Third Satire Exposed In Johnson's Poem, London

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Compare and contrast Christopher Nolan's portrayal of Gotham city in the Batman trilogy with Johnson's portrayal of the city of London. Samuel Johnson's poem, 'London' is an imitation of Juvenal’s ‘Third Satire’ which was written in 1738. The poem talks about the problems in the city of London at the time under the governance of Robert Walpole. It is a political satire where the main character, Thales is about to leave London as the city is brimming with corruption and crime and he cannot endure it anymore. A parallel is drawn between Johnson's poem, 'London' and Christopher Nolan's trilogy of 'Batman' which is set in the corrupt city of Gotham. Moral Decadence Moral decay is a term used to describe the decline or fall of the moral values of a civilization. While, what Samuel Johnson's poem describes is the “flatt’ring sycophants” crack the same joke in “a thousand ways”. Thales feel that all citizens displaying loyalty to Robert Walpole are corrupt and engaged in what Johnson earlier described as “awkward flattery” on the other hand in The Dark Knight(2008). Johnson's account of what's …show more content…

Ra’s al-Ghul, Talia al- Ghul, Bane, the Joker, Falcone tried to the same, they wanted a revolution where they wanted to destroy the city in order to free it from corruption. They only increased the number of criminals in city. Bane in Dark Knight Rises (2012) frees the criminals from the prison and tries to stimulate a revolution among the masses against the corrupt. He wanted the citizens to take law in their hands in order to build themselves a clean city to reside in. While power seems to be in the hands of the public, it is actually Bane who controls the crowd. Even they can be considered as Vanguards but in a negative sense. Their way of restoring the order was destruction. This can be considered a 'Vice'