Look around; there are millions of people in our world who look and act normal, but are they really? Serial killers can be anyone; they can be our mom, our dad, our siblings, friends or family. Many serial killers go unnoticed and blend in with society every day. In the sick, disturbed mind of a serial killer, murder is not seen as morally wrong, but perhaps as a form of art. Looking into the mind of a serial killer, such as Dexter, murder is perceived as a game to them, hunting and targeting their prey. Serial killers take pride in what they do, and it’s almost like a hobby for them. In the first episode of Dexter, Dexter is painted as a normal detective, but it’s soon revealed that he’s far from being just a regular detective. Dexter is a …show more content…
When the camera shows Dexter rolling around on the ground and laughing with his girlfriend’s son it allows the audience to catch sight of his innocents that can be comparable to that of a child. The camera view is also leveled off between Dexter and the boy. This shows that Dexter is viewing the boy as being equal to him. The viewers also witness Dexter’s kind hearted nature for kids, and that he possesses a feeling of protection and trust within the boy. Throughout the episode Dexter is hardly seen getting touchy with any of the other characters. This leads the audience to believe he doesn’t trust many people. Dexter does however seem to trust one other person, his father. Take the scene where Dexter is a teenager, and he is having a weird conversation with his dad in the dimly lit …show more content…
Dexter has rules and limits on how he can kill, and he has a certain code he follows. He calls it the “Code of Harry”. The Code of Harry is a set of serial killer rules put into place by Dexter’s dad for Dexter to follow. He will not just kill anyone he believes to be a serial killer or a bad person, so this shows Dexter follows rules like a child would follow the rules of a parent. He hunts and investigates his victims carefully before he goes in for the kill. It’s almost as if he’s playing a child’s game of Clue. For instances in the scene where Dexter is hunting the serial killer who rapes women and then kills his victim on camera. Dexter stalks the killer to find out vital information, and uncovers clues about the killer in order to prove that yes indeed this is the serial killer Dexter is looking for. Giving the audience a glimpse of Dexter’s detailed detective work helps distracts them from remembering that Dexter is still a serial killer, and crafts Dexter into a character who is only assisting with taking these ugly, mentally unstable people off the
First it is necessary to understand the psychology of serial killer. Serial killers are either labeled as a psychopath or labeled as having anti-social personality disorder. A quality anti-personality disorder which Dexter has is “Being able to act witty and charming. (NIH.com)” Dexter is witty in the sense that he knows how to not get caught and he has found a way to fit into society without anyone suspecting him has a killer, Dexter is also charming and this is portrayed in the series since his boss at the Miami Police Department clearly has a crush on him. “Break the law repeatedly. (NIH.com)” is yet another characteristic, this is also shown in Dexter. When stalking his potential victims Dexter constantly breaks
As one studies other viewing and readings such as Silence of the Lambs, Dexter, Perfume, Natural Born Killers, True Blood, Dead until Dark, and The Walking Dead it can be found that both nature and nurture take a part in creating a serial killer. Dexter Morgan is a serial killer that developed a want to kill as a child. Growing up with a foster family he had all the love, nurture, and support of a normal child, but he had a missing part of him with the mystery of his dead mother. Harry, his foster father had recognized Dexter’s need to kill early in life and was able to teach him how to kill properly. Harry was smart in understanding there was no way to contain or stop Dexter’s desire to kill, but he
Later on Donnelly starts to talk about popular culture and its influences on the show. She says, “Popular culture thrives on explanation as a way of abating fears of violence and fears of Otherness” (Donnelly 21) which season seven and eight are all about. Dexter searches constantly for a real reason to explain why he is the way he is. He wants a better understanding of himself to make himself fit in. Morals have been developed to single out the abnormal and throughout his whole life Dexter was singled out. The consumers of the show can identify a killer as a monster, making the person less than human in our minds. Therefore if Dexter thought the same as us; killing a killer is the same as squishing a bug because both are lesser than humans and their lives do not make an impact on ours. Dexter realizes in season eight that he is an even worse monster that he believed himself to be.
As if molded directly from the depths of nightmares, both fascinating and terrifying. Serial killers hide behind bland and normal existences. They are often able to escape being caught for years, decades and sometimes an eternity. These are America’s Serial Killers (America’s Serial Killers). “Even when some of them do get caught, we may not recognize what they are because they don’t [sic] match the distorted image we have of serial killers” (Brown). What is that distorted image? That killers live among everyday life, they are the ones who creep into someone’s life unknowingly to torture and kill them. The serial killers that are in the movies, Norman Bates, Michael Myers, and the evil master mind of SAW, these characters are just that
Have you ever have felt like two completely different people? Dexter Morgan has been all of these throughout his entire life since he was little. His mother was killed in front of him when he was at a very young age. A cop named Harry Morgan had founded Dexter when he was in a pool of blood beside his mother. He taught Dexter all of these ways to not get caught. To keep his hands clean without being under someone’s radar. Dexter’s character arch is symbolic of the human struggle to move from the primitive monster to the noble and compassionate messiah.
Have you ever wondered why some people love art and music, and some love science and math? These individuals love math or art because they get a sense of relaxation and excitement from these activities. Serial killers are the same way they love to kill people and have lots of different motives for why they kill them. A serial killer is a person who kills repeatedly. The one motive that drove Dennis Rader, to kill his victims was to gain power and control over them.
Dexter in the story started off as a very young boy who worked as a caddy at a golf course. There he met Miss Jones for the very first time. Judy Jones was a beautiful, young woman who came from a glittery family, but was also very cunning with her “preposterous smile” . Dexter was very
The question of whether or not man is predetermined at birth to lead a life of crime is a question that has been debated for decades. Are serial killers born with the lust for murder, or are their desires developed through years of abuse and torment? Many believe it is impossible for an innocent child to be born with the capability to commit a horrible act such as murder. But at the same time, how could we have corrupted society so much as to turn an innocent child into a homicidal maniac? Forensic psychologists have picked apart the minds of serial killers to find an answer as to what forces them to commit such perverse acts. Their ultimate goal is to learn how to catch a serial killer before
A serial killer could be dining, sitting, or even living next to you at this very moment. Most killers offer little to no obvious clues that will lead anyone to detect their often secretive, undercover actions. I ask myself, “How can we be so naive to these types of people?” Serial killers amongst us are often well educated, portray an All-American image, yet have a psychotic side to them.
In conclusion the desire for love and the desire for wealth is not always the key to happiness. In Dexter's case his desire or dream of love caused his nothing but misery and a broken heart.
A serial killer is traditional defined as the separate killings of three or more people by an individual over a certain period of time, usually with breaks between the murders. (Angela Pilson, p. 2, 2011) This definition has been accepted by both the police and academics and therefore provides a useful frame of reference (Kevin Haggerty, p.1, 2009). The paper will seek to provide the readers with an explanation of how serial killers came to be and how they are portrayed in the media.
“I can kill a man, dismember his body, and be home in time for Letterman. But knowing what to say when my girlfriend's feeling insecure... I'm totally lost”-Dexter Morgan (Hall, 2007). Dexter Morgan is a fictional serial killer from Showtime’s series “Dexter”, but the writers and actors have portrayed a real life serial killer. Manuel Prado is the real Dexter Morgan. Prado was a Miami cop who started with smaller crime and worked his way up to becoming a serial killer. ”Prosecutor David Waksman told the Miami Herald: "He was very cold. He was doing robberies and went home and slept like a baby. He was proud of what he did."” (International, 2012) Real life serial killers do not have any empathy. They kill their victims and then return to
Serial murder crime though rare, is not a a new phenomenon. This crime has been committed for centuries and will continue to be a crime that is committed throughout the world. It is unfortunate and scary that this is probably one of the most serious of crimes that cannot be prevented. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, serial murderers commit their crimes because they want to. Rehabilitation is not obtainable for serial killers due to their inability for remorse and empathy, or to see people as people and not objects(Knight 2006). This research paper will focus primarily on serial murder within the U.S. First and foremost, a legal definition provided by the U.S. Department of Justice will be presented to set forth the discussion of this research paper. As follows will be a detailed discussion explaining serial killer typologies with the use of examples of known serial killers in the U.S. Types of serial killers are: power oriented, mission oriented, visionary, and hedonistic, each typology will be clearly defined and explained. Some serial killers can have a mixture of each typology’s characteristic. Serial killers that will be discussed and used as examples to represent the content of this research paper will be, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Robert Berdella, Jeffery Dahmer, and lastly the most prolific serial killer in American history, Gary Ridgeway. Problems with studying serial killing, are that because of rarity and access. Most of what we think
Serial murders are not just part of the United States they also happen globally. There are many investigative tools that are used when working a serial murder case and we will discuss some of those. We will also discuss the problems with the media when it comes to serial murders. We will also talk about how the criticism of the public and media can affect serial murder cases.
“The serial killer ‘is an entirely different criminal,’ ”The term serial killer is misleading on the ground that each murder is intended to be the last.” We see them as a figure of “the dark side of human potential,” but they believe they’re “on a heroic quest for the biggest score possible” They believe they are “the archetypal figure of impurity, the representative of a world which needs cleansing.” However, society knows that serial killers are not heroes, and they’re not cleansing the world. “The figure of the serial killer is violent impurity personified, and it is a construction that necessitates figures of violent purity to confront it.” While it can be argued whether having mental disorders should prevent a serial killer from being capitally punished, it is proven that many serial killers suffer from “paranoid schizophrenia, manic-depressive psychosis, or psychopathology.” It’s even said that “this crime is actually a form of disease. Its carriers are serial killers who suffer from a variety of crippling and eventually fatal symptoms, and its immediate victims are the people struck down seemingly at random by the disease carriers.” Serial killers usually have a stressor in their life that makes them start killing, and when they do “homicidal mania becomes ‘a necessity… linked to the very existence of a psychiatry which had made itself autonomous but needed thereafter to secure a basis for its intervention by gaining recognition as a component of public