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Bradley J. Kelley
Ms. Jennifer Enoch
ENC1145
27 January 2015
The Worlds Greatest Detective: The Dark Knight as Detective Fiction
In the realm of comic books, particularly those pertaining to
super heroes, Batman is considered to be the greatest detective in the
world. Although he lacks super powers, he protects his city, and often
times the world, by solving crimes with his immeasurable arsenal of
tools, perfected physical state, and genius level intellect. Batmans
seemingly unmatchable detective skills have been present since the
characters inception, but never has it been so masterfully depicted
onscreen as it was in the film, The Dark Knight (Nolan, 2008). The Dark
Knight is one of the best representations of Batman as detective fiction
in the way that the genre is defined in the book, The Figure of the
Detective: A Literary History and Analysis, as it has a detective in the
form of Batman, a criminal in the form of the Joker, a crime in the form
the Jokers killings, and threatened innocent bystanders in the form of
Gotham City (Brownson). This is also greatly due to the way in which
the film uses three of the major modes of communication to convey to
the viewers that Batman is an indomitable figure of the detective who
will stop at nothing to find justice (Arola, Sheppard, and Ball).

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While the entirety of the film is an example of detective fiction,
one scene in particular displays Batman indisputably as the storys
detective. In this scene, Batman is standing atop a skyscraper as he
intercepts a radio transmission made by the film's criminal, the Joker,
about a nearby crime. Batman immediately heads to the crime scene
and is met there by the city's police commissioner, James Gordon. At
the crime scene, Batman and Commissioner Gordon find two murdered
men that had been fatally shot and a newspaper clipping about the
city's mayor. They both quickly realized that this was an act of the
Joker and that he was trying to send a message about the important
city figures that he planned to kill next. Batman and Commissioner
Gordon go over the clues they found and came to the conclusion that
the Joker is planning on killing the city's mayor, along with the city's
district attorney, Harvey Dent. These deductions were made due to the
fact that the two murder victims and the newspaper clipping about the
mayor, all had the Joker's signature face paint emblazoned over them.
Even further, the last names found on the two corpses were Harvey
and Dent respectively. After piecing together the clues, Batman and
the commissioner realize that they must find and stop the Joker before
he can kill anyone else. Batman then proceeds to inspect the scene for
any place where the bullets that killed the two men might have ended
up. The scene ends with him finding a bullet hole in the wall behind the
bodies and then, using a drill tool from his utility belt, he removes that

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segment of the wall in order for it to be used for further inspection.
The authors of Writer/Designer describe the linguistic mode as
the use of language, which usually means written or spoken words in
order to relay ideas or meanings (Arola, Sheppard, and Ball) and thats
why it was used to profoundly communicate Batman as a true figure of
the detective in the scene from The Dark Knight. In an effectively
creepy manner, the linguistic mode was used at the very beginning of
the scene, as Batman was perched atop the skyscraper while scanning
for radio frequencies. While doing so, he intercepted a radio broadcast
made by a wretched and ominous voice that said 8th and Orchard,
youll find Harvey dent there. The linguistic mode was again used in
the form of two nametags, with one being on each of the two dead
bodies left at the crime scene. One nametag read Richard Dent while
the other nametag read Patrick Harvey. The intercepted radio
message and the nametags play-on-words revealed that the Joker
planned on killing district attorney Harvey Dent but more importantly it
displayed, through the use of written and spoken word, that the Joker
sadistically intended for Batman to use his detective skills to find out
his who his next targets were.
Through the use of the aural mode, which the authors of
Writer/Designer describe as the use of sounds and tones to
communicate and understand a message (Arola, Sheppard, and Ball),

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Batman is continued to be powerfully communicated as a figure of the
detective. The use of the aural mode is first implemented beautifully in
the scene in the form of the films musical score, which was
orchestrated by the masterful Hans Zimmer (Nolan, 2008). The score is
dark, brooding, and constantly building, which was done purposefully
to invoke in the viewer the feeling of suspense and pressure that
Batman feels as he is trying find and stop the Joker. Hans Zimmer
accomplishes this by using instruments that create the sounds in the
movies music that people have learned, through watching various
other movies and media, to associate with suspense and pressure. The
aural mode is continually used in the scene, through the tone in which
Batman and Commissioner Gordon each speak to each other. For
example, there is a part of the scene where the commissioner asks
Batman what clues he intends to find in the bullet-hole ridden wall. The
tone in which he asks this is filled with doubt and confusion, as he is a
lost as to what Batman believes he can find. Batman responds to him
with one word, fingerprints. Batmans tone is steadfast and confident
as he absolutely know that hell find exactly what he intended to. This
conversation, and the tones involved are a perfect display of Batman
as a figure of the detective, in that he uses his detective skills to
remain confident and find clues in unlikely places, even when there is
reasonable cause for doubt.
Perhaps the most prolific mode of communication used in this

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scene to epically capture Batmans grandeur as a figure of the
detective is the visual mode. According to the authors of
Writer/Designer, the visual mode refers to the use of images and
other characteristics that readers see and includes color, layout,
style, size, and perspective in order to communicate an idea or
message (Arola, Sheppard, and Ball). Director Christopher Nolan
effectively does exactly this in the scene as he displays Batman
standing on top of a towering skyscraper at night while listening to
radio frequencies. This part of the scene is shrouded in the cover of
night and the camera perspective slowly encroaches upon Batman and
this is done to communicate the dark overtones of the film itself, but
more importantly to communicate the heros shadowy and methodical
ways as a detective. To further this notion, Christopher Nolan even shot
this part of the film with an IMAX camera, which adds an enormous
depth to the scene and captures a large part of the city in the
backdrop. This not only gives depth to the perception of Batmans
methods as a detective but in a way communicates that he is
protecting and watching over the entire city, which is this films
embodiment of threatened innocent bystanders (Brownson). The
visual mode is strongly used again as the perspective shifts to when
Batman meets the police commissioner at the recently discovered
crime scene. The location is a dimly lit apartment room that was
ransacked and dismantled with two dead bodies leaned over across the

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top of a table. The camera swiftly glances over the length of the room
showing that every facet of the apartment is wrecked and the two
corpses are haphazardly sprawled on the table, completely lifeless.
This eerie visual was meant to unsettlingly convey to the viewers the
mysterious and murderous nature of the person responsible for this
vicious act and moreover, the films criminal, the Joker (Brownson).
The genre of detective fiction is a concise and particular
category, rife with specifications and requirements for the
consideration of being representative of it. Even still, Batman remains
a more than acceptable example of detective fiction. He accomplishes
this by bearing almost all of the pillars that make up the genre of
detective fiction, as described by Brownson in The Figure of the
Detective: A Literary History and Analysis. A reigning illustration of this,
through its multimodality, is the film The Dark Knight, even though it
lacks what every other facet of Batman lore is similarly without; the
foundational pillar of the chronicler (Brownson). At first glance, this
lack may seem like a knock on the merit of Batman as a figure of the
detective, but in fact just the opposite holds true. The fact that
Batman, and almost all of his surrounding mythos, lacks the presence
of a chronicler proves that the definition of detective fiction can be
stretched and slightly redefined because of how Batman exemplifies
the detective genre without rigidly conforming to what was set forth by
Brownson. Even further, this proves that other pieces of fiction can be

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qualified as detective genre as well, without having to follow
Brownsons definition word-for-word, so long as they incorporate parts
of his definition in an effective and captivating manner.

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Work Cited Page
Arola, Kristin L., Jennifer Sheppard, and Cheryl E. Ball. Writer/designer.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. Print.
Brownson, Charles. The Figure of the Detective: A Literary History and
Analysis. Jefferson: McFarland &, 2014. Print.
The Dark Knight. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Perf. Christian Bale, Heath
Ledger, Aaron Eckhart. Warner Home Video, 2008. DVD.