`The Darkness of Mere Being`: The Pictorial

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Laura Zimmermann
Life - Science and Narrative
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“There is no future. There is no past. Do you see?” - Dr. Manhattan to Laurie (Moore IX, 6; emphasis original)
*5692 NF6;4 <C2? !.?@’ surface, Dr. Manhattan compares
the value of human life to the abstract concepts of time and
space. He thus links life to scale, which is visually realized
in the page-wide panels on pages 17 and 18 of chapter IX
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high pillars on the top and the bottom, which in turn
resemble watch hands and thus serve as a metaphor for
time. In the panels of these two pages, Laurie and Dr.
Manhattan are framed by two of these pillars (i.e. time),
while the palace appears to move through space. The
panels create the illusion of a “'% * &+”, as such
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Alan Moore’s Watchmen 6@ <;2 <3 A52 M?@A .;1 :<@A .009.6:21
graphic novels to this day. Set in 1985, it portrays an alternative
history of America where Richard Nixon is still president and the
US won the Vietnam War. The actions unfold in a tense Cold War
setting, where a group of ageing costumed adventurers tries to
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apocalyptic scenario to frame a philosophical examination of
human existence. It prominently engages with time perception (cf.
Barnes), especially through one of the protagonists, Dr.
Manhattan, who perceives time as simultaneous rather than
chronological (Moore IX, 6). Produced by a nuclear accident, Dr.
Manhattan is neither alive nor dead, neither human nor nonhuman, and as such embodies the dissolution of boundaries
between life and non-life. This ties in with Donna Haraway’s
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anticipates the developments Nikolas Rose
analyzed in The Politics of Life Itself,
particularly molecularization, optimization,
and @B/720A6M0.A6<;. In Haraway’s terms,
Dr. Manhattan can clearly be read as “a
hybrid of machine and organism” (2269),
and the narrative plays this out in the ways
in which his perception of time contradicts
human experience. His non-linear time perception illustrates the breakdown of the
opposition between life and non-life in this particular graphic
novel. Therefore, + (,*+!&%!* &.+ '!+&)!#+)+$%+&
+!$ &%+)!,+* +& + )')*%++!&% & ,$% #! !%
Watchmen. The analysis focuses on life and storytelling about life in graphic
narratives, which is always also a narration of time and space. It is
my argument here that + &%'+,#!1+!&%& ,$%#!!*
!%/+)!#0#!%"+&+ -!*,#)')*%++!&%&+!$in this
text. &%'+*+ &*
The analysis focuses on chapter IX of Watchmen. Using basic notions about + )')*%++!&%&+!$%
*'!%&$!* (cf. McCloud), the analysis is almost exclusively
limited to the visual level of the graphic novel.
Fig. 1: A visualization of the (temporal) panel structure in chapter IX of Watchmen. Fig. 2: The pan
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over Mars.
Panel Structure
The ninth chapter of Watchmen is predominantly set in Dr.
Manhattan‘s crystalline palace on Mars, where Laurie tries to
convince him that he must save mankind from its imminent
extinction. However, after their breakup, Dr. Manhattan claims
to be indifferent about life on Earth. In his opinion, (human)
life is “a highly overrated phenomenon" (Moore IX, 13) and
supports this thesis with the perfectly balanced ecosystem of
Mars, which is completely empty of life. In contrast to Dr. Manhattan‘s verbal statements, Laurie‘s
perspective on life is represented by the visual structure of
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broken up by 2* "*to key events in her past. Towards
the end of the chapter, the processing of these memories
helps her to realize the identity of her biological father.
Overwhelmed by this epiphany, she throws a perfume bottle
into the walls of the crystalline palace, which results in its
complete destruction. Before this particular action actually
happens, it is already &)* &. by several panels,
which are scattered throughout the chapter. When looking at
all of these single panels, together they create a sequence
that depicts the “NF6;4” perfume bottle. However, the
dispersion of these panels among the panel structure of this
particular chapter creates the illusion of a movement in slow
motion - among time, as well as among space.
Workshop Ÿ LIFE – SCIENCE AND NARRATIVE
Ÿ
July 20, 2012
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This interconnection of time and space in Watchmen’s chapter IX is further
stressed on its last pages. After Laurie causes the glass palace to break into
pieces, Dr. Manhattan suddenly acknowledges the value of human life, as it is
a "thermodynamic miracle" (IX, 27). This change of mind is again visualized on
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“We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another’s vantage point, it may still take the breath away.” - Dr. Manhattan
(Moore IX, 27)
As the analysis shows, graphic narratives, such as Alan
Moore’s Watchmen, stand out due to the various (spatial)
means of representing time. In Watchmen, the visual
representation of time is inextricably linked to the
conceptualization of (human) life. The narration of an
individual’s life and the individual’s movement through time
and space are only two aspects that support this claim. The
character of Dr. Manhattan further pushes this notion to the
extreme. While his male body suggests that he is a human
being, his perception of time as simultaneous rather than
chronological stresses his non-humanness. In the end, he
remains ambiguous. After the catastrophe has happened, Dr.
Manhattan (literally) vanishes from Earth with the intention to
create new life in another universe. As one outstanding example, the graphic novel Watchmen
examines how the notion of life can be confused by changes
in technological appreciation in (contemporary) narratives.
- - - - -
”As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human
existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of
mere being.” (C. G. Jung, qtd. in Moore IX, 28)
)%*
Barnes, David. "Time in the Gutter: Temporal Structures in
Watchmen.” KronoScope 9.1-2 (2009): 51-60. Print.
Fingeroth, Danny. “Alan Moore.” The Rough Guide to Graphic
Novels. London, UK: Rough Guides, 2008. 219-20. Print.
Haraway, Donna. “A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology,
and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s.” The Norton
Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. 1st
ed. New York, NY: Norton, 2001. 2269-99. Print.
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York, NY: Harper
Perennial, 1994. Print.
Moore, Alan and Dave Gibbons. Watchmen. New York, NY: DC
Comics, 2008. Print.
Fig. 3: The last three pages of chapter IX zoom out from the single human to the universe.
Rose, Nikolas. The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and
Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton UP, 2007. Print.