JOERIMAE T. INDIANO ABELS 1-5 AUG.

15, 2019
ARTS APPRECIATION MR. ANDAMAN S. ALIMAN
PAPER ANALYSIS: ‘BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE'
Psychoanalytic Lens of The Killing Joke
It is said that by making the unconscious mind conscious, it will direct your life and you
will call it fate. But how are we going to transform an unconscious mind to conscious one? Is it
like a clay that you can just alchemize into different kind of shapes that you want? Or is it a magic
that if you utter a word you will be then unconscious to conscious? But of course, Sigmund Freud
would not agree for these things, he believe that by making the unconscious mind conscious it
must start within yourself.
The word ‘diversity’ can not be removed in one's nation, thus, we have different culture,
different language, and most especially different experiences bounded by diversity. In having these
diverse nature we also have diverse way of interpreting or criticizing a certain thing.
Psychoanalytically speaking, unconscious is said to be the storehouse of those painful experiences
and emotions, those wounds, fears, guilty desires, and unresolved conflicts we do not want to know
about because we feel that we will be overwhelmed by them. For us not to be overwhelmed by
these, we unconsciously behave that it is done, without admitting that certain mistake is what we
have really caused. I remember one thing while this psychoanalysis was being discussed, it
happened last month, we did the pass-the-message game in one of our major subject which is the
Introduction to the English Language System (IELS), no one got the correct, concise, and perfect
terms in a given riddle by our professor, one of my group mate got furious about it, he pointed
someone to be blamed in our group mates and unconsciously started really investigate where on
earth we got the word ‘buying a pen' if it is a ‘Tiny Tim Took a Ten Thin...’. Consciously we know
that in this game, pass-the-message, it is subject to test, or to be broken especially if not everybody
in the group has the same understanding about it, but he is still into searching of who is to be
blamed, knowing it is a group participation, and so it is everybody's fault. It is just one thing out
of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory, he even provided different techniques in order to
understand one's behavior.
In relating Batman: The Killing Joke comic to Sigmund Freud's theory, some techniques
have seen in the story. In the comic, Joker was once a loving husband to his wife -Jeannie, and
soon to be a great father as his wife is carrying their child in her womb. Joker is a determined man
with a passion of being a great joker and to work in carnivals. He even made a promise to his wife
to ensure that everything will be good and perfect for their family. We know that a family man
always stands and work for family's wealth, and so Joker did, that even the worst thing, he will
jive into it for the call of duty as a loving husband, a responsible father, for the family. When he
found out that his wife and child died due to an incident, the consciousness has been started to be
expunged from his mind and unconscious activities made him baffle more and that actually made
himself crazy. From the frustration by not having a decent job that will provide the needs of his
family, the death of his wife and child, to the crime he went to, all these stressful happenings in
his life, the feeling that you were deprived of happiness in this world -which he only wanted to
have with his family is what truly made him unconsciously insane. He behave as crazy due to those
painful experiences he has from his family, and within himself. At the latter part of the story, when
Batman tried to have a talk with Joker, it seems like how the psychoanalysis theraphy is being
done, when Batman tried to recall what, when, and where does Joker started to be like that, and
when Joker started to think also but avoiding his past and says, ‘it is too late for everything...’.
Making the unconscious mind conscious is a really great battle within yourself, you have
to remove everything, the anger, pain, and of course the pride. These things were the burden for
someone to be not conscious, which is still unconscious. One thing I have learned about the story
of Batman: The Killing Joke, specifically from Joker's experience is that, you have to admit in
yourself that everything in this world is limited, as a human we might say we are limitless by
thinking, capabilities, and understanding skills but we are restricted by our environment, that not
all things can be done, that there is no ‘Batman' which can save someone from danger and that he
is just a fictional character. We have to rationalize things, it might be by means of being practical,
for example in pursuing a demand program over your dream program, avoid not to love someone
who is already been taken, and feel contended with a decent job even your salary is not too low.
Genuine happiness can not be found on material or wealth of the person, it is just in everybody's
heart, unrevealed not until you feel perfectly contended.