Aspects of Narrative in The Dark Knight

1. Unit 1 – Media
Products and
Audiences
Narrative in The
Dark Knight

2. Narrative means
• Plot
• Characters
• Setting (in time and in place)
• Time (linear/non-linear, for example)
• Point of view / empathy /focus
• Single or multi-threaded
• Callbacks

3. Plot structure
• We tend to start ‘understanding’ films by
following and remembering the stories they
tell us. Nothing wrong with this, but as
students you need more
• You need to be able to use that core
understanding of the plot to develop analysis
of a a range of different issues

4. Todorov and Narrative Structure
• Todorov was a Russian writer who had a theory
that stories were cyclical – they went around to
return to something like their starting point.
• He identified a standard route through a plot,
which it’s possible to apply to a wide range of
stories
• It’s also worth here just thinking about how you
can divide the story up into ‘Acts’. I think it’s most
useful to think of TDK as five acts plus a prologue
at the beginning and an epilogue at the end

5. Todorov’s Structure
1. Equilibrium – there is an initial balance
2. Disruption – something happens to upset the
balance
3. Recognition - characters realise things have
changed
4. Reaction – they try to make things better
again
5. Re-Equilibrium – we get back to where we
started – ish. Things will be subtly different.

6. Equilibrium
• The story opens with society as it is – the
starting point. (Equilibrium is another work
for ‘balance’)
• TDK Prologue – Introductory scenes about
Joker, Gordon and Batman
• TDK Act 1 – Bruce/Batman is working with
Gordon to clean up the gangs from Gotham
Batman’s way, as Dent, the new DA, leads the
city’s ‘official’ legal response to the gangs.

7. Disruption
• Something happens to disrupt the equilibrium
– to make the world of the story ‘unbalanced’
• Act 2 – Joker offers himself up to the gangs
with a plan to kill Batman, and starts by killing
other public officials

8. Recognition/Reaction
• Recognition– the characters realise that
something has changed
• Act 3 – Gordon and Batman team up with Dent to
fight back, including the ‘deception’ plot thread
where Gordon’s death is faked, Dent is arrested
as ‘The Batman’ and Joker is captured.
• (I think TDK makes more sense when you put
Todorov’s stages of Recognition and Reaction
together, because they happen again and again.
This is often true.)

9. Recognition/Reaction
• Reaction – the characters respond to the
change in circumstances
• Act 4 – Joker escapes, kills Rachel and
disfigures (and corrupts) Dent. Joker sets up
his big final set piece on the boats to prove
that even good people will do terrible things if
you put them in the appropriate situation.
• (The ‘reaction’ phase can often make up
almost all of the running time of the film)

10. Recognition/Reaction
• Act 5 – The People are better People than
Joker thought they were (especially the ‘bad’
people). Joker has a final fight with Batman
and is captured by the police.
• (You can usually also ‘run’ this structure
several times over – so as well as the whole
film demonstrating it, each act of the film will
also do something like it).

11. New Equilibrium
• As the events of the narrative are resolved
things get back to almost back to normal – but
things have changed somehow because of the
events of the narrative.
• Epilogue – Dent is killed by Batman protecting
Gordon and his family. Batman takes the
blame for everything and runs. Gordon says
Batman is the hero Gotham deserves, but not
the one it needs right now.

12. Propp – Narrative, Spheres of Action
and Stock Characters
• A different idea about how narratives work
comes from another theorist, Vladimir Propp
• He said that narratives are filled with stock
characters – archetypes – who have particular
narrative functions which are always pretty
much the same no matter what the narrative
is.
• He identifies a wide range of narrative
characters, some of which are…

13. The Hero
• Batman/Bruce
Wayne. Not a
simple hero, though
– a vigilante who
operates outside
the law, but by a
moral code, trying
to do good.

14. The Villain
• The Joker. Not a
traditional villain –
he is a chaotic
character, without
any clear
motivation other
than to make stuff
happen. He is still
clearly Batman’s
antagonist.

15. The Princess
• Rachel Dawes. The
Princess is often the
reward or the Hero’s
motivation. She can be a
damsel-in-distress –
which Rachel clearly is.
She is rarely killed –
which Rachel clearly is.
Rachel is also a strong
professional woman with
a detailed backstory
(from the first film).

16. The Donor
• Lucius Fox. The Donor
helps the hero on their
way, by giving them
special or even magical
objects or powers.
• (“Any sufficiently
modern technology is
indistinguishable from
magic”)

17. The Helper / The Dispatcher
• Commissioner Gordon
• The Helper aids the
hero, sometimes as a
kind of sidekick.
• Gordon also acts as
The Dispatcher –
giving Batman his
quest and sending
him on his way

18. The Anti-Hero
• Harvey Dent / Two-
Face. He is the clear
candidate to be ‘The
White Knight’ but his
physical injury, and
the loss of Rachel,
leaves him morally
corrupted

19. The Father
• Alfred.
• Bruce is an orphan
but Alfred has
always been there.
Looks after Bruce’s
physical needs and
(quietly) his
emotional needs.

20. Narrative - Setting
• Gotham in TDK is a modern City – concrete
and steel, large spaces and tall buildings. Shot
on location in Chicago and Hong Kong

21. Narrative – Setting…
• Unlike Tim Burton’s Batman, for example,
which was shot in a specially built studio set
and was much more gothic…

22. Narrative – Setting…
• You can also look at the kinds of settings that
exist within the film and think about what
kind of spaces they are, and what kind of plot
developments or characters you would expect
to see in them

23. Narrative – Settings…
• Secret spaces – the ‘batcave’
• Business spaces – the bank, Wayne Enterprises, Lau’s offices
in Hong Kong
• Official spaces – City Hall, Police HQ
• Criminal spaces – clubs, bars, warehouses, back rooms
• Public spaces – the streets, the boats

24. Narrative and Time
• Linear narrative – it starts at the beginning (of
this bit) and ends at the end (of this bit…) –
it’s also the middle part of a trilogy…
• How much time passes? It’s not clear, but not
very much. It’s possible that from the
explosions that kill Rachel and disfigure
Harvey to the end is only a day or so… Perhaps
a week or two in all?

25. Narrative Threads
• The Dark Knight is full of stories. There are lots
of different threads that weave together to
make up the whole narrative.
• Some of them are major threads that we
follow for a lot of the time. Some are quite
minor but still have a decisive effect on the
narrative

26. Major threads
• Batman –v- Joker
• Joker –v- The gangs
• Joker –v- Civic Authority (the police, city hall)
and the public)
• Batman and Gordon (and Harvey and Civic
Authority) –v- The Gangs
• Batman and Two-Face

27. Minor Threads
• Batman, Harvey and Rachel – the love triangle
• The relationship between Wayne and Fox
• Hernandez and the ‘who is the mole in the
police department’ question
• Reece and the discovery of who Bruce Wayne
really is
• Lau and the Chinese gangs taking control

28. Callbacks
• A different idea – there are things that
happen, sometimes that you barely notice,
that turn up later on in the film with an ‘Aha!’
moment.
• Again, some are big decisive plot points, some
are just extra colour or flavour for your
experience

29. Major Plot Callbacks…
• Ramirez – at the very beginning her mother is back in
hospital. Near the end, to TwoFace – “They got me
early on – my mother’s hospital bills’. She betrayed
Rachel
• The gauntlets – When Bruce is looking at his new suit
he accidentally fires the knives across the room. In his
final fight with Joker he does it again.
• The Sonar – the phone Fox leaves in Lau’s reception
that maps the building in real time to help Batman
kidnap Lau – the return of it as the R&D Wayne has not
told Fox about that turns all the phones in Gotham into
Sonar

30. And minor plot callbacks
• Joker – When he escapes custody he’s like a dog leaning out
of the car window blowing in the wind. He later says to
TwoFace “Do I look like a guy with a plan? I’m like a dog
chasing cars – I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I
caught it.”
• Coleman Reece – the employee who reaslises who Wayne
is. There is a look between him and Bruce after Bruce saves
his life outside the hospital
• Alfred and the Bandit – he tells the story to warn Bruce that
Joker may not have normal motivation – ‘Some men just
want to watch the world burn’. Later he tells the end to
warn Bruce of the damage he might cause (and how he
might be doing what Joker wants) – “Did you catch him? /
Yes / How / We burned the forest down.”