Corey Browning
02-21-2010, 09:19 PM
Hi All,
I have had a theory of, not really a motive, but one of the possible reasons for why he did what he did. The reason, Narcissism mixted with rage.
I will post a series of info I have collected on Narcissism over the past year.
First of all, my intro.
My opinion is the first victim taken by "Jack The Ripper" is Martha Tabram. I belive the reason for a different M.O is because a killer,like all humans, learns with experience. I belive he killed her with a different style(which did not satisfy him) but with the same intentions, mutilation of the victim. She was stabbed 39 times if I am correct and that, to me, is a fair way to mutilate someone in my opinion.
The second, Polly ,was murdered by him as well. He tried a new method of killing which DID statisfy him, also with the same intentions. As the same with Annie.
With Stride, I do belive she was a victim, I belive that what Schwartz saw may have been a misinterpretation as something else. I note that he was scared, scared enough to flee, so he probally was panicing and may have not seen what had actually prospired and saw someone totally different. I may be wrong. he saw that at 12:45 and her body was found at 1:00 which gives us 15 minutes, and Schwartz probally calculated the time to after he fled so we I belive a more probable time to be at 12:35-12:40. Withing that time liz walks into Dutsfeild yard. upon leaving I belive the ripper tried yet another method, using partially the same M.O. but not approaching the victem, rather "blitz" styling her. This didnt satisfy him and he was interupted and fled down the ally.
With Kate I belive he still held the urge to mutilate so her found her, applying the same tactics for the second and third victim.
For the last Kelly, I belive the reason for the killing was inside was infact due to circumstances not that he choose to do it but maybe was again experimenting. Also taking his mutilating to a new level.
Now moving on, I believe Jack the Ripper was one of the many serial killers suffering from the mental disorder of Narcissim, a form of aggressive personality disorder. A person diagnosed with Narcissism experiances a multitude of traits.
Manifesting within them are aggression, paranoia, borderline characteristics, envy, greed, power lust, lack of empathy, they view others as "playthings" to be used then discarded.
Narcissim is caused by severe mental or physical pain in childhood at the hands of a powerful, Idealized mother/father figure.
Those with Narcissism believe they have the right to manipulate, exploit, and be unnaturally cruel to others.
Narcissim was'nt defined until the late 80's. It is an impulsive behavior. Those suffer from uncontrolable behavior like rage. Side effects of Narcissism range from OCD(obsessive compulsive disorder), pathalogical lying, and paranoiac dimensions.
Those with Narcissim can also suffer from Borderline syndrom, Paranoid schitzophrenia, and OCD.
There are few signals and waring signs to a psychological break, in which anger is pent up and may be triggered by a sudden change in their environment or life. I believe Jack the Ripper to be the victim of a psychological episode.
I belive he is a sexual sadist killer.
His primary intention in his killings, MUTILATION!!
His prefered M.O is the approach, manipulation of the victim, taking them(or maybe even them leading him) to a spot deemed secure enough for the take out, in which he cuts the throat and engages in mutilation.
I have found similar behavioral patterns in the zodiac killings, with the M.O and weapon choice.
Heres my view(or theory) of the events leading to his killing spree.
Jack the Ripper probally had a absent father, but a controling and dominant mother. I belive his mother put him through sever mental pain, she bacame a prostitute and her attention was diverted away from him, thus he become emotionally troubled and detatched. Having no way to release these pent up emotions, he set small fires and killed small animals, and found a level of dominance of his own and enjoyed it. In later adulthood he would work alone, experiancing tremors of rage which held him from society. He had a low openness so he had a difficult time adapting to social or personal change, which happened, sparking his murderous tendencys. I however do not know this sudden change. He hated woman, all of them, in each prostitute he saw his mother in them, ignoring him, abbusing him. Thus creating a immense disgust for woman prostitutes. This change also sparked anxiety, tension,and irritability, which is his primary motive.
So he killed.
Like I say in previous theorys he killed at first to release all that pent-up emotion, because of his state of alexithymia, or not being able to express his emotions, but found he enjoyed his work. He took pride in his work, taking trophies from his victims, dehumanizing and defemanizing them. He probally even stood in the crowds attracked by his kills.
I dont point to any suspect in this theory, nor say he stopped killing with Kelly, these things, I believe may never be known.
This newspaper article helps back up the possiblity of Tabram being a Ripper victim.
“Sexual perverts of this character never begin by the commission of crimes of such frightful atrocity, but yielding to impulses to do slight injury to their victims, find, as time goes on, that it is necessary to practice greater and greater cruelties, to arouse their desires and gratify passion, until a stage like the present is reached. Such has with probablility been the history of the present murderer [JTR].”
October 13,1888 Letter to Medical News
Here are some fine points to see while investigating narcissism.
"Little is understood about the disorder because of its very nature. It is impossible for a narcissist to hold himself responsible for any mistakes or transgressions. In his eyes, he is the most moral, upstanding person on the planet. Thus a narcissist almost never seeks psychological assistance on his own. Charming, glib, and a master at upholding a carefully crafted image of himself, the malignant narcissist can manipulate and convince the most well respected, experienced medical professionals in the industry to sympathize with him, to be on his side. The fact that the best trained professionals have trouble identifying the disorder is an indication that victims are not merely "more apt to be impressed with superficiality and grandiosity" as one writer implied. Instead, malignant narcissists can con the smartest, most down-to-earth and loving people in society."
Thus, it points out some good qualities that the ripper might have:
1)"The maligant narcissist can manipulate and convince the most well respected,experianced medical professionals in the industry to sympathize with him, to be on his side"
2)"that the best trained professionals have trouble identifying the disorder"
3)"can be the smartest,most down-to-earth and loving people in society."
In his seminal work, "Aberrations of Sexual Life" (originally: "Psychopathia Sexualis"), quoted in the book "Jack the Ripper" by Donald Rumbelow, Kraft-Ebbing offers this observation:
"The perverse urge in murders for pleasure does not solely aim at causing the victim pain and - most acute injury of all - death, but that the real meaning of the action consists in, to a certain extent, imitating, though perverted into a monstrous and ghastly form, the act of defloration. It is for this reason that an essential component ... is the employment of a sharp cutting weapon; the victim has to be pierced, slit, even chopped up ... The chief wounds are inflicted in the stomach region and, in many cases, the fatal cuts run from the vagina into the abdomen. In boys an artificial vagina is even made ... One can connect a fetishistic element too with this process of hacking ... inasmuch as parts of the body are removed and ... made into a collection."
Yet, the sexuality of the serial, psychopathic, killer is self-directed. His victims are props, extensions, aides, objects, and symbols. He interacts with them ritually and, either before or after the act, transforms his diseased inner dialog into a catechism with internal logic and self-consistency.
In some cases, the murder ritual recreates earlier conflicts with meaningful objects, such as parents, authority figures, or peers. The outcome of the replay is different, though. The killer dominates the situation. He is the one to inflict abuse and trauma on others. He outwits and taunts figures of authority - the police, for instance. It is a form of poetic justice, a balancing of the books, and, therefore, a "good" thing. The murder is cathartic and allows the killer to release hitherto repressed and pathologically transformed aggression - in the form of hate, rage, and envy.
But repeated acts of escalating gore fail to alleviate the killer's overwhelming anxiety and depression. He seeks to vindicate his negative introjects and sadistic superego by being caught and punished. The serial killer tightens the proverbial noose around his neck by interacting with law enforcement agencies and the media and thus providing them with clues as to his identity and whereabouts. When apprehended, most serial assassins experience a great sense of relief.
Serial killers are not the only objectifiers - people who treat other people as objects. To some extent, leaders of all sorts - political, military, or corporate - do the same. In a range of professions - surgeons, medical doctors, judges, law enforcement agents - objectification is an efficient defense mechanism which fends off horror and anxiety.
Yet, serial killers are different. They represent a dual failure - of their own development as full-fledged, productive individuals - and of the culture and society they grow in. In a pathologically narcissistic civilization - social anomies proliferate. Such societies breed malignant objectifiers - people devoid of empathy - also known as "narcissists".
I am sure you have heard that Narcissism may have been apart of a social disorder group called Monomania.
Here is the basics of that group(classified as, like Narcissism, as a type A personality)
In psychiatry, monomania (from Greek monos, one, and mania, mania) is a type of paranoia in which the patient has only one idea or type of ideas. Emotional monomania is that in which the patient is obsessed with only one emotion or several related to it; intellectual monomania is that which is related to only one kind of delirious idea or ideas.
In colloquial terms, monomania is often attached to subcultures that to the general public appear esoteric. However, the differences between monomania and passion can be very subtle and difficult to recognize.
[edit] Types of monomania
Following list is derived from The Psychiatric, Psychogenic and Somatopsychic Disorders Handbook.[1]
Capgras delusion: Delusion that an impostor has been substituted for a significant person in the patient's life.
de Clerambault's syndrome (erotomania): Delusion that a man or woman is in love with the patient. This can occur without reinforcement or even acquaintanceship with the love object.
Fregoli's illusion: Delusion that a tormenting individual is changing his appearance to resemble different persons in the patient's life.
Genital retraction syndrome: Delusion that the penis is being retracted into the body.
Wendigo (Wihtigo): Fear that one is being tormented by a demon who devours people. Alternatively the patient can take on the characteristics of the windigo. (Seen only in isolated members of the Algonquin Indian nations of Canada and the USA.)
Demonomania Delusion that one is possessed by demons.
[edit] Monomania in literature
The 19th century writer Edgar Allan Poe would often write tales in which the narrator and protagonist would suffer some form of monomania, becoming excessively fixated on an idea, an urge, an object, or a person, often to the point of mental and/or physical destruction. Poe uses the theme of monomania in:
"The Black Cat" (a man fears his cat and kills it, adopts another cat, kills his wife, and is then punished by the cat)
"The Oval Portrait" (about a painter who is obsessed with painting his wife)
"Berenice" (about a madman who wants to marry his sick cousin only for her beautiful teeth)
"The Masque of the Red Death" (a prince fears a terrible disease but finally gets ill from the red death and dies)
"The Tell-Tale Heart" (a madman is obsessed with an elderly man's eye)
"The Fall of the House of Usher" (The main character Usher is obsessed with the fear of death)
It is said that Flaubert's hatred of the bourgeois and their bętise (willful idiocy), that began in his childhood, developed into a kind of monomania.
It is monomania from which Flaubert's tragic heroine Madame Bovary suffers; in her case it takes the form of an incessant guilt and fear of discovery. The same monomaniacal fear is explored in great depth in M. E. Braddon's novel, Lady Audley's Secret, through the protagonist Robert Audley, whom the guilty woman accuses of monomania in his relentless attempt to prove her guilt. She describes monomania thus:
What is one of the strangest diagnostics of madness--what is the first appalling sign of mental aberration? The mind becomes stationary; the brain stagnates; the even current of reflection is interrupted; the thinking power of the brain resolves itself into a monotone. As the waters of a tideless pool putrefy by reason of their stagnation, the mind becomes turbid and corrupt through lack of action; and the perpetual reflection upon one subject resolves itself into monomania.
In Crime and Punishment, by the renowned Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, the main character, Raskolnikov, is said to be a monomaniac on numerous occasions.
In Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851), Captain Ahab is a monomaniac, as shown by his quest to kill Moby Dick. One particular situation where he is shown as a monomaniac is in the crew's first encounter with the whale, stating "in his narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of Ahab's broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural intellect had perished.”[citation needed]
In Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is described as a monomaniac, obsessing over his reunion with Cathy in the final chapters of the novel.
The Marvel Comics supervillain Bullseye is a professional assassin who obsesses over his targets. In one of his more recent appearances, he was revealed to be a monomaniac.
In the novel Lucien De Rubempre by Honoré de Balzac, the title character is referred to as a monomaniac.
[edit] References
^ A. J. Giannini, H. R. Black, R. L. Goettsche. 1978. The Psychiatric, Psychogenic and Somatopsychic Disorders Handbook. New Hyde Park, NY: Medical Examination Publishing Co.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomania"
Heres a reference of it used during the Whitechapel murders.
DR. FORBES WINSLOW'S OPINION
Dr. Forbes Winslow, the eminent specialist in lunacy cases, said to our representative; I am more certain than even that these murders are being committed by a homicidal maniac, and there is no moral doubt in my mind that the assassin in each case is the same man. I have carefully read the reports in the morning papers, and they confirm me in the opinion which I had previously formed. While I am clearly of opinion that the murderer is a homicidal maniac, I also believe him to be a mono-maniac, no I see no reason why he should not, excepting, at the periods when the fit is upon him, exhibit a cool and rational exterior. I have here, in my book - a work on psychology - a case in which a man had a lust for blood, as in this case, and he was generally a person of bland and pleasant exterior. In all probability the whole of the murders had been committed by the same hand, but I may point out that the imitative faculty is very strong in persons of unsound mind, and that is the reason why there has been a sort of epidemic of these crimes. We shall probably find that a good many knives will be displayed to people within the next few weeks. Still all the evidence that is forthcoming up to the present moment shows clearly enough that the Whitechapel crimes have been perpetrated by the same hand. My idea is that under the circumstances the police ought to employ, for the protection of the neigbourhood, and with the view of detecting the criminal, a number of officers who have been in the habit of guarding lunatics - that is to say, warders from asylums and other persons who have had charge of the insane. These men, if properly disposed in the neigbourhood, would assuredly note any person who was of unsound mind. I have sent a letter embodying this suggestion to Sir Charles warren, but I have received only a formal communication acknowledging its receipt. It is not easy to prevail upon the police to accept a suggestion from outside sources. This I discovered the other day when a man in emulation of the Whitechapel murder drew a knife and sharpened it in the presence of a relative of mine at Brighton under circumstances which have been published in the newspapers. When I made a statement to the police on that occasion they thought very little of it indeed. I attach not the least importance to the American physiologist story. It is a theory which is utterly untenable, and I should think there were very few medical men who ever entertained it seriously. All that has recently happened appears to me to be a strong confirmation of the views which I have previously given expression to upon the subject. The murderer is a homicidal monomaniac of infinite cunning, and I fear he will not be brought to justice unless he be caught while engaging in the consummation of one of his awful crimes.
Whew, Thats alot of info on it. The begining piece is my writing and I posted it all on the other site. I, however, didn't get many good, or actually not much comment to it at all. If you actually read all of that then thank you. I have dragged all this up in the past year. I think Jack the Ripper [B]could have been narcissistic.
I hope this is in the right thread. Motives and reasons. Sorry if it doesn't make any sense.
Yours truly
I have had a theory of, not really a motive, but one of the possible reasons for why he did what he did. The reason, Narcissism mixted with rage.
I will post a series of info I have collected on Narcissism over the past year.
First of all, my intro.
My opinion is the first victim taken by "Jack The Ripper" is Martha Tabram. I belive the reason for a different M.O is because a killer,like all humans, learns with experience. I belive he killed her with a different style(which did not satisfy him) but with the same intentions, mutilation of the victim. She was stabbed 39 times if I am correct and that, to me, is a fair way to mutilate someone in my opinion.
The second, Polly ,was murdered by him as well. He tried a new method of killing which DID statisfy him, also with the same intentions. As the same with Annie.
With Stride, I do belive she was a victim, I belive that what Schwartz saw may have been a misinterpretation as something else. I note that he was scared, scared enough to flee, so he probally was panicing and may have not seen what had actually prospired and saw someone totally different. I may be wrong. he saw that at 12:45 and her body was found at 1:00 which gives us 15 minutes, and Schwartz probally calculated the time to after he fled so we I belive a more probable time to be at 12:35-12:40. Withing that time liz walks into Dutsfeild yard. upon leaving I belive the ripper tried yet another method, using partially the same M.O. but not approaching the victem, rather "blitz" styling her. This didnt satisfy him and he was interupted and fled down the ally.
With Kate I belive he still held the urge to mutilate so her found her, applying the same tactics for the second and third victim.
For the last Kelly, I belive the reason for the killing was inside was infact due to circumstances not that he choose to do it but maybe was again experimenting. Also taking his mutilating to a new level.
Now moving on, I believe Jack the Ripper was one of the many serial killers suffering from the mental disorder of Narcissim, a form of aggressive personality disorder. A person diagnosed with Narcissism experiances a multitude of traits.
Manifesting within them are aggression, paranoia, borderline characteristics, envy, greed, power lust, lack of empathy, they view others as "playthings" to be used then discarded.
Narcissim is caused by severe mental or physical pain in childhood at the hands of a powerful, Idealized mother/father figure.
Those with Narcissism believe they have the right to manipulate, exploit, and be unnaturally cruel to others.
Narcissim was'nt defined until the late 80's. It is an impulsive behavior. Those suffer from uncontrolable behavior like rage. Side effects of Narcissism range from OCD(obsessive compulsive disorder), pathalogical lying, and paranoiac dimensions.
Those with Narcissim can also suffer from Borderline syndrom, Paranoid schitzophrenia, and OCD.
There are few signals and waring signs to a psychological break, in which anger is pent up and may be triggered by a sudden change in their environment or life. I believe Jack the Ripper to be the victim of a psychological episode.
I belive he is a sexual sadist killer.
His primary intention in his killings, MUTILATION!!
His prefered M.O is the approach, manipulation of the victim, taking them(or maybe even them leading him) to a spot deemed secure enough for the take out, in which he cuts the throat and engages in mutilation.
I have found similar behavioral patterns in the zodiac killings, with the M.O and weapon choice.
Heres my view(or theory) of the events leading to his killing spree.
Jack the Ripper probally had a absent father, but a controling and dominant mother. I belive his mother put him through sever mental pain, she bacame a prostitute and her attention was diverted away from him, thus he become emotionally troubled and detatched. Having no way to release these pent up emotions, he set small fires and killed small animals, and found a level of dominance of his own and enjoyed it. In later adulthood he would work alone, experiancing tremors of rage which held him from society. He had a low openness so he had a difficult time adapting to social or personal change, which happened, sparking his murderous tendencys. I however do not know this sudden change. He hated woman, all of them, in each prostitute he saw his mother in them, ignoring him, abbusing him. Thus creating a immense disgust for woman prostitutes. This change also sparked anxiety, tension,and irritability, which is his primary motive.
So he killed.
Like I say in previous theorys he killed at first to release all that pent-up emotion, because of his state of alexithymia, or not being able to express his emotions, but found he enjoyed his work. He took pride in his work, taking trophies from his victims, dehumanizing and defemanizing them. He probally even stood in the crowds attracked by his kills.
I dont point to any suspect in this theory, nor say he stopped killing with Kelly, these things, I believe may never be known.
This newspaper article helps back up the possiblity of Tabram being a Ripper victim.
“Sexual perverts of this character never begin by the commission of crimes of such frightful atrocity, but yielding to impulses to do slight injury to their victims, find, as time goes on, that it is necessary to practice greater and greater cruelties, to arouse their desires and gratify passion, until a stage like the present is reached. Such has with probablility been the history of the present murderer [JTR].”
October 13,1888 Letter to Medical News
Here are some fine points to see while investigating narcissism.
"Little is understood about the disorder because of its very nature. It is impossible for a narcissist to hold himself responsible for any mistakes or transgressions. In his eyes, he is the most moral, upstanding person on the planet. Thus a narcissist almost never seeks psychological assistance on his own. Charming, glib, and a master at upholding a carefully crafted image of himself, the malignant narcissist can manipulate and convince the most well respected, experienced medical professionals in the industry to sympathize with him, to be on his side. The fact that the best trained professionals have trouble identifying the disorder is an indication that victims are not merely "more apt to be impressed with superficiality and grandiosity" as one writer implied. Instead, malignant narcissists can con the smartest, most down-to-earth and loving people in society."
Thus, it points out some good qualities that the ripper might have:
1)"The maligant narcissist can manipulate and convince the most well respected,experianced medical professionals in the industry to sympathize with him, to be on his side"
2)"that the best trained professionals have trouble identifying the disorder"
3)"can be the smartest,most down-to-earth and loving people in society."
In his seminal work, "Aberrations of Sexual Life" (originally: "Psychopathia Sexualis"), quoted in the book "Jack the Ripper" by Donald Rumbelow, Kraft-Ebbing offers this observation:
"The perverse urge in murders for pleasure does not solely aim at causing the victim pain and - most acute injury of all - death, but that the real meaning of the action consists in, to a certain extent, imitating, though perverted into a monstrous and ghastly form, the act of defloration. It is for this reason that an essential component ... is the employment of a sharp cutting weapon; the victim has to be pierced, slit, even chopped up ... The chief wounds are inflicted in the stomach region and, in many cases, the fatal cuts run from the vagina into the abdomen. In boys an artificial vagina is even made ... One can connect a fetishistic element too with this process of hacking ... inasmuch as parts of the body are removed and ... made into a collection."
Yet, the sexuality of the serial, psychopathic, killer is self-directed. His victims are props, extensions, aides, objects, and symbols. He interacts with them ritually and, either before or after the act, transforms his diseased inner dialog into a catechism with internal logic and self-consistency.
In some cases, the murder ritual recreates earlier conflicts with meaningful objects, such as parents, authority figures, or peers. The outcome of the replay is different, though. The killer dominates the situation. He is the one to inflict abuse and trauma on others. He outwits and taunts figures of authority - the police, for instance. It is a form of poetic justice, a balancing of the books, and, therefore, a "good" thing. The murder is cathartic and allows the killer to release hitherto repressed and pathologically transformed aggression - in the form of hate, rage, and envy.
But repeated acts of escalating gore fail to alleviate the killer's overwhelming anxiety and depression. He seeks to vindicate his negative introjects and sadistic superego by being caught and punished. The serial killer tightens the proverbial noose around his neck by interacting with law enforcement agencies and the media and thus providing them with clues as to his identity and whereabouts. When apprehended, most serial assassins experience a great sense of relief.
Serial killers are not the only objectifiers - people who treat other people as objects. To some extent, leaders of all sorts - political, military, or corporate - do the same. In a range of professions - surgeons, medical doctors, judges, law enforcement agents - objectification is an efficient defense mechanism which fends off horror and anxiety.
Yet, serial killers are different. They represent a dual failure - of their own development as full-fledged, productive individuals - and of the culture and society they grow in. In a pathologically narcissistic civilization - social anomies proliferate. Such societies breed malignant objectifiers - people devoid of empathy - also known as "narcissists".
I am sure you have heard that Narcissism may have been apart of a social disorder group called Monomania.
Here is the basics of that group(classified as, like Narcissism, as a type A personality)
In psychiatry, monomania (from Greek monos, one, and mania, mania) is a type of paranoia in which the patient has only one idea or type of ideas. Emotional monomania is that in which the patient is obsessed with only one emotion or several related to it; intellectual monomania is that which is related to only one kind of delirious idea or ideas.
In colloquial terms, monomania is often attached to subcultures that to the general public appear esoteric. However, the differences between monomania and passion can be very subtle and difficult to recognize.
[edit] Types of monomania
Following list is derived from The Psychiatric, Psychogenic and Somatopsychic Disorders Handbook.[1]
Capgras delusion: Delusion that an impostor has been substituted for a significant person in the patient's life.
de Clerambault's syndrome (erotomania): Delusion that a man or woman is in love with the patient. This can occur without reinforcement or even acquaintanceship with the love object.
Fregoli's illusion: Delusion that a tormenting individual is changing his appearance to resemble different persons in the patient's life.
Genital retraction syndrome: Delusion that the penis is being retracted into the body.
Wendigo (Wihtigo): Fear that one is being tormented by a demon who devours people. Alternatively the patient can take on the characteristics of the windigo. (Seen only in isolated members of the Algonquin Indian nations of Canada and the USA.)
Demonomania Delusion that one is possessed by demons.
[edit] Monomania in literature
The 19th century writer Edgar Allan Poe would often write tales in which the narrator and protagonist would suffer some form of monomania, becoming excessively fixated on an idea, an urge, an object, or a person, often to the point of mental and/or physical destruction. Poe uses the theme of monomania in:
"The Black Cat" (a man fears his cat and kills it, adopts another cat, kills his wife, and is then punished by the cat)
"The Oval Portrait" (about a painter who is obsessed with painting his wife)
"Berenice" (about a madman who wants to marry his sick cousin only for her beautiful teeth)
"The Masque of the Red Death" (a prince fears a terrible disease but finally gets ill from the red death and dies)
"The Tell-Tale Heart" (a madman is obsessed with an elderly man's eye)
"The Fall of the House of Usher" (The main character Usher is obsessed with the fear of death)
It is said that Flaubert's hatred of the bourgeois and their bętise (willful idiocy), that began in his childhood, developed into a kind of monomania.
It is monomania from which Flaubert's tragic heroine Madame Bovary suffers; in her case it takes the form of an incessant guilt and fear of discovery. The same monomaniacal fear is explored in great depth in M. E. Braddon's novel, Lady Audley's Secret, through the protagonist Robert Audley, whom the guilty woman accuses of monomania in his relentless attempt to prove her guilt. She describes monomania thus:
What is one of the strangest diagnostics of madness--what is the first appalling sign of mental aberration? The mind becomes stationary; the brain stagnates; the even current of reflection is interrupted; the thinking power of the brain resolves itself into a monotone. As the waters of a tideless pool putrefy by reason of their stagnation, the mind becomes turbid and corrupt through lack of action; and the perpetual reflection upon one subject resolves itself into monomania.
In Crime and Punishment, by the renowned Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, the main character, Raskolnikov, is said to be a monomaniac on numerous occasions.
In Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851), Captain Ahab is a monomaniac, as shown by his quest to kill Moby Dick. One particular situation where he is shown as a monomaniac is in the crew's first encounter with the whale, stating "in his narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of Ahab's broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural intellect had perished.”[citation needed]
In Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is described as a monomaniac, obsessing over his reunion with Cathy in the final chapters of the novel.
The Marvel Comics supervillain Bullseye is a professional assassin who obsesses over his targets. In one of his more recent appearances, he was revealed to be a monomaniac.
In the novel Lucien De Rubempre by Honoré de Balzac, the title character is referred to as a monomaniac.
[edit] References
^ A. J. Giannini, H. R. Black, R. L. Goettsche. 1978. The Psychiatric, Psychogenic and Somatopsychic Disorders Handbook. New Hyde Park, NY: Medical Examination Publishing Co.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomania"
Heres a reference of it used during the Whitechapel murders.
DR. FORBES WINSLOW'S OPINION
Dr. Forbes Winslow, the eminent specialist in lunacy cases, said to our representative; I am more certain than even that these murders are being committed by a homicidal maniac, and there is no moral doubt in my mind that the assassin in each case is the same man. I have carefully read the reports in the morning papers, and they confirm me in the opinion which I had previously formed. While I am clearly of opinion that the murderer is a homicidal maniac, I also believe him to be a mono-maniac, no I see no reason why he should not, excepting, at the periods when the fit is upon him, exhibit a cool and rational exterior. I have here, in my book - a work on psychology - a case in which a man had a lust for blood, as in this case, and he was generally a person of bland and pleasant exterior. In all probability the whole of the murders had been committed by the same hand, but I may point out that the imitative faculty is very strong in persons of unsound mind, and that is the reason why there has been a sort of epidemic of these crimes. We shall probably find that a good many knives will be displayed to people within the next few weeks. Still all the evidence that is forthcoming up to the present moment shows clearly enough that the Whitechapel crimes have been perpetrated by the same hand. My idea is that under the circumstances the police ought to employ, for the protection of the neigbourhood, and with the view of detecting the criminal, a number of officers who have been in the habit of guarding lunatics - that is to say, warders from asylums and other persons who have had charge of the insane. These men, if properly disposed in the neigbourhood, would assuredly note any person who was of unsound mind. I have sent a letter embodying this suggestion to Sir Charles warren, but I have received only a formal communication acknowledging its receipt. It is not easy to prevail upon the police to accept a suggestion from outside sources. This I discovered the other day when a man in emulation of the Whitechapel murder drew a knife and sharpened it in the presence of a relative of mine at Brighton under circumstances which have been published in the newspapers. When I made a statement to the police on that occasion they thought very little of it indeed. I attach not the least importance to the American physiologist story. It is a theory which is utterly untenable, and I should think there were very few medical men who ever entertained it seriously. All that has recently happened appears to me to be a strong confirmation of the views which I have previously given expression to upon the subject. The murderer is a homicidal monomaniac of infinite cunning, and I fear he will not be brought to justice unless he be caught while engaging in the consummation of one of his awful crimes.
Whew, Thats alot of info on it. The begining piece is my writing and I posted it all on the other site. I, however, didn't get many good, or actually not much comment to it at all. If you actually read all of that then thank you. I have dragged all this up in the past year. I think Jack the Ripper [B]could have been narcissistic.
I hope this is in the right thread. Motives and reasons. Sorry if it doesn't make any sense.
Yours truly