Abstract
Batman Begins and the Dark knight break through the stale American film scene and create a new genre of psychological super hero film. Director and author of the screenplay, Christopher Nolan reinterprets the classic American comic book hero, the Batman, with a whole new dimension. Instead the conventional distant and yet gothic under-toned Batman series in the past decades, Nolan’s new Batman series use a great deal of psychoanalytic essences as well as the thriller factor to bring in audiences to experience Bruce Wayne’s Gotham City and his personal battles. This thesis is to dissect Nolans’ new Batman and Batman’s inner world with the psychoanalysis point of view.
This thesis is divided into five parts. Chapter One explains the Freudian approaches being used in analyzing these two films. There are four major directions: fear and Oedipus complex, symbol and alter ego, trauma affect and then the framework of . Chapter Two discusses Bruce Wayne’s alter ego, the Batman and the formation of such a character. I investigate Bruce’s deep fears: the swarming bats and the witnessing of his parents’ murder. His fear links to his Oedipus complex with his own father, Thomas Wayne and his new father figure, Ducard. Then I compare and contrasted these two father figures. Chapter Three explores how the Joker and Batman connect together through their traumatic experiences and how they reveal their likeness inside and out. Chapter Four examines the interlocking relationship between the Joker, Batman (Bruce Wayne) and Two-Face (Harvey Dent) with the framework of id, ego and superego. I analyze Batman’s path of nearly being taken over by the id to hold his own ground as the ego; then from losing the Gothamites’ hope, Dent, to becoming the scapegoat and thus accomplish the superego.
The conclusion points out these characters in the films are beyond Freudian archetypes and inclusive in their good and evil. Nolan’s films provide a distinctive ambiguity and confusion of identities which have brought the audience a further look of the selves.
