The Dark Side of Deconstructionism

I just watched The Dark Knight for the first time since seeing it last summer at the theater, and got to thinking that Heath Ledger's Joker is something of a deconstructionist, albeit a fiendish one. His villainy is characterized by placing people in situations that expose the fragility of their plans, self-knowledge, and especially their systems of morality. The Joker takes pleasure in getting people to break their own rules, act against their constructed ideas of themselves, and betray their principles. He calls himself an agent of chaos; Dante would call him a sower of discord.

Whereas the playful father of deconstruction, Jacques Derrida, turned social constructs topsy-turvy so as to open them to a little thing called justice, the playful Joker is motivated by chaos itself, pleasure from inducing panic, and perhaps a twisted sense of fairness. He holds tryouts for his "team" by spontaneously placing a weapon among three candidates. Late in the film, he gives passengers on two ferries the opportunity to live if only they choose to blow up the other ferry. He threatens to destroy one hospital in a city of many unless someone in the city murders a person who clearly doesn't deserve death. He actualizes the dilemma posed by Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor.

The Joker says of himself: "I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. I just do things. I'm a wrench in the gears. I hate plans." Of course, some of the most intricate plans in the story are his; the Joker betrays even his own rules concerning how he should operate.