This Resource is for students Studying ‘The Dark Knight’ as a Personal Text Response for Year 11 VCE Curriculum AOS1 Reading & Exploring Texts

Questions to ask about how the text resonates with student’s own memories and life experiences:

• What aspects of your own experiences reflect the experiences of the characters in the text?
• Have you experienced any major life events that reflect key moments in the plot?
• What are your values and ideas about the world, and how do they compare with those presented in the text?
• Can you draw parallels with your own observations of the world as represented in the text?
• Can you compare the cultural, social, and historical values embedded in the text and compare these with your own values?

Connections to The Dark Knight

• The Dark Knight creates a chaotic tale of struggling with human limits against terror – taps into fear of global terror – terrorists rely on fear to maintain their power
• When Batman stands in the burning rubble – there are horrific parallels to images of ‘ground zero’ after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the twin towers in New York & the War on Terror
• The Joker is a fantasy version of a terrorist, he has no clear political ideology but he wants to impart chaos, destruction, and fear on Gotham City
• Batman is part of a fantasy story – a costumed crime fighter –he can be considered on a deeper level as an authority figure who needs to maintain control over various evil groups such as real-world terrorists and terrorism groups
• Harvey Dent was a hero ‘white knight’ but turns into a revenge bent criminal ‘Two-Face’ – the film shows how seemingly normal good people can turn into terrorists if given the right motive
• Batman is in a morally uncertain middle ground when he ponders his failure against the Joker – he questions how far must he go in order to defeat such overwhelming forces of evil
• The Joker killing Rachel Dawes and scarring Harvey Dent leads Batman down a morally questionable path – how does Batman reconcile his own humanity with his impulse for violent retribution against the Joker?
• Is phone surveillance of Gotham City by techno expert Lucius Fox a real-life security concern? – it gives Batman power to listen in on every conversation in Gotham
• The film questions the morals of people like Batman who has chosen to cross all ethical lines – is Batman morally compromised, a vigilante rather than good guy fighting evil?
• If extraordinary circumstances are needed to control terrorists – what part of ourselves do we lose when we choose to take immoral steps to stop the villains?
• Christopher Nolan’s film provides critical questions about fear of terrorism and also what governments do regarding threats – is war the answer against terrorists?

All Resources created by englishtutorlessons.com.au Online Tutoring using Zoom for Mainstream English Students in the Victorian VCE Curriculum