Sociopaths in literature: Persuasion
The charming, social climbing, unreproachable Mr. Elliot from Jane Austen's
Persuasion:
Mr. Elliot is a man without heart or conscience; a designing, wary, cold-blooded being, who thinks only of himself; who, for his own interest or ease, would be guilty of any cruelty, or any treachery, that could be perpetrated without risk of his general character. He has no feeling for others. Those whom he has been the chief cause of leading into ruin, he can neglect and desert without the smallest compunction. He is totally beyond the reach of any sentiment of justice or compassion. Oh! he is black at heart, hollow and black.
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The charming, social climbing, unreproachable Mr. Elliot from Jane Austen's Persuasion:
You know M.E., it’s interesting that you post about sociopathic-like characters in literature, film, television and so on your blog. I’ve always identified with the so called villains of many stories way more than I do the so called heroes. The first time I became consciously aware of this preference was when I watched “House of Cards”, a Masterpiece Theatre presentation that originally aired back in 1990. I was all of 16. In the villain protagonist Francis Urquhart basically lies, schemes, manipulates and murders his way into the prime minister position in Great Britain. And just when the intrepid reporter confronts him with the knowledge that she knows everything and the bad guy inevitably has to “pay for his crimes”, he throws her off of a roof, makes it look like a suicide and goes on to become prime minister. That was the end. I was so delighted! It was great fun. Ever since then, I’ve always rooted for the intelligent antagonist, anti-hero, heroic sociopath or magnificent bastard. (See TV Tropes.)
ReplyDeleteWhy? Well the heroes are often on the defensive while the villain is often on the offensive. The hero so often spends his entire time in the story reacting to what the villain is doing or trying to do. In this way, the hero is reactionary while the villain is progressive. Also, heroes often exemplify the virtues of the common laborer (hard work, blind loyalty, honesty, honor and so on) while the smart villain exemplifies intelligence, cunning and insight. These are the reasons why I’ve always identified more with Lex Luthor than with Superman for instance, or Ozymandias verses all of the Watchmen or Keyser Soze from “The Unusual Suspects”, or Emperor Palpatine versus all of the Jedi, or Randall Flagg from Stephen King’s “The Stand” or Peter Wiggin versus Ender Wiggin from “Ender’s Game”… man, I could go on and on. And usually do.
Peter? I preferred Bean's little buddy. What was his name again? Achilles?
ReplyDeletePeter came off as an idiot in the early books. He wasn't so bad as the series progressed, but I still liked Achilles better.
Peter Wiggin starts off as a regular bully in the original book, but a 3rd of the way thru he makes a speech to Valentine about knowing that at some point he’s going to run something because that’s his nature. He decides that it’s going to be the world rather than a corporation and he persuades Valentine to help him. I thought that was very cool. If you’d asked me in 8th grade what I wanted to do when I grew up, and if I were honest, I would have said rule the world. LOL I didn’t like Achilles. He struck me as too much of a garden variety bully. I did like Bean though.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2009/08/21/az.woman.tortures.ktvk
ReplyDeleteThat woman is stupid.
ReplyDeleteposters often suggest a lack of empathy is not the defining factor for the Sociopath. I'm a cold s.o.b myself. I have no empathy for anyone. You'll find this with schizoids and recovering schizophrenics; we're often emotionally impoverished.
ReplyDeleteI've hurt a lot of women and I neglect my pets. It's not deliberate. I just don't give a shit. The Sociopath and I share a heart of stone. Where we differ is I have no interest in power play or "Bastardry" as an S friend calls it. Breaking hearts and knifing others holds no interest for me. In contrast the Sociopath is obsessed with power and winning.
I would put it to the group that "empath" on its own is an
inadequate description of a "non-sociopath". It implies that a person without empathy is a sociopath, which is not always correct. May I suggest instead: "empath non-bastard"?
Well if I go by your definition, my sociopathic tendency schtick gets changed to just plain sociopath since "playing the game" (what you call bastardry) has been some of most of fun I've ever had. It was literally thrilling. I'm commenting on your comment anonymous because someone else made this distinction on that love fraud website just last night. (A word of caution on that site btw. It's vomit inducing. I wanted to keep reading but couldn't because I found the posters insufferable. Reading some of those posts was like drinking a cup of ipecac.)
ReplyDeleteActually re-reading my post i didn't make myself clear; but I hope you get my gist. I hadn't seen it on lovefraud but it's a girly site and doesn't surprise me.
ReplyDeleteDaniel: yes, reading your blog you do appear to sound very much like my S friend. Be careful though, a mark pushed him into a crevasse. Never underestimate your marks!
It's not that sociopaths need to play games with people, it's that they need to act like other people in order to fit in. The main difference between a sociopath and other people with low capacity for empathy is that sociopaths still want to fit in, for personal gain, emotional reasons or for amusement. Autistics and schizoids should not care, and those with NPD do not wish to fit in, but to have people feed their ego.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said, “Daniel: yes, reading your blog you do appear to sound very much like my S friend…”
ReplyDeleteActually this isn’t my blog. I’m just a lowly commenter. In the past I’ve been careful to state that I have sociopathic tendencies rather than say that I am a sociopath proper, hence my previous comment about using your definition. I wanted to study and examine the concept from a variety of angles to clarify the issue and leaving comments here assisted me in that effort. I’m pretty confident now that the underlying dynamics that give rise to the pejorative label of sociopath do apply to me. Mores the pity. :-)
I think the distinctions you made in your second comment are pretty reasonable and to the point.
Something interesting was said by Daniel Birdick in his first comment on this blog:
ReplyDelete"...it’s interesting that you post about sociopathic-like characters in literature, film, television and so on your blog. I’ve always identified with the so called villains of many stories way more than I do the so called heroes...."
I personally couldn't agree more when it comes to indentifying more with "villains" in almost any story. Mainly for the same reasons in which Daniel used to explain his reasons, the villian is typically the one who sets it all in motion, he's the one who pushes things too far, and when it comes to wits, its almost without debate that the villain can out talk, out charm, out plot the hero in any story....take aways Superman;s powers and no matter the will he has, Lex Luthor will without a doubt break him....
The only real difference between the heros of the story and the villain, is the will to act. A villain always has to make the first move and destroy something or someone before the hero knows what it'll take to stop him. The villain seems to know what he is from the very begining, where as the hero needs to be shown.
If someone was to use this hero/villain train of thought in the real world...well...then sociopaths would be ranked among supervillians.
The downside is, in the real world, everyone has a little villain in them....sociopaths just embrace certian elements of it more then others.
Personally, I am a grey rainbow, nothing is set in stone, it bleeds together ever so slowly and becomes grey all over to me.
Being a grey rainbow where nothing is set in stone allows me to freely move around. As Daniel also stated, I'm not your true blue sociopath either, though I have a gret deal of the traits, I wouldn't call myself a sociopath because I too wanted to do further research on the subject.
ReplyDeleteEven after being clinicly diagnosed anti-social....I'd rather come to my own judgement on it rather then listen to a shrink...though for me too....this blog is making it harder to say otherwise.
Maybe who ever is writing this is getting a kick out of knowing that by people reading his blog, they are realizing things about themselves. That alone is a bloggable subject. lol
I'm a normal but I identify with villains a lot more than the heroes in the stories. Why? Because many of those hereoes are so "Mary Sue" perfect, they can't be believable! It's like what the hell... the authors must be playing out their fantasies or something. In reality, everyone has moral ambiguity in their decisions and reactions and they'll change their stands, according to different moments or different moods. And if you come across someone who only has a "rigid right and wrong" moral code and who can't be swayed by anyone, run!!!! He or she is probably one of those crazy fundamentalists who think that it's okay to burn down someone's home and murder others, just to punish someone. Ah, how deluded the human race can be... lol.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, some of the most interesting materials are probably those where there are no heroes or villains, only humans with different purposes and motivations. Too bad I've so little time and inclination to read fiction these days.
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