Dissecting the Concept of Antisocial Personality Disorder in Houghton’s The Dear Departed

Abstract

Antisocial personality disorder is a mental illness that provokes a being to show a kind of disrespect for right and wrong and indifferences for others. It also includes lying, lack of remorse, callousness, glibness, and many more emotions of such relevancy. The present study aims to explore antisocial personality disorder in the play The Dear Departed. These include the Response Modulation theory of psychopathy (Newman and Lorenz, 2003) and the Fearlessness (Low-Fear) hypothesis (Lykken, 1957; Sylvers et al., 2011). The study is qualitative in nature. The close reading method is used for the selection of the text for analysis; further, textual analysis has been done to explore the psychopathic elements in the text of the play and more specifically to highlight the factors that trigger the major character of the play, Mrs. Slater to become a psychopath. The study explores that there are lying, manipulating, cunning, exploiting, arrogance, low levels of self-control, lack of moral values, irresponsibility, a lack of empathy and remorse major factors that show antisocial personality disorder in the play; and these factors also play a vital role to make Mrs. Slaters a psychopath.