Monday, September 24, 2012

Watchmen: Chapter IX - page 25


PAGE 25

Panels 1-4:  The smashing of Dr. Manhattan’s fortress by the Nostalgia perfume bottle is a larger, more direct symbol of the shattering of the walls that Laurie erected to keep secret from herself the fact that the Comedian, Eddie Blake, the man who raped her mother, is her father. Like the deception she formed to explain away her heritage, this edifice shatters, symbolizing Laurie’s shattered reality.

The ease with which this clockwork tower shatters also symbolizes the fragility of Dr. Manhattan’s own self-deceptions (that all of time is set in stone and he has no ability to step out of the blueprint laid before him) as he finally makes a choice, on the following page, and changes his mind – something he claimed to be impossible.

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