Introduction
The goal of this paper is to assess the personality of the Joker from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008) using Freud’s and Jung’s theory. First I will review each theory, then apply them to the Joker. The character of the Joker is an antithesis to the character Batman and demonstrates traits of antisocial personality disorder as much of his behaviour is against society.
The Joker’s role within the film is to bring chaos to the ordered society of Gotham city and Batman’s attempt to bring criminals to justice. The director, Christopher Nolan, depicts the Joker as a mastermind without a plan, demonstrating that the Joker has penetrated all levels of society from the police, government, to deep within the criminal underground. Batman maintains his integrity of not breaking his rule of killing, including the Joker, as he attempts to save the lives of those he cares about and the citizens of Gotham. In the end, Batman is successful at capturing the Joker and saving Gotham but not without the cost of two people he cares for: Rachel Dawes, his childhood friend, and the top prosecutor of Gotham, Harvey Dent, who later becomes the villain Two Face. (Nolan, Nolan & Goyer, 2008)
Freud’s theory is an interesting conceptual structure to apply to the Joker’s character for it will include elements of the unconscious, his drives for aggression, unresolved phallic fixation leading to his an unresolved/or resolved oedipus complex, a nearly absent superego and finally evidence of defense mechanisms throughout the film. Jung’s theory will take a different perspective on the Joker, highlighting different archetypes, attitudes and functions of his psyche, and the lack of individuation leading to his psychopathology. Both theories address the concept of the unconscious, however, the way they explain and conceptualize it are different. Psychopathology is also explained differently, where Freud would identify the oedipus complex and Jung would look at the lack of integration of the shadow archetype.
Sigmund Freud: Psychoanalysis
Freud’s Theory begins his view of the structure of psyche: the Id, Ego and Superego. The Id is a part of the psyche that is based on the pleasure principle, seeking to impulsively satisfy drives and desires immediately. The Ego is the part of the psyche that is based on the reality principle, developed out of necessity by recognizing the limitations of feasibility on what can be satisfied within certain limits. The superego is based on the morality principle which is the moral code of society, directing how one ought to act. The ego acts as a balance between the Id and Superego. (Brunet, 2024, L2.2 S5)
The psyche has levels of awareness: the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The conscious level is what we are explicitly aware of in ourselves and the world around us. Our ego and superego make up our conscious awareness. The preconscious is information that is just below our awareness and can easily be brought into awareness. It is also composed of the ego and superego. The unconscious is that which is not easily brought into awareness and where most of our psyche is. It is composed of the Id and the superego. (Brunet, 2024, L2.1 S6)
The motivation for our behaviour is due to drives from our Id are categorized into two different parts: the eros/life drive and the thanatos/death drive. Eros can be further broken down into ego or sexual/libido drives and thanatos is the drive for aggression. The ego drive is based on survival and meeting our primary needs. Our sexual drive is for the survival of the species through reproduction, creation and enjoying life. Our Thanatos death drive is a contrasting motivation for destruction. (Brunet, 2024, L2.1, S8)
We can experience three different types of anxiety based on the structure of our psyche: reality, neurotic and moral anxiety. Reality anxiety is a conflict between our ego and reality due to real world events like being physically injured. Neurotic anxiety is a conflict between our id and ego, where a fear exists that our ego cannot control our Id’s urges and we will suffer punishment for inappropriate behaviour. Moral anxiety is conflict between our ego and superego where we fear our ego cannot satisfy our superego and we will violate our moral principles leading to shame/guilt. To deal with these anxieties we can use defense mechanisms. Of relevance here is: denial: denying the source of our anxiety or pretending something is not relevant, projection: we attribute the source of our anxiety onto someone else, displacement: we divert energy to a target who will submit to our will, and fixation: being stuck in a psychosexual stage. (Brunet, 2024, L2.2, S3; Brunet, 2024, L2.2, S5)
There are 6 stages of our psychosexual development and the one of importance is the phallic stage: the physical focus is the penis and the psychological theme is understanding what it means to be a boy or girl. The main event in this stage is the oedipus complex: boys' sexual energy is focused on their mothers and their father is in the way. The solution is to identify with the father creating a proper resolution and developing a superego. If not resolved, it can lead to lacking moral character. (Brunet, 2024, L2.3, S6)
The Joker’s psychopathology can be explained through Freud’s theory in the sense that the Joker has a fixation in the phallic stage. He has an unresolved oedipus complex leading to an underdeveloped, or completely absent super ego. His ego is unable to control his thanatos death drive and seeks to destroy society. He has not identified with his father but instead projects his hatred for his father on other characters throughout the film. His unconscious Id aggressive drives have actually overwhelmed his ego to the point where it has become nearly all of his conscious psyche. There are moments where other defense mechanisms are demonstrated in the film i.e., denying he is crazy (Nolan, Nolan & Goyer, 2008, 25:05), projecting hatred onto batman, and displacing violence for batman onto pseudo batman. (Brunet, 2024, L2.4, S3)
In the first scene, when the Joker is about to enter the bus, the bank manager, mobster and the joker exchange a dialogue,
“Criminals in this town used to believe in things; honor and respect…What do you believe in?... I believe, whatever doesn’t kill you, simply makes you stranger.”
(Nolan, Nolan & Goyer, 2008, 5:16) Here we see evidence that the Joker lacks a superego, even as a criminal he has no moral code.
Later, the Joker explicitly demonstrates his Thanatos death drive when he gets the mobster’s henchmen to kill each other,
“Our operation is small, but there is a lot of potential for aggressive expansion.”
(Nolan, Nolan & Goyer, 2008, 31:14) We can easily see throughout the film that nearly all of the Joker’s behaviour is aggressive. Here, he uses the term explicitly, indicative that it is at the conscious level.
Evidence of him being stuck in the phallic stage, an unresolved oedipus complex and projecting hatred for his father on others can be seen when he kills the mobster after feigning death. He says to him,
“You wanna know how I got these scars? My father was a drinker and a fiend. And one night, he goes off crazier than usual…me watching, he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it, he turns to me and he says, why so serious? Comes at me with the knife. Why so serious? Sticks the blade in my mouth. Let’s put a smile on that face.”
(Nolan, Nolan & Goyer, 2008, 30:07)
His father was a very violent man and the Joker uses the knife throughout the film as evidence of being in the phallic stage: knife = penis. He was cut by his father therefore he now cuts others. A counter argument could be made that this is evidence of him identifying with his father and doing violence to others as it was done to him. In contrast, Redmond (2022) explains how the Joker has an unresolved relationship with his mother, leading to an Oedipus complex.
Carl Jung: Unconscious Archetypes
Carl Jung’s theory begins with how he structures the psyche: the conscious, personal unconscious and collective unconscious. The conscious is necessary for the existence of the ego or the first person experience of ‘I.’ The ego is the center of consciousness where our perceptions, feelings, thoughts and all cognitive functions come from including how we see ourselves and the world. The personal unconscious is where our experiences and interpretations are and available to consciousness. Here, we have individual complexes which are patterns of memory, emotions and ideas we organize around some cognitive theme. The collective unconscious is universal information common to everyone based on being inherited from our ancestors including archetypes. (Brunet, 2024, L3.2, S2, S3, S4, & S8)
Archetypes combine with personal experiences to create unique, individualized complexes. There are two laws of association that create complexes: the law of similarity and contiguity. The law of similarity occurs if things are similar, thinking of one will evoke thinking of the other due to a sense of grouping them. The law of contiguity has to do with things or events that are close in timing become associated together. Both of these laws create complexes from our experiences and archetypes. Archetypes are content from our past generations that give us a predisposition towards having some kind of concept, memory, interactions or experiences. (Brunet, 2024, L3.2, S5 - S6)
The self is an archetype that functions as the ultimate connection of our psychic existence or the nucleus of our person. It is at the center of our person that guides our development and is responsible for the process of individuation or bringing balance to our opposites towards a sense of wholeness. The persona is an archetype related to our public self/roles about expectations of us and how we want others to perceive us. It is how we present ourselves to the outside world, like a mask we wear, based on acceptable traits. The shadow archetype is the opposite of the persona where we hide the unacceptable traits. (Brunet, 2024, L3.2, S11 - S13)
The workings of the psyche are explained by three principles: opposites, equivalence, and entropy. The principle of opposites suggests that we cannot exist without dichotomies; good needs bad. Opposites within us is how our power is created through a contrasting force between them. The principle of equivalence is the energy that is created from our opposites, is equal on either side. The principle of entropy communicates how our opposites eventually come together within our lifetime, usually in middle age, and our energy decreases. (Brunet, 2024, L3.3, S3)
The attitudes of the psyche are a predisposition to react in a certain way. The dominant one is in our persona, the subordinate other in our shadow. Extraversion is when we are directed to the outside, external word, whereas introversion is when we are directed towards our inner self/ego. (Brunet, 2024, L3.3, S3)
The function of the psyche is about how we monitor events in the world. There are two irrational functions where we collect information directly. Sensation is when we use our senses as a base for how we perceive, and intuition when we develop a creative interpretation of events and a holistic story. The rational functions evaluate information as an indirect process. Thinking is an objective explanation of events and feeling is an emotional evaluation of events. We have one primary functional mode to monitor events and one attitude of how to respond add to eight possible personality types. We will have one dominant function (e.g., rational) and a secondary function of the other category (e.g., irrational). The opposite attitude would be in your personal unconscious. (Brunet, 2024, L3.3, S4)
For optimal development a person achieves individuation, where they become everything they are destined to and can acknowledge their shadow creating a wholeness between their persona and personal unconscious. Psychopathology is due to a one-sided development and a lack of balance of forces in the psyche. (Brunet, 2024, L3.4, S7 - S8)
The Joker’s psychopathology can be understood in Jungian terms by extreme unbalance of his psyche where his persona has become an actual mask that is explicitly the villainous opposite of Batman. There is no evidence of a healthy, positive prosocial person in his shadow, but he has a lot of power as the Joker person he portrays to others. There is no evidence of entropy leading him to healthy individuation which is a reason for his psychopathology. His personality type is an extraverted attitude, shown with reacting to the world, with intuitive dominant function, shown in a wholeness of interpretation, and thinking secondary function, of objectively evaluating. Introversion is his opposite attitude in his personal unconscious.
The Joker demonstrates the Trickster archetype, which is in opposition to the Hero, depicted by Batman. The trickster is one who brings balance through destruction and breaking the rules of order. (Rohleder, 2012) We see this in the film when the Joker says,
“Their morals, their code, is like a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They are only as good as the world allows them to be.”
(Nolan, Nolan & Goyer, 2008, 1:28:33) Here, the Joker is explaining to Batman, while in a cell of the Gotham police department, why people only follow codes and rules because it is inherently in their interest of survival. Elsewhere, when confronting Harvey Dent in his hospital bed after being burned and losing his fiance Rachel, he explains how everyone is calm as long as things go according to plan,
“Do I really look like a guy with a plan? … I just do things. The mob has plans. The cops have plans. Gordon’s got plans, you know. They’re schemers. Scheemer’s trying to control their little worlds. I’m not a schemer. I’m trying to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.”
(Nolan, Nolan & Goyer, 2008, 1:48:12) The Joker brings balance to the world by introducing chaos into an over orderly world.
The individual that becomes the Joker has essentially confused his persona of the Joker with his self. His self or any oppositional prosocial shadow is not seen in any part of the film. All but one moment, the Joker doesn't have face paint on in the film, and during the moment when he does not, he is trying to assassinate the mayor but impersonating a police officer. The real self of the individual who is the Joker is never known in this film. This unbalance of his conscious and personal unconscious is the root of his psychopathology.
Comparison and Conclusion
Freud’s theory addresses the Joker’s relationship with his father and mother as an explanation for being fixated in the phallic stage of his psychosocial development, identifying or not with his father seen in his displacement of violence or projection of his hatred for his father onto others, lacking a superego. Schultz & Schultz (2017) discuss how a resolved Oedipus complex is where the boy’s identification with their father is seen in adopting attitudes, mannerisms, behaviours, and moral code. The Joker has taken the violence from his father to an extreme form of identification. Jung’s theory addresses Joker losing himself and becoming the persona of the Joker pathologically. Both theories address the role of the unconscious in their own way. Freud’s theory would encapsulate the Id through Thanatos death drive being unhinged due to no superego or ego to regulate it. Jung’s personal unconscious would be the development of complexes based on the trickster/joker archetype that are overwhelming the conscious psyche.
Jung’s Theory is a better theory because Freud’s Oedipus complex is contradictory for there is evidence of projection and identification. Due to theoretical coherence by not having contradictions, Jung’s archetypal theory of persona and shadow is a better explanation.
References
Brunet, P. (2024). Lectures 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, & 12: CPSY505 Personality Psychology [PowerPointslides]. Department of Psychology, Toronto Metropolitan University. Desire 2 Learn. https://courses.torontomu.ca/d2l/home/903038
Nolan, Christopher. (Director). (2008) The Dark Knight. [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures.
Rohleder, D. S. (2012). The Shadow As Hero In American Culture: A Jungian Analysis of the Villain Archetype Transformed. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global Closed Collection. p. 146 http://ezproxy.lib.torontomu.ca/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/shadow-as-hero-american-culture-jungian-analysis/docview/1221018091/se-2\
Sean Redmond. (2022). Breaking Down Joker : Violence, Loneliness, Tragedy. Routledge. p. 189.
Schultz, D. P., Schultz, E. S. (2017) Theories of personality. (11th ed.) Cengage Learning.
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