Michael Acorn
Ms. West
AP English III
16 December 2013
Is Batman a modern day Sherlock Holmes? Should the title of world’s greatest detective applied to both their names? Sherlock Holmes, the great London detective world famous for his sleuthing skills and regarded as the best detective of all time. Batman, the protector of Gotham City from all injustice, created by the company Detective Comics, is also regarded with the same title. To better understand the synonymities of the men, their backgrounds, personalities, and their differences must be analyzed. As a child, his parents were murdered by a common street thug, which caused Bruce Wayne to develop into the Batman. The event causes a change in him, and he creates this guise to protect others from the pain he has been presented with. He has nothing but the family wealth and the family butler, deprived of what most children need to help grow into healthy people. Being left with no actual model to follow, he begins his journey to carve his own path. This path ultimately leads to his personality changes and his personal endeavor to protect all from injustices. Having lost his parents, his care has now been given the family valet, Alfred Pennyworth. Alfred is basically the grounding figure for Batman, preventing him from going beyond what he should, and not resorting to giving them his own punishments. Alfred can do almost everything a parent, except being unable to give love only a parent can. He was almost unable to become guardian of Bruce because the social services deemed a servant unfit to raise a child, but through bribery of the social service agent he was able to keep him. It was very fortunate as well, since he was probably the force that kept Bruce from becoming another one of the nameless delinquents thriving on innocence. He has always been Batman’s best ally, giving him advice throughout all his life, even as his career as Batman, much like Watson to Holmes, except a shorter duration. Needless to say, he is one the most influential figures on Batman’s actions and personality. Not much has been say of Holmes’s background, other than his birthdate of January 6, 1854, address of 221B Baker Street, and probable age of sixty years old. He began his detective work in college working as a novice, receiving cases from classmates. He worked as a consulting detective at the university for six more years. However, financial difficulties are what led him to
