (2013): 521-528. PsycNET.
Web. 25 Nov. 2014.
This study was done by Eric Meyer and his colleagues at the Department of Veteran’s Affairs to examine the efficiency of the standard posttraumatic stress disorder questionnaire that veteran personally fill out before being diagnosed with PTSD. Depending on the answers to the questions, the patient is assigned a varying degree of PTSD and given the appropriate treatment. However, what this survey found was that there are more factors that go into the results of these tests than just the traumatic event itself. Using another survey that asked more personal, pretraumatic questions, researchers found that when one has a history of violence the degrees of PTSD a veteran suffers escalates. This risk for a more severe form of PTSD is also increased if the personality of the veterans lean more towards anger or depression (527). The evidence presented in this source directly relates to my paper because I argue that it is the trauma of Bruce’s childhood that leads to the necessity for Batman.
Miller, Frank. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. New York: DC Comics, 1986. Print.
This is my primary text for the paper. Reading through this graphic novel, I became very interested in the duality of Bruce and Batman. Miller starts his tale with Bruce as an old man, having given up the life of Batman after the death of Jason Todd. Throughout the novel Miller has Bruce struggle to “contain” Batman, showing a dominance issue between the two sides of Bruce: man and Batman. Coming back to Gotham shifts that dominance and Bruce can no longer hide that other part of himself. Miller reveals how there is a connection between the darkness in the men, which plays off the "reflection" statement that Batman makes at the end of Book One. This was one of the more interesting parts of the graphic novel, as it plays on the Jekyll/Hyde mentality. Facing his old foe, the Joker, and having to fight his best friend, Superman, Bruce comes to terms with his dueling personalities; at the end of the graphic novel Miller depicts Bruce has a whole man. Batman being the physical manifestation of Bruce's inner demons creates a connection between the two figures; a connection that is more than just 'I am one. You are the other'.
Reichstein, Andreas. “Batman—An American Mr. Hyde?” American Studies. 43.2
(1998): 329-350. JSTOR. Web. 26 March 2015.
In this article, Reichstein’s main purpose is the examination of Bruce/Batman’s person and comparing him to Robert Louis Stevenson’s character Dr. Henry Jekyll/Mr. Edward Hyde. Looking through historical, psychoanalytical, and religious lenses, Reichstein looks deeper into each character to discover the commonalities that they share. The article starts with a brief history of both Batman in comics and Stevenson’s novel, Reichstein spends the rest of the time not only comparing the rich personas and the alter ego personas, but argues that Hyde was the son-figure to Jekyll just as Robin was the son-figure to Batman. Other comparisons include: both Bruce and Jekyll have old, formal butlers, a secret hideout (laboratory or batcave), gothic elements to the settings for both men (the dark cities of London and Gotham), and the “connection [between] ‘evil—devil—vampire—bat’” (345). This article was fascinating and helpful in looking at the duality of Bruce/Batman because it went deeper into the psyche of man. While Dr. Jekyll may have been a fictional character, like Bruce Wayne, the topic of the duality of man has been best expressed by Stevenson for over 100 years. To see the good versus evil dichotomy of Jekyll and Hyde applied to Bruce and Batman lends a more humanistic reading to the fame caped crusader. The connection of the evil and the bat is interesting as well since Reichstein points out that bats are symbols of the vampire, which connects to Freud’s theory of the doppelgänger- a theory I plan to address directly in my paper.