Is Tony Soprano A Sociopath?
March 17, 2011From Jonathan Wilde at The Distributed Republic:
Is Tony Soprano a sociopath? That, I believe, is the over-arching question of the series. Are we to relate to Tony’s suburban struggles with family and friends despite what he does for a living? Or should we recoil in horror at the monstrous acts he periodically performs without a hint of guilt?
Soprano isn’t a sociopath, just a self-justified asshole; a much commoner breed, maybe the commonest. True ASPD is maladaptive and can lead to functional disabilities in life. Tony’s behavior is fully adapted behavior, it’s just adapted to the demands of a culture where mens’ role is to be violent hierarchists (something Tony obviously had problems assimilating early on). Some of the mobsters depicted in the show come across as mildly sociopathic; but most are just soldiers who get by on a tragic worldview and lots of denial.
Marlo Stanfield from The Wire is a sociopath. Like Tony, Marlo kills people often and without hesitation. But he doesn’t appear to take slights or betrayals personally. Indeed, in a show where characters speculate endlessly on one another, Marlo never acknowledges the motives of any other person. His only sensitive spot is his obsession with his reputation, but when he talks about what he wants (“the crown”), his dialogue betrays shallow and unreflective thought processes.
Tony is full of qualms, full of subconscious self-betrayal and psychological complexities. He just represses them to fit the role he’s been groomed for.
So Clarke Peters (Lester in The Wire) plays a certain flavor of the archetypical black pimp in the English gangster revival “Mona Lisa” (1986: Bob Hoskins’ righteous, hands-on everyman gets an Oscar nom). But his is a pimp of the “Mr Sammler’s Planet” vintage, an unpopular and perhaps unacceptable character today. The self-made aristocrat, a highly-calibrated product of his environment, cold-blooded but with an air of nobility that is not so much affected as pointedly assertive.
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.
(E. A. Robinson)
Julien Sorel with a money clip sort of thing. This image of the black pimp—unlike the one presently favored by rappers, let alone the leaden, anodyne verité of “Hustle and Flow,” etc.—holds its judgement of individual at arm’s length; it respects an admiration of the human power of ingenuity without ignoring the form it likely takes in a perverse society.