Portraying Arthur Fleck's Personality as Villain in Joker Movie: A Speech Acts Study

Abstract

This study is aimed to reveal the true personality of Arthur Fleck as the main character in Joker movie. Hence, speech act by Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) are used to find what types of illocutionary act is used within his utterances. Later, Wiggins's big five personality traits (1996) will be used to delineate Arthur Fleck's personality. The researcher assumes that Arthur's illocutionary act and his personality might become the bridge to find the villain portrayal of Joker in the movie. Furthermore, some personality traits contributing to criminal behavior by Tharshini et al. (2021) is used to portray Arthur Fleck as a villain in the movie. This research leads to some results. All the types of illocutionary acts produced by Arthur Fleck are representative, directive, commissive, and expressive illocutionary act within his utterances. Furthermore, expressive act is considered as the first place for the dominant type of illocutionary act. The finding is leading to giving the answer of what is Arthur Fleck’s personality. Moreover, the expressive act is related to Wiggins's big five personality traits, representing high neuroticism. Additionally, Arthur has tendency to become villain because he has some personality traits which contribute someone committing criminal behavior, such as; psychopathy, low self-control and difficult temperament.