Batman Begins

Batman is a hero because he mastered his shadow and his persona.
Batman is really Bruce Wayne, a wealthy businessman who personifies himself as a playboy to the Gotham City elite. Bruce Wayne is not the playboy they think he is. He is a man who fell into a well where he was attacked by bats as a child. This is referring to Jung’s theory on primordial images in the collective unconscious. We as people are not taught to be afraid of the snakes or of the dark. It is an inheritance from our earliest ancestors which is embedded in us from birth. Jung states, “Man doesn’t have to learn these fears through experiences with snakes or the dark, although such experiences may reinforce or reaffirm his predispositions.” This means that we don’t have to go through a certain incident to make us fear the dark or snakes, but if an incident does occur, it will only heighten our fear.
Bruce lost his parents at the age of 8. He had a classic Oedipus complex. Bruce’s parents took him to an opera the night they died. In this opera, there was a scene with bats; tapping into his collective unconscious. Becoming afraid, his parents left the show early where they were met by Joe Chill, their murderer. Bruce watched as his parents were killed. This is the finalization of the Oedipus complex. Bruce felt, as any child would, that his thoughts became reality. When we are children, we cry, and we get what we want. Bruce, not knowing that reality doesn’t happen that way, feels guilty in the sense that his wish for his father’s death came true. The guilt that he has is then pushed into what Jung calls the personal unconscious which becomes the bat cave.
Bruce finds himself as an adult now in prison in Bhutan. He there meets Ducard who informs him of this new group of people wanting to fight for all the wrong reasons, The League of Shadows. This is part of Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey.” At this time, Bruce is receiving “the call,” when everything he’s every known or thought he knew was...