Abstract
‘Psychopaths, Sociopaths and the Psychotic Mind’ analyses the relationship between historical, fictional and contemporary killers by noting a variety of identifying traits that these figures have in common, and also differences that distinguish them. With a significant rise in the frequency and severity of mass killings and shootings in contemporary society, this chapter offers a chilling insight into the multitude of ways in which historical and fictional killers have been glamorised and immortalised by mass media culture. It is through questioning the definition of monstrosity that will enable this chapter to raise the most pressing issue—each of these killers reside in the uncertain realm between sanity and insanity; they exist undetected. The unsettling reality of many of the killers discussed, both historical and fictional, is the fact that they are, by definition, medically sane.
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Christie, L.E. (2020). Psychopaths, Sociopaths and the Psychotic Mind. In: Bloom, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33136-8_28
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33136-8_28
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