Finding Meaning By Making It
Eve Tushnet has written
a
wonderful analysis of Watchmen. Although it's
one of my favorite works of sequential art, I can't recall reading much
commentary on this seminal work, certainly not anything this
good. I particularly liked Eve's tracking of various themes and
motifs, especially the notion of imperfect, relativistic perception and
interpretation: "[T]he comic is full of Rorschach tests: What do
you see?" My only quibble with Eve's analysis would be with her
take on some of the psychological makeups/motivations in the
book. Eve writes:
Rorschach's denial of any intrinsic meaning to the patterns
and
suffering in life, in his speech to Malcolm, is more obliquely in
conflict with his actions at the climax (in which he seeks to uphold an
absolute vision of justice that implies conformity to a preexisting,
objective pattern), but again both moments feel utterly true to life.
To me, this doesn't really seem to be a conflict, even an oblique
one. I think people who come to doubt that life has any intrinsic
meaning can be more motivated to create meaning where none
exists. We also see this in Malcom's actions after his optimistic
"bleeding heart liberal" belief system has been shattered due to his
interactions with Rorschach: Helping strangers on the street, he
says "In a world like this... it's all we can do, try to help each
other. It's all that means anything." (This reminds me of a
fallacy commonly heaped upon atheists: Because we deny the
existence of God, life can have no meaning for us. Wrong.
Life has the meaning we choose to impart on it through our decisions,
actions, and relationships -- in much the same way that made-up fiction
gains meaning. The pattern doesn't have to preexist for us to
attempt to create and conform to it.)
I also saw Doctor Manhattan's actions at the end as more consistent
than Eve did. For me, Manhattan's revelation that human life had
value stemmed more from his appreciation of the patterns and structures
that govern and/or emerge from human existence. Just as Manhattan
was curious to tinker with the inner workings of watches when he was
young (and human), now he plans to experiment with life itself. This
would help explain why he is sympathetic to Veidt's actions at the
end: Like him, Veidt sees the patterns and attempts to
understand/manipulate them. Veidt is a fellow watchman/maker.
By the way, here's
the
blog entry of mine that Eve was referring to. (And,
Eve: I'd love to see you follow up with the thoughts you weren't
able to get to in this essay. So many people seem to remember
Watchmen
as only bleak or depressing that I'd love to see you tackle the use of
humor in the work.)
