On Evil Characters Of Shakespeare's Dramas

Evil is a common social phenomenon, which is also an inner factor of humanity as opposed to benevolence. As an important mental activity reflecting reality and humanity, literature depicts multifarious evils. Forming a literary peak during the Renaissance, Shakespeare's drama penetrates humanity and reveals the wickedness in it by the characterization of demons of various types. Firmly grounded in reality, Shakespeare reforms and refines those evil creatures and models a series of realistic demonic figures. This thesis intends to outline the development of the Shakespearean demonic character, and eventually pins down the reasons and causes for their artistic charms.The first chapter explores the source of demons, briefly summarizes evil and demonic figures, elucidates the connotation of demon as a special concept, and classifies and generalizes demonic images in literature throughout the ages.The second chapter specifically analyzes the demonic behaviors and the related psychology in Shakespeare's dramas, largely depending on Erich Fromm's theory on the nature of evil. This is generalized as being of three types: death desire, vicious narcissism, and the Oedipus complex. There is a range of demonic figures corresponding to each type: Richard III and Macbeth belong to the first, whose mentalities run counter to normality, and they both have a violent destructive impulse and a strong desire for power. They are keen on violence and killing. Iago and Richard III belong to the type of vicious narcissism: they isolate themselves from society, grab power as a counter-balance to their solitary plight, make judgment with egoistic attitude, and keep doing villainy in their own interests at the price of innocent lives. Richard III and Macbeth are also demons: they have the complex of patricide. Freud considers human nature to be evil and maintains that a man has a latent Oedipus Complex, but this thesis puts this Complex into broad senses.The third chapter analyzes the importance of demonic figures from a historical angle. Demonic figures are common in the Western literature. Originally it is a theological concept in...