Satan represents everything God is not. He is evil, murderous, a liar, and a tempter. He is one of the biggest influences in the bible, manipulating people to choose sin. However, his character is never fully revealed, leaving a lot of questions unanswered. Popular culture has come to answer these questions by creating satanic figures for contemporary audiences. In this essay I will mainly be using a ‘world in, and in front of the text’ approach to analyse how Satan’s appearance and attributes are portrayed in the bible and how cultural texts have exaggerated, changed or interpreted these features.
The appearance of Satan is one of the biggest mysteries left by the bible. He is known as ‘The Tempter’, ‘Father of all lies’ and the ‘Creator …show more content…
The consequences of this is the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, as well as the introduction of sin into mankind. (Genesis 3). Sin may be defined as the absence of good much like darkness is the absence of light (McCrillis & D, 2014)*. Just as we inherit traits from our parents, the bible says we inherit our sinful nature from Adam and Eve because we descended from them. (Smith, 2016 ) Similarly, satanic popular culture characters have ‘inherited’ biblical Satan’s attributes. The Dark Knight’s Joker epitomizes deception and trickery. He offers two stories describing the origin of his facial scarring and never reveals which, if any are true. Additionally, he tells Batman where Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes are being held but he tricks him into rescuing Dent and the police are unable to save Dawes in time. He enjoys chaos, violence and mayhem much like Satan intends to disrupt our …show more content…
This essay highlighted some of the silences surrounding his character in the biblical text and how these gaps have been filled, and characteristics exaggerated in popular culture. The Dark Knight’s Joker embodies the evilness of Satan, he is deceptive, tricky, murderous, and ‘the master of chaos’ while Harry Potter’s, Voldemort is equally murderous, influential and controlling, he uses magic to manipulate and destroy lives. Although the Joker and Voldemort differ in appearance they are both portrayed as ugly, mirroring the ‘ugliness’ of Satan’s personality. They are represented as satanic figures rather than Satan himself. Hence, popular culture has emphasized the ability of Satan to work through others. To a degree, Satan’s characteristics are perpetuated through these characters. As for the ‘real’ Satan, the silences surrounding his character may always remain a
The appearance of Satan is one of the biggest mysteries left by the bible. He is known as ‘The Tempter’, ‘Father of all lies’ and the ‘Creator …show more content…
The consequences of this is the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, as well as the introduction of sin into mankind. (Genesis 3). Sin may be defined as the absence of good much like darkness is the absence of light (McCrillis & D, 2014)*. Just as we inherit traits from our parents, the bible says we inherit our sinful nature from Adam and Eve because we descended from them. (Smith, 2016 ) Similarly, satanic popular culture characters have ‘inherited’ biblical Satan’s attributes. The Dark Knight’s Joker epitomizes deception and trickery. He offers two stories describing the origin of his facial scarring and never reveals which, if any are true. Additionally, he tells Batman where Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes are being held but he tricks him into rescuing Dent and the police are unable to save Dawes in time. He enjoys chaos, violence and mayhem much like Satan intends to disrupt our …show more content…
This essay highlighted some of the silences surrounding his character in the biblical text and how these gaps have been filled, and characteristics exaggerated in popular culture. The Dark Knight’s Joker embodies the evilness of Satan, he is deceptive, tricky, murderous, and ‘the master of chaos’ while Harry Potter’s, Voldemort is equally murderous, influential and controlling, he uses magic to manipulate and destroy lives. Although the Joker and Voldemort differ in appearance they are both portrayed as ugly, mirroring the ‘ugliness’ of Satan’s personality. They are represented as satanic figures rather than Satan himself. Hence, popular culture has emphasized the ability of Satan to work through others. To a degree, Satan’s characteristics are perpetuated through these characters. As for the ‘real’ Satan, the silences surrounding his character may always remain a