The Psychopath in Dostoyevsky and Poe: A Psychological insight of a killer

Abstract

My purpose in this paper is to explore psychopathic behavioural patterns in the
characters of three well-known fictional works: the short narratives “William Wilson” (1839)
and “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843) by Edgar Allan Poe and the novel The Brothers Karamazov
(1880) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. A psychopath is not a common killer, even if he might share
some features of their behaviour like anti-social habits and violent tendencies. The paper will
shed some light in the direction of understanding psychopathological traits by analysing
contemporary bio-sociological research on the topic. The study explores this through the
protagonists of these three fictional works. They are self-centred individuals who pursue their
plans with calculation and lack of empathy only to undergo a sort of death after their wicked
plans have been accomplished.