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One starless night thirty-eight individuals watched from their apartments as Winston Moesely repeatedly stabbed a shrieking young woman. Although Moesely was briefly stopped by a distant shout of "leave that girl alone" (Maeder, 12/13/98), causing him to run away, he returned ten minutes later to leisurely kill the twenty-eight-year-old as she lay upon the hearth of her apartment building. Moesely took his time as she begged for help from her neighbors. On March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese died on the streets of Queens, by herself, as her neighbors watched passively and turned a blind eye to the chaos surrounding them.
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We exist in a world of chaos - uncaring, random, and deadly. Every day, members of our species struggle for their very existence against this chaos, trying to contain and control it. Although our mere existence in the universe does not create a sense of obligation for it, we seemed to be damned if we don't struggle against the universe and the chaos it wields. How we forge the struggle against chaos varies: science, morals, physical action, and willful blindness are employed.
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Although these coping methods are represented by a variety of characters in Alan Moore's Watchmen, intrinsic failures to each method exist. Each character encountered ultimately succumbs to the chaos and the universe with no sense of obligation.
With a quick glance through the graphic novel, we sense that Moore's reality parallels our own. From the cover the audience quickly surmises the setting: New York City, with its trademark Empire States Building. Yet, once within Moore's Manhattan, we see that the world is not ours: dirigibles float along the skyline for mass transit; electric cars fill up at free electrical power hydrants;
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