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Investigation of psychopathy
Investigation of psychopathy
Investigation of psychopathy
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In the play Othello by William Shakespeare, the main antagonist Iago is often considered no have to real motive for his hatred of the main character Othello by literary critics such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who once wrote that Iago's soliloquies are the "motive-hunting of motiveless malignity". This observation could not be more accurate. Iago has no logical motive for his atrocious actions because he suffers from psychopathy. Psychopathy is a mental disorder in which an individual manifests amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience, etc. Psychiatrist look for certain traits, of which there are five main ones, when trying
After Othello kills his wife in bed, after he kills Roderigo, wounds cassio, kills his wife she shows no remorse when they capture him and he is found out. All he says is.”Demand me nothing. What you know, you know. From this time forth I never will speak word”(V.ii.1364). He is not sorry for his crimes he just sees it as if his job is done.
In the play, Iago will show a bit of his true nature which is arrogance when speaking or comparing himself to other characters in the play. When speaking to Roderigo he speaks about how his deserved the position as lieutenant not Cassio,”I know my price, I am worth no worse a place”(I.i.1274). He is narcissistic and is very sure of himself and his worth. Psychopaths can not see flaws in themselves and constantly over glamourize themselves into godlike
Morin describes psychopaths as having “little regard for safety, especially other people's. They often lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead… Their misconduct is usually well-organized, and they leave few clues behind. Psychopaths tend to be very intelligent, which makes them great con artists” He takes a huge risk when he runs behind cassio and stabs him in the leg. He risks himself even more when he goes back to patch up Cassio to keep up his image. The entire scheme of ruining Othello’s life, getting his wife killed. These actions are of someone who is in a life or death situation, but no he is not. He is simply taking this huge risk without cause, because he is mentally ill.
Iago could be considered one of the best manipulators in all of literature. He tricks Roderigo into giving him all of his money, he tricks him into risking his life to try to kill Cassio. He sets up this elaborate set up with Cassio inadvertently placing evidence of betrayal into Othello’s mind. He convinces Othello to kill his own wife, to question everything he
In Shakespeare's play Othello, Iago Is shown to be the villain. With the cunning use of his brilliance and manipulation, he is able to orchestrate an entire plot to take his revenge on Othello the center of all his ill tempered aggression. By lying to characters like Roderigo and many others, including his wife, in order to
One of the criteria for psychopathology is a grandiose sense of self, which Iago certainly does have. A first glimpse of Iago’s grandiose self-perception is first seenwhen the play begins in Act 1, Scene 1. In this Act and Scene, Iago discusses his jealousy and spite for Michael Cassio with Roderigo. Cassio has been chosen over him for a promotion to lieutenant by Othello. According to Iago, Cassio is a “great arithmetician” (I.I.19), and a “bookish theoric” (I.I.25), who has “never set a squadron in the field” (I.I...
Iago was very blind to seeing the faults in his actions. At least the personal faults. He was able to identify certain characteristics of himself but just assigned them onto other people. In some case a psychopath can “Projects his own views and shallowness … upon others” excusing themselves from the responsibilities and pressures of theirself (West 30). This behavior could be one of the reasons that Iago says he hates Othello. He sees these things in himself, attributes he does not like and projects them on Othello, the person who most recently wronged him, as a way to fight those unliked characteristics. Iago “does not regard his own actions as horrendously evil” because he believes that it is deserved in a way (West 28). As if with the mentality of “What else can he expect from appointing someone who has no experience. He deserves it.” Being “egocentricity is his vanity” prevents himself from seeing his flaws (West 34). Although who is to say that in the brain of a psychopath if they see their actions as a flaw. This prevention of seeing and accepting these flaws results in a hindered reality of wrong and right. Because if vanity is a characteristic of a psychopath then no psychopath will see what they are doing as wrong, at least not the average one. This would cause an inverse of morals creating a backwards thought of right and wrong. To make matters more confusing Iago mockingly knows what he's doing in wrong and subconsciously contests it with sarcasm. He even if the entire arguments hold no ground he still has to knowingly be aware that he is lying to everyone and yet he still asks “as honest as I am” (II.i.220). Yes it could be sarcasm but that joking attitude alone lightens up the tone for the severity of what he has done. Joking can in some
In Othello, Iago is Shakespeare’s most malicious character and serves as a vehicle to these two themes. Iago despises Othello; he has a strong will to destroy Othello’s life, yet the motive behind his plan goes unexplained. Iago is a great manipulator of the tongue and lies to everyone in order to advance his plan; however, every character in the play considers Iago an honest character, and Othello even associates Iago with light and eyesight. Othello continuously asks Iago to explain or make something clearer. Until the very end, Iago appears to be honest and helpful to the other characters, but underneath this seemingly harmless façade, Iago is a demon with the strongest will; he will stop at nothing until he ruins Othello’s life. Iago uses a positive appearance to enact his
In the tragedy Othello there is a character named Iago, his main goal is to be at the top. Iago at this point is willing to anything to get to his goal of being lieutenant. So what he does to get where he wants to be is lie to everyone; Othello, Roderigo, Cassio. One should play close attention to how he deceives Cassio. It would be a fair assumption that one could compare Iago to Hitler; due to his way of getting what he wants. Iago is direct but not enough to make the character aware of what he is really up to. He is very good at deceiving people. Iago knows his way around people and uses that skill to get what he wants and where he wants to be.
Have you ever met a devil who does evil for his own sake? Iago in William Shakespeare's Othello could seem like he has good motives, but I feel that he uses them as his excuses. The first thing that I did was uncovered Iago's motives. Iago is the most controversial character in Othello. He is able to keep his true thoughts and motives from everyone. Are his motives only excuses for his actions? Iago pretends to have so many motives that they seem more like excuses. Iago then uses these excuses to justify his actions, which are pure evil. I also feel that Iago has motives and actions that cause his actions. Does Iago have many different excuses, or does he only have one? This paper will prove that Iago has one clear motive and reason for his madness. Iago is not looking for justification that causes him to act the way he does. There is much more though to Iago. He is not a man of only excuses, he has goals with his motives, which causes him to act the way he does.
Is he a heartless man who’s only happiness is to bring sorrow upon others? No, Iago has a just reason for what he does, even though he causes the deaths of Cassio, Emilia, and Desdemona in his search for revenge; Iago is not a heartless fiend, just a man wronged. Fred West addresses the fact of Iago misrepresentation, “It is not sufficient to simply drape Iago in allegorical trappings and proclaim him Mister Evil or a Machiavel or a Vice. Such a limited view of Iago is an injustice to the complexity of his character, since Shakespeare’s studies in personality are acclaimed by psychologists for their accuracy and profundity” (27). West seems to be reminding us that just seeing Iago as the representation of evil within the play of “Othello” is the wrong way to paint him.
In the analysis of Iago’s character, we find that the true motive for his villainous acts is simply jealousy. Throughout the course of the novel, we are confronted with some of the motives for Iago’s jealousy. He believes that Othello has been having an affair with Emilia. He also despises Cassio because of the promotion he received.
Although the scandal that Iago came up with is a complete lie, Othello ends up believing him. Iago uses his ability to talk to people in order to accomplish his plan of destroying Othello because he wasn’t granted the position of the Venice army. (Sorto 1) A manipulative person gives himself the full-rights to do as they please without taking the rights of others into consideration, and they go about doing so by presenting themselves in the purest image of a good moral person, while they hide the true evil inside waiting for the right moment to dominate their prey. “They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible....
The play "Othello" by William Shakespeare is based on an Italian story in Giraldi Cinthio's Hecatommithi (Groliers). In "Othello" we encounter Iago, one of Shakespeare's most evil characters. Iago is an ensign in Othello's army and is jealous of Cassio's promotion to Lieutenant. Through deception and appearance, we see unfolded a plethora of lies and clever schemes. The astonishing thing about Iago is that he seems to make up his malicious schemes as he goes along without any forethought. Noted writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge describes Iago's plan as "motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity" (Scott 413). Iago seizes every opportunity to further advance his plan to his advantage. Greed plays a major role as a motive for his various schemes. Throughout the story, Iago portrays himself as a Satan figure. In many ways, Iago can compare with Satan.
to his self over-idealization, that he wishes to remain hidden. Unfortunately, Iago uncovers these flaws and because the flaws are unique to Othello, Iago is able to manipulate Othello more easily than anyone else.
While that is true, the book does give some background to Othello, and that background gives enough information to determine that he does, in fact, have this disorder. A major indicator that someone may be suffering from borderline personality disorder is, “A history of early loss or traumatic abandonment is also common, possibly due to death of a parent or parental separation” (International). Othello’s time as a slave was obviously very traumatic, however as a runaway slave, he had to leave his parents behind, assuming they were in the same place to begin with. Being left without any parental figures would result in a lapse of good judgment as he never had anyone to learn from, which he later displays when he so easily believes Iago’s lie and later kills Desdemona. Additionally, those that suffer from borderline personality disorder, “...may show worse performance in unstructured work or school situations” (American Psychiatric Association 664). Not only was Othello in the army, he was a highly respected general, meaning he embraced the rigorous military life and schedule. For the week or so that he was in Venice, the Turks were defeated so there was no enemy to be fought, no need for the strict plans he was so used to, which allowed him to embrace a more lax lifestyle
In Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago is the antagonist and villain who causes all the trouble and disorder. Othello is the protagonist, and is the main person Iago’s destruction and revenge is aimed towards. Othello is naïve and gives everybody his trust even though he may not know them or they haven’t earned his trust yet. He often refers to Iago has “Honest” Iago, which is a direct showing of irony because Iago is not honest at all (Shakespeare, I, iii. 289). Iago is so angry that Othello didn’t give him the promotion that was given to Cassio that he plans to seek revenge against Othello. He seeks his revenge against Othello by manipulating and lying to all of the people around him including his closest friend Roderigo, Cassio, Othello’s wife Desdemona and even his own wife Emilia. In the end, Iago’s lies and manipulation led to the deaths of Roderigo, Emilia, Othello and Desdemona. This isn’t the first time many of these individual characteristics have shown up in one of Shakespeare’s plays.
William Shakespeare’s tragic drama Othello boasts quite a little list of abnormalities in both occurrences and personal behavior.
In a story, there will always be a villain or a protagonist, which makes the story what it is. Without the conflicts or problems that the villains start, there really wouldn’t be any stories, or if there were they would be boring because nothing dramatic would happen in them. William Shakespeare wrote many plays that had villains or protagonists in them, and because of this his plays were very appealing to the audience to sit and watch them. Some of the plays that Shakespeare wrote include the texts Othello, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Hamlet, all which have a villain or protagonist in the story line.