One would call someone else a ‘psychopath’ as another word for crazy or insane. In media the word often applies to a killer with an especially gruesome or horrific crime. A crime only an insane person could commit. This is far from the truth. The diagnosis is hard to place, because psychopaths exist on a spectrum, and are not black and white. William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and William Golding's Lord Of The Flies have their fair share of characters like: Lady Macbeth, Malcolm and Roger who are psychopaths, and killers such as Piggy, Jack, Macbeth, and Ralph. The characters from these two stories demonstrate that not all killers are psychopaths and not all psychopaths are killers. Lady Macbeth is a ‘classic’ psychopath. She exhibits two key identifiers: a lack of remorse and lack of regard for ‘right and wrong’. Lady Macbeth is quoted saying “make thick my blood, stop up th’access and passage to remorse”(Macbeth.1.5.42-43) and that is exactly what happens, she never exhibits any examples of remorse unless it is fake. She says “Woe, alas,”(Macbeth.2.3.83) and “Help me hence, ho” (Macbeth.2.3.114) as if Duncan's death is new and frightening information, psychopaths have been known to fake emotions and remorse to get what they want. But
…show more content…
Jack and Roger are both wrongly assumed to be psychopaths, when they are just kids with mixed up morals. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are both driven characters, however Macbeth, the most ‘noble’ was the one with blood on his hands. Malcolm, Piggy, and Ralph are the characters that don’t appear at first glance to be what they really are, Piggy and Ralph are killers and Malcolm is a psychopath.
When people think of psychopaths in famous literature they think of Hannibal Lector or Moriarty.
However, two pieces of well known literature show that the word psychopath and killer are not synonymous. They show that not all killers are psychopaths and not all psychopaths are
Jack and Roger are both wrongly assumed to be psychopaths, when they are just kids with mixed up morals. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are both driven characters, however Macbeth, the most ‘noble’ was the one with blood on his hands. Malcolm, Piggy, and Ralph are the characters that don’t appear at first glance to be what they really are, Piggy and Ralph are killers and Malcolm is a psychopath.
When people think of psychopaths in famous literature they think of Hannibal Lector or Moriarty.
However, two pieces of well known literature show that the word psychopath and killer are not synonymous. They show that not all killers are psychopaths and not all psychopaths are