Wonder Wom The Art Of Deception

As the great Mark Twain once said, “Everybody lies…” it is something that comes naturally to humans. Over countless generations, humans have near perfected the art of deception. People use it for a vast array of reasons, from personal gain to loss mitigation. Even in the process of obtaining truth, people sometimes use deception to get to their end goal. Super heroes do not stray from this natural tendency, they too, use deception. Many superheroes such as Superman, Batman, Wonder woman, and many more use secret identities to mask their true appearance. They use this appearance to blend into the world: to hide their supernatural abilities. Superman has Clark Kent; Batman has Bruce Wayne; and Wonder Woman has Diana Prince. It is only fitting …show more content…
It all stems from the basic desires of mankind: to feel like they belong to something (i.e a society) and to achieve some sort of personal success in said society (Smith). The curious case of William Marston is a complicated one, he tended to blur these desires into one lifestyle where it is hard to pick out the individual pieces. If one looks deep enough, however, one can see the building blocks of his life and the role deception plays in them. His coveted creation was Wonder Woman, the most successful female comic book series to date (Lepore). Thanks to the intensive research of Lepore, Wonder Woman’s origin story was shown to not be entirely Marston’s. It was a compilation of other author’s work blended into one model. Marston took the ideas from Child of the Amazons and Other Poems, by Max Eastman, and Angel Island, by Inez Haynes Gillmore and created the origin story of his beloved Wonder Woman (Lepore). By doing this, Marston was using a form of deception: propagating the belief that it was his and his alone. Marston fell victim to natural selection’s decision to give us the desire to prosper; the best way of doing so in this case was to deceive. Marston, without second thought, took his chance for success by the reigns and rode it to the illuminating horizon of …show more content…
On paper, Marston was an advocate for feminism, but in reality he was anything but. He preached that women rule the world and how they deserve to be treated on par with men, but his actions spoke otherwise (Lepore). Marston was seen on several occasions bossing around his wife (ves) in his under garments and not being a supporting father. On top of that, he had two wives (Lepore). Marston most likely truly believed in what he was saying, but it was his own brain working against him. Mankind’s ability to lie to itself was cracking at this instance; Marston was sub-consciously becoming aware of his false portrayal of feminism and acting the way he truly believed. Marston would never admit this because natural selection so cleverly ingrained this ability so deep into the human condition that they are oblivious to its very existence (Smith). Marston’s subconscious told him that the best way to achieve success was to project himself as a feminist; by doing so, Marston achieved a family life and found success in his professional career. Both of which are at the basis of mankind’s wants and desires. Marston was unaware of his façade and if he is unaware of its existence, he is incapable of knowing that there is