Tamburlaine The Great Sociopath Essay

The Sociopath Who Would Be King
In Marlow’s play Tamburlaine the Great, the audience is introduced to a man who, due to the circumstances of his birth, is born a simple shepherd. Through his own efforts he increases in stature and eventually becomes the ruler of Damascus. The play examines his meteoric rise to infamy as he redefines war, through means which many would view to be barbaric abuses towards those around him. His cunning, ruthless nature could be argued to be the deciding factor in terms of how he achieved his goals, but this is not all that impacts his victories. Tamburlaine lacks empathy. He shows no remorse to those that he has conquered. Whether it is through wit or through brute strength, he only accepts outcomes that are a …show more content…
Maria Montes, a researcher for the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, defines a sociopath as one who lacks the ability to “draw the distinction between right and wrong, or more precisely, between what is socially acceptable as right and wrong” as well as suffering from the inability to have self-control (93). Other symptoms of this include being more “physically aggressive, impulsive, reckless, defiant, destructive” and those who suffer from this also are more prone to “lie and steal” (Satterfield 228-229). When the audience is first introduced to Tamburlaine, he is robbing Zenocrate and her caravan of servants of their jewels and gold. He denies that the land he resides in belongs to a man greater than himself, even though they are actually ruled by a Soldan (I.ii.22). What this shows is not only his delusions of grandeur, but also his defiance towards those who would be considered an authority figure. By claiming not only Zenocrate’s goods, but also her, he devalues her as a person instead seeing her as an object that he can use to his leisure. In fact, Tamburlaine does not even give Zenocrate the chance to object to his desires, immediately claiming that she “Must grace his bed that conquers Asia” (I.ii.37), thus stealing her own thoughts and desires from her. By the end of act I, Tamburlaine has taken Zenocrate for himself, and he has raped her between this and the …show more content…
As he begins to go on the warpath, Tamburlaine seems to embrace the brutality of his actions, and chooses to use this to his advantage. An example of this is the sacking of the city of Damascus. As Tamburlaine begins his siege, the governor of Damascus sends four virgins to him, hoping to sate Tamburlaine’s bloodlust through raping them. As the virgins approach, he immediately denies this as a possibility saying “Your fearful minds are thick and misty then; / For there sits Death ; there sites imperious Death / Keeping his circuit by the slicing edge.” (V.i.110-112). Prior to this, the Virgins pleaded to him that they be released as they had not had the opportunity to live long lives or had the chance to marry, thinking that rape was the only thing that he would consider. The brutality of this alone does not suffice, causing Tamburlaine to go further by decapitating the women and sending the heads back as a message to Damascus. He shows no emotion, whether it be anger or sympathy to the virgins, instead acting as a killing machine. Further evidence of the ruthlessness that Tamburlaine has begun to reveal to his companions is his decision to keep Bajazeth, a man he previously defeated in battle, in a cage to be treated as his pet. Tamburlaine merely sees Bajazeth as his spoils of war, not showing any indication that it was wrong of him to have taken a man from