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Eileen Sibrian
Professor DerOhanessian
E113B
15 April 2015
Evil Within
Lurking in the shadows, waiting in the darkness, an uncontrollable characteristic that
most individuals try to conceal, their hidden evil. Although most may seem to be genuinely
decent people, there is still a dark side they choose to not project to individuals around them.
However, there are those who are good but after a dramatic circumstance, they allow that hidden
evil to surface and envelop them completely. Thats what happened to Harvey Dent in Batman:
The Dark Knight Returns. Harvey Dent was once in law enforcement as a district attorney. But
through an accident, had acid burn half of his face, making him two Face Harvey. He has spent
three years in Arkham, a psychiatric home, being treated and having his face undergo plastic
surgery in the hands of Dr. Bartholomew Wolper. Harvey Dent used to be a good man but no
matter how well one can tidy up the outside, or how good of a deed one can accomplish, or how
prestigious a title one can achieve, evil and darkness lurks within the chambers of the heart.
Many individuals are oblivious to the evil that harbors inside of them. Just like Harvey
Dent in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. We already know that Dent used to be the DA of
Gotham city; and after the accident of acid burning half of his he attempted to murder one of the
Siamese twins he kidnapped for ransom, but was taken down by Batman and has been in Arkham
ever since. Yet, is released after his facial constructive surgery and a pass of mental health from
Dr. Wolper. A significance of the Batman comic is when Harvey Dent is first introduced in book
one on page fifteen. When we first see him, we see him in a wheelchair with his entire head

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bandaged. Dr. Bartholomew Wolper and Dr. Herbert Willing are standing on both of his sides;
both looking like they are comforting him and reassuring him that he is in good physical and
psychological health. This picture, however, is the first picture within the entire macro panel that
is split in half; containing a gutter within the space between the framed panels. There are also
two other panels that are split in half as well. Half of Harvey Dent is in the left panel and the
other half is on the right panel, hence, splitting him in two. These simple pictures allow one to
infer that there is a specific reason for this. The specific reason implied is, Harvey Dent may
have had his exterior fixed from literally being a two faced man, but what about his interior? The
last picture on the page is a whole panel with no gutters splitting it, and it shows Dent finally
seeing his face for the first time after the plastic surgery has been done and his face has been
recovered. In the last panel, Harvey looks shocked, his eyebrows raised, his eyes widened, and
red, but a mirror is blocking the reader from being able to see his full face. Why is he shocked
though? According to the comic book, Dent believed his disfiguration revealed a hidden, evil
side to his nature, he adopted as his personal symbol a dollar coin (Miller 16). He carried
around a coin that he strongly associated himself with; for the reason that this coin was double
sided. The significance was that one side represented life and the other represented death, when it
came to the fate of his victims. After the mutilation of half of his face, the evil within him
unraveled, and he allowed it to take control of him.
Nevertheless, evil is interpreted in different ways. In an article called Evil and
Incomprehensibility by Luke Russell, he states Some philosophers have claimed that our
reaction to evil actions differs from our reaction to non-evil wrongs. The differenceis that we
can understand why people perform ordinary wrongs, whereas evil actions are
incomprehensible. Darkness surfaces in people in many ways and some are considered as non-

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evil, some individuals steal, lie, cheat, or deceive. However, there are those who take it to the
next level to kidnap, murder, or become terrorists. So what evil lurks within you? There are also
those who have pure evil flowing through their veins, for example, the Joker, a green haired man
who wore red lip stick. The Joker simply has hatred towards everyone. It states in The Dark
Knight, book three, two hundred and six were slain during the Jokers escape from the David
Endochrine Show including host Endochrine and Dr. Bartholomew Wolper (Miller 131). The
Joker is an inherently evil villain who does not care who he kills, even if it was someone like Dr.
Wolper who was on his side. He kills people with absolutely no remorse. In an article called Evil
and Human Nature, it says, wrongdoingdone because it is wrongthe agent will take
pleasure in the wrongness of the actionthe agent will fail to exhibit the morally appropriate
attitudes (guilt, shame, regret, etc.) to wrongdoing. There are many who commit horrendous
acts without feeling guilty and full of regret. There was a murderer who was given the name,
Green River Killer, and according to his biography on biography.com, he murdered about eighty
women in two decades along Route 99, known as the Green River. He was a man who showed
no repentance of his crimes just like the Joker in Batman, he murdered women over and over,
and only stopped for the reason that he was caught.
On the other hand, a person can genuinely be a good person. Theres a quote by Frank
Ocean that says, Work hard in silence, and let your success make noise. Its very difficult to
maintain a lifestyle of only doing acts of kindness, helping others, and conserving selflessness. It
could be that a person maintains a selfless lifestyle, and if that person deals with anger, an
incident is possible to occur where that person acts out in his or her anger. Therefore, according
to the book Morally Good and Morally Right by John A. Oesterle, a morally good man is quite
capable of not doing what is morally right...On the other hand, there clearly seems to be some

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connection between being morally good and doing the morally right thing, even allowing for the
fact that an admittedly bad man, in the moral sense, can do the right thing at times. Being
morally good and morally right are two terms that seem to go hand in hand, yet at times, like this
excerpt states, one can be morally good but not do the morally right thing. For example, if one
witnesses a person being mugged but does not do anything to stop it, one will not be doing the
morally right thing. Being morally right is to act in situations when it is deemed necessary to
stand up for what is right. Still, most individuals will not do so. Being morally good is the way
one conducts him or herself. But then again, secret struggles are always present because, nobody
is perfect, but how one chooses to handle their struggles in the secret reflects on them in their
daily lives. It also mirrors how other individuals perceive them to be. If one takes care of the
darkness within him or her and doesnt allow it to consume him or her, the success to be a good
person will be triumphant.
Though we may all have a darkness, it does not mean that well all end up becoming
murderers; we can choose to remain morally good and morally right but not allow the darkness
to consume the good within us. Harvey Dent is an example; he was a good man but had a dual
nature to his character. A dark side that eventually he allowed to flow from the secret place of his
heart and spew into his veins until it gripped him completely. When his face was scarred, and no
longer polished, he allowed what was physically on the outside to reflect what was on the inside.
Anyone can polish the outside and make it appear to be nice and neat, but if one contains a
deeply rooted evil, its only a matter of time of cause and effect to bring that darkness to light;
just as it happened to Harvey Dent. It took one event of physically making him two faced to
really have him be aware that he really did have a dual nature. The Harvey Dent that was the
good district attorney and the one who now was full of vengeance and evil.

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Works Cited
"Gary Ridgway Biograpghy." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, 2015. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.

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Miller, Frank, Klaus Janson, and Lynn Varley. "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns." Book One:
The Dark Knight Returns. New York: DC Comics, 1986. Print.
Oesterle, John A. Morally Good and Morally Right. 1st ed. Vol. 54. Oxford UP, 1970. Virtue and
Moral Goodness. Print. 20 Apr. 2015.
Perrett, Roy W. "Evil and Human Nature." The Monist 85.2 (2002): 304-19. Web of Science.
Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
Russell, Luke. "Evil and Incomprehensibility." Midwest Studies in Philosophy 36.1 (2012): 6273. Blackwell Publishing Inc., Sept. 2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.