Through watching the movie about the Columbine Killers, I believe Eric was a psychopath and Dylan was a sociopath. Eric showed psychopathic tendencies because he was manipulative and unable to form relationships with anyone because he believed he was superior. It’s even shown that he doesn’t care about Dylan very much because when Dylan revealed he was Jewish, Eric responded, “Well that’s too bad”. Eric also showed a disregard for laws by committing crimes such as breaking into people’s cars and stealing their computers. On top of that, he showed a lack of empathy by blaming the victim, saying it was their own fault for leaving their computer out in the open. These examples of Eric’s personality traits illustrates that he was a psychopath. I believe Dylan was a sociopath because he was not as smart or manipulative as Eric, and he was very awkward. He was depressed, suicidal, and extremely violent, which was shown by pictures of violence and weapons in his diary. He is also an outcast, but he is able to form an attachment to Eric. These characteristics shown by Dylan clearly illustrate that he was a sociopath.
What are your thoughts?
What are your thoughts?
I agree with your post. Adding on, Dylan's depression made him weak, which lead to Eric manipulating him and taking advantage of him. According to the documentary, Eric seemed to be the main instigator of all their early misdemeanors. As Eric was obsessed with Hitler, he was probably anti-Semitic and could have easily turned on Dylan when he stated that he was Jewish solely because of that. Then, we found out that Dylan was probably afraid of Eric in one way or another. In addition, Dylan seemed to have formed an attachment to Eric, while it was implied that Eric had absolutely no attachment to him. Overall from this, I agree that Eric was a psychopath and Dylan was a sociopath, triggered by being bullied.
ReplyDeleteI agree mostly with your ideas, but I disagree on some of them. First of all, I think that Dylan was a sociopath because of his depression, not because he just wasn't manipulative enough. Also, I think that it wasn't Dylan that was able to form an attachment with Eric not the other way around; it was because of Eric's manipulation that Dylan latched onto him. He saw Eric as a way out because he could finally defeat what he thought was causing his depression: other people at the school seeing him as an outcast. This brings up another point that I don't agree with. You say that only Dylan was an outcast, but I believe that both them were, especially when they spent increasingly more time with each other, encouraging each other's violent behaviors. I do agree that Dylan showed sociopathic tendencies and Eric showed psychopathic tendencies. But what I'm wondering is if it is more than just Eric's manipulation over Dylan and Dylan's depression that caused him to exhibit these sociopathic tendencies and ultimately, motivate him to go along with Eric for the school shooting or if there are other factors?
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