A sociopath is a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience. In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Claudius displays how he possesses some of the many characteristics a sociopath has. Claudius killed his own brother to gain power, manipulates his brother’s wife into marrying him for sexual desire, and planned to kill his own nephew from disclosing his deeds. Power is a type of ambition that gives a person the ability to do whatever they want and for that power they are willing to go to any extreme. Claudius shows how he was willing to kill his own brother to expedite his ascension to the throne. Claudius shows evidence of this when he says, “The memory be green, and that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom/ To be contracted in one brow of woe, Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature/ That we with wisest sorrow think on him …show more content…
This quote shows how selfish and inconsiderate Claudius is towards Hamlet’s feelings and his brother’s death. In the book, The Sociopath Next Door we see how Skip a sociopath would stab bullfrogs with scissors to simply keep himself entertained. Skip would enjoy watching how “their stupid jelly eyes go dead as they bled out” (Stout 38). Skip would get tired of stabbing them, thus, he craved to do better and started blowing them up. Skip loved watching the blood and goo of the frogs spread everywhere and adored this great idea of his. Thus, Claudius and Skip are both similar as they killed innocent beings for their own selfish pleasures proving Claudius to be a