The idea of personality disorder or paranoia has been used for centuries. The word “Paranoia” is originally borrowed from Greek language “para” meaning along side and nous means mind or intelligence. The Greek used the term to describe the mental abnormalities; however the Paranoia term appeared in 17th century for mental illness or disorder. Paranoid personality disorder is a condition; where an individual shows personality disorder; mainly characterized by exaggerated sensitivity to rejection, resentfulness, and distrust of people around him.Such individual often misinterpret friendly behaviour with suspicions and doubts. Often such worries are related to sexual (dis) loyalty of their partner.
The paranoid people need excessive and repeated assurance from their partners and friends. These individual normally are malevolent from the beginning; but exhibit such behaviour at a later age in many ways. For example they are often preoccupied about being cheated or the being doubtful about the loyalty of their friends. Instead of discussing such fears openly’ they hide such uncertainties for the fear of being harmed.
They often perceive normal jokes or remarks insulting and threatening and try to interpret them as personal attack or insult. They are often unforgiving and for the slightest injury or insult they can flare up unnecessarily without any justification. Shakespeare has developed many characters that exhibit paranoid behaviour; such as Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear. All of these character are not paranoid in the beginning, but the problem starts from their excessive obsession with one single issue which is a typical trait of a mentally disordered person.In real life it may be hard to come up with some clear example; its only fictional characters where readers can analyse a character realistically. This paper will discuss the character of Othello.
The problem with Othello is his excessive jealously about his wife. It is this jealousy that destroys his life and the people around him. The character of Othello from the beginning exhibits this paranoia with his wife. Being a Moor; he has this fear of being a wrong match for his wife; a fear that constantly keep him over suspicious of his wife Desdemona’s behaviour.
Another issue is his lack of trust on his friends. He considers his best friend Cassio a cheater; which he is not. This fear of cheating is boiling inside him and like a typical paranoid person; he is looking for the time to restore his so-called lost honour. Being doubtful about Cassio loyalty; Othello tries to form a link between his friend and his wife; which is again a thing made up in his mind. This suspicion is confirmed by the simple praise that Cassio does without any ulterior motive for his wife.
But Othello mental order is getting worse with each passing day; he considers this praise a kind of sexual advancement by his friend towards his wife. Ironically there is a friendly kissing scene; which for a person like Othello is more than enough to prove that his wife is unfaithful and his friend has been cheating on him Another symptom is his inferiority complex. It’s under this complex that makes him oversensitive about his color and race. He cannot forgive personal insult or a joke; no matter how small they are; again a typical symptom of a paranoid individual who are always looking for revenge.
Othello was a Moor; deep inside he has this feeling of being less equal in the Italian society. In the beginning; a man accuses him of seducing his daughter with his mysterious charm. The reason for this attitude is the public opinion. Being a foreigner; he stands apart from everyone in the Venice. Othello was sensitive about it; which is further exploited by Iago who convinces him that Desmonda cannot be faithful to foreigner who is an unnatural sexual match. Thus we can see Iago makes him believe that he has less sexual charm than the men of Venice.
It is under this misconception that his jealousy begins to build up against Desdemona The character of Othello is typical paranoid man whose personality forms a strong relation between love, sexuality revenge and honour. Othello shows the disintegration of male authority and loss of female power, the isolation of men and women and association of sexual consummation with death. Thus we can conclude that Othello has been a tale of green eyes monster jealousy arousing from sexual inferiority leading to revenge, violence and death of so many characters under a mental disorderPeople with personality disorder have been able to function at the high level, as we can see in Shakespeare’s drama (including Othello). However it’s the situation in the drama or novel where a character is unable to cop with the crisis leading to excessive paranoia and violence.
The problem with such kind of characters is the lack of seeing situation realistically especially their own shortcoming that often leads them to miserable end in real and fictional life.
