Dysphoria, Choice and Criminality: A Psycho-literary Inquiryin Fiction and Fact

Abstract

Literature has long served as the mirror to human life and experience, reflecting the political,
cultural, social and psychological realities of human subsistence such as social inequalities,
political ideologies, cultural norms, psychological conflicts, ethical dilemmas and inner
materiality. It not only has the ability of redefining reality but also of remolding and critiquing
it, thereby transforming human experiences and their narratives. Since literature elementarily
deals with characters and their inner world of fears, conflicts, struggles and desires, it
naturally goes hand in hand with psychology, especially, in narratives that traverse crime and
discrepancy. This research paper endeavors to conduct a comparative analysis between the
fictional transgender Rahul Fernandes from 3 and a Half Murders by Salil Desai (Indian
author) and the real-life figure of Dhananjay Chauhan (Indian Transgender Activist), both
related with the problem of dysphoria, through the lens of the Theory of Criminal Personality
propounded by Samuel Yochelson and Stanton E. Samenow (American Psychologists) and
thereby scrutinize whether contextual conditions lead to criminality or is it the result of
‘criminal thinking errors’ as suggested by Yochelson and Samenow. The primary motto behind
collating a fictional character with a real-life human is to analyse the intersection between
crime fiction and social reality. By integrating literature with psychology and criminology, the
paper seeks to proclaim the role of literature in examining human psyche and the applicability
of psychology in expounding the portrayal of crime. A deeper understanding of the criminal
thinking patterns can help in formulating and instituting functional offender reform among
criminals.