Last week my husband and I went to the opera to see Carmen. We saw the opera at the beautiful Academy of Music in Philadelphia. Before the performance, an opera expert gave the background of the story and the characters.
Carmen was written by Georges Bizet, and premiered in Paris in 1875. Here’s the basic story, as described by Wikipedia:
The story is set in Seville, Spain, around 1820, and concerns the eponymous Carmen, a beautiful gypsy with a fiery temper. Free with her love, she woos the corporal Don José, an inexperienced soldier. Their relationship leads to his rejection of his former love, mutiny against his superior, and joining a gang of smugglers. His jealousy when she turns from him to the bullfighter Escamillo leads him to murder Carmen.
In his presentation, the opera expert explained that Carmen was a complex character, apparently based on one of Bizet’s lovers. She was seductive, headstrong, flirtatious, demanding, temperamental, argumentative, quickly became bored of her lovers and wasn’t terribly concerned about predictions that she would die.
“Gee,” I said to my husband. “She sounds like a sociopath.”
After watching the entire opera, it sure seems to me that this character is, in fact, a sociopath. Here’s the famous aria from the first act, called The Habanera. To set the scene, Carmen flirts with all the men in the village, and they all want to be her lover. She has everyone captivated, everyone except the soldier Don José. He, then, becomes a challenge.
Habanera from Carmen, performed in Covent Garden in 2006.
As the story progresses, Carmen gets in trouble and is sentenced to prison. Don José is supposed to guard her, but she seduces him. Don José forsakes his sweet village girlfriend, falls in love with Carmen and lets her escape, ending up in trouble himself. Then he throws his entire military career away and joins Carmen’s band of gypsies. Carmen, however, gets bored of Don José; she falls in love with a bullfighter and flaunts it. Don José tries everything to get Carmen to return, from pleading to threats. Carmen knows the former soldier is on edge, but throwing caution to the wind, she taunts him with her love of the bullfighter. Don José flies into a rage and kills her.
The story was right out of the sociopath playbook: Over the top love bombing, followed by devalue and discard. Don José tries desperately to recapture the original euphoria, but failing, he becomes somewhat sociopathic himself—like some abused partners do—and lashes out.
Othello
A few months ago, I saw another classic drama with a sociopathic theme—Shakespeare’s Othello. This is a tragedy of love, deception and death, written in 1603. Othello is a Moorish general in the Venetian army, married to Desdemona. Iago, Othello’s trusted ensign, is angry because the general has promoted a younger lieutenant above him, and he hatches a plot to play people off each other so he can get what he wants. Here’s an explanation from Wikipedia:
Although eponymously titled, suggesting that the tragedy belongs primarily to Othello, Iago plays an important role in the plot he reflects the archetypal villain, and has the biggest share of the dialogue. In Othello, it is Iago who manipulates all other characters at will, controlling their movements and trapping them in an intricate net of lies. He achieves this by getting close to all characters and playing on their weaknesses while they refer to him as “honest” Iago, thus furthering his control over the characters.
The Shakespearean dialog is admittedly a bit difficult for our modern ears to understand, but with good acting we can see what is going on. Iago actually talks directly to the audience and reveals his intentions. You can see it here:
Iago’s monologue in the 1995 film Othello.
As a result of Iago’s plot, many of the characters in Othello end up dead.
Don Giovanni
Another opera that I saw (my husband likes opera) was Don Giovanni. This opera was written by Mozart and premiered in 1787. However, it is based on the legend of Don Juan. Yes, that Don Juan—the guy who went around seducing women for the fun of it.
The original legend dates back a play published in Spain around 1630. Here’s how Don Juan is explained in Wikipedia:
Don Juan is a rogue and a libertine who takes great pleasure in seducing women (mainly virgins) and enjoys fighting their men. Later, in a graveyard, Don Juan encounters a statue of Don Gonzalo, the dead father of a girl he has seduced, Doña Ana de Ulloa, and impiously invites the father to dine with him; the statue gladly accepts.
In the first act of Mozart’s version, Don Giovanni first tries to seduce a woman, Donna Anna. Her father shows up and Don Giovanni kills him, then escapes with his servant, Leporello. They come across another woman, Donna Elvira, who is upset because her lover has abandoned her and she wants revenge. And who was the cad? Don Giovanni. He makes a quick exit, and tells Leporello to tell Donna Elvira the truth about his character.
Leporello does, in a famous aria called Madamina, il catalogo e questo. He tells Donna Elvira about all the women Don Giovanni has loved—640 in Italy, 231 in Germany, 100 in France, 91 in Turkey, but in Spain, 1,003. Watch how Donna Elvira reacts to the news—it will seem familiar to many of us who were involved with cheating sociopaths.
Moral of the story
So why am I writing about opera and Shakespeare? To point out that sociopaths have been with us forever. I’m sure the playwrights, librettists and composers who created these characters were drawing from people they knew in real life. Watching these characters, we can all see reflections of what we experienced. The characters may have seemed unbelievable and outlandish to many audiences, but we know that the behaviors are real.
The only problem I saw with these particular stories was that in each one of them, justice was served. Carmen was killed, Iago was arrested and Don Giovanni was turned into stone. In the real world, as we know, that doesn’t always happen.
Some good points, Donna, and if you look back in ancient history as well as the Old Testament, and ancient writings and plays, the sociopath has EVER been with us, and since the dawn of literature has been the subject of writings and plays.
There is an old “Chinese curse” that says “may you live in INTERESTING TIMES” and sociopaths do give our lives DRAMA and INTERESTING STORIES to relate.
The lashing out of Don Jose against Carmen that you mentioned, when in total frustration and pain, he murders her is unfortunately to often true as well. Not that I think he was a sociopath, per se, even though he gave in to his rage and murdered her, but that he allowed himself to be driven to the brink of insanity….stepping over his own moral compass to do something that was not typical of or possible in his previous way of living.
I think that we, in our righteous rage against the devaluation and discarding done to us by the psychopaths, must be cautious that we don’t allow ourselves to become like Don Jose and strike out in that righteous indignation and righteous rage to our ever living regrets.
I can’t honestly tell you that I never harbored the sincere desire to murder or severely hurt one or more of the psychopaths that have attacked me. If I did tell you that, I would be lying. I have very definitely experienced that murderous rage, but I can only thank God that I did not give in to it. What I did learn from that rage though, is that if I do not keep control of myself, I can reach that point, and the feelings that it gives me are not pleasant and I don’t like them.
While I think being RIGHTEOUSLY indignant or angry is certainly no sin, even Jesus himself was righteously angry at the hypocrites who were money changers in the Temple, I do think that as He advised “do not let the sun go down upon your WRATH” (which is cultivated and malignant anger and rage). I think we must protect OURSELVES from that “wrath” because it destroys US, as it did Don Jose.
Great Article, Donna, Thanks!
I watched that youtube clip. Jeeze. Disgusting. The dialogue is so accurate, what she says and then how he responds, calling HER crazy.
Donna,
I would be interested in your take on Madame Butterfly.
After my best frienemy, K, met my spath, K decided he wanted to take me to see the opera of madame butterfly. This was highly unusual. K didn’t usually take me anywhere, we just hung out.
Now I know that spath had revealed to K that he was gay (as K is) or bi- or whatever. K wanted to do a “tell” about men who keep women for beards, for money or for whatever reason, but don’t really love them. The story is really tragic because madame butterfly (if I recall) kills herself and the spath and his new, more acceptable, wife take her son as their own. This opera doesn’t end with the spath getting just desserts at all.
Still, I’d like to hear people’s opinions about the spath character. Was he really a spath?
Skylar – I haven’t seen Madame Butterfly. I’ll have to tell my husband to put that on the list.
Panther – Yeah – I thought the Don Giovanni clip was on the money. That guy just didn’t stop. He tried to seduce a young woman on her wedding day (to another man, of course). Isn’t that just like a sociopath?
Yes, just like a spath. My P father tried to seduce my mom’s best friend on HIS wedding day. When my mom confronted him, he said, “Who are you gonna believe now, your friend or your HUSBAND?” What freaking PLANET are these scumbags from?! And can we send them BACK there? Sick.
Donna, you also bring up something very important about this topic, which is that sociopaths are not new to mankind. There may not be psychological literature tracing them back into the depths of history, but the creative literature sure does tell stories we all know too well….I really feel bad for the people who dealt with these types back before there was even a name for them, let alone books and support groups.
Sky, I am pretty sure you are right about Madame Butterfly.
On earlier threads there was a great list of movies with SPATHS in them. I put every single one in my netflix queue. There are a few that are unavailable now, but still, it is quite an education.
Getting a list of the classic arts featuring SPATHS would be a great idea.
The best thing for me personally is going to those spath sites and reading how they think. Even if it’s full of lies, i can see through to the truth now that I’m educated by LF.
Holy shit.
This is what inspired me to change all my contact information today. For good. There is NO HOPE HERE.
SK
There is a recent movie called Water for Elephants with a spath in it. It was a validating moment for me when I saw that movie, cause I pointed at my screen and said, “Sociopath!” the moment this guy came on screen. By the end of the film, there was absolutely no doubt that this guy was a spath.
There’s another movie called Twilight….oh, wait, I guess they aren’t spaths if they sparkle, are honest about their extreme desire to eat you, and confess that they broke into your house and watched you sleep all night….totally normal behavior….very romantic…yup.
🙂