Hannibal Lecter's 'Silence Of The Lambs'

A known problem in today’s society is the tendency to avoid problems by ignoring them. This has been mocked and satirized by the media, studied by scientists, and become an almost humorous staple in modern culture. However, none of the reactions to this problem have come close to solving it. In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut tell the story of a war veteran, Billy Pilgrim, who jumps around time and is kidnapped by an alien race called the Tralfamadorians. He delves into themes of war and morality while offering a look into the mind of veterans after they return from war and how it affects them. Vonnegut explores humanity’s destruction of the Earth with a similar morbid yet dryly humorous approach in his poem Requiem. In both texts, Vonnegut

Could the cruelest, most punishing soldier and a peaty chaplain’s assistant be at all alike? How are they different? When reading Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, Billy Pilgrim and Roland Weary are some of the first characters you will meet. One is a no-life and the other a die hard army man. The characters are different yet very similar. Billy and Roland are similar even if they don’t realize it.

The American public's fascination with serial murders has not only continuously kept these violent men and women in the public eye, but has also inspired the creation of films that demonstrate and dramatize the heinous crimes committed by these people. One such film program that adapts crimes committed by serial murderers, and the murderers themselves, is The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Through a combination of criminology, psychology, and sociology, The Silence of the Lambs is able to not only inform audiences of the dangerous types of people that currently inhabit society, but also of the individuals who study serial murderers with the intent of apprehending them before they commit any more crimes and to help identify these murderers victims.

Silence of the Lambs focuses on two main characters with problematic mental disorders: Hannibal Lector and “Buffalo Bill.” Both of these characters appear to have anti-social personality disorder (ASPD). Based on diagnostic criteria from the DSM 5, significant impairments must be present in personality functioning as well as interpersonal functioning. This can be present in either identity or self-direction. These ideas of self-functioning are focused on personal gratification from goals and self-esteem, and result from personal gain, power, or pleasure. This characteristic is present in both characters, as they feel a sense of pleasure and gain from killing their victims. Hannibal Lector would eat body parts of his victims, and Buffalo Bill would collect the skin of his victims. This also demonstrates the characters failing to conform to lawful, ethical behavior. Next, interpersonal functioning impairments are present in empathy or intimacy. Empathy is the lack of feelings or remorse for others, which is vividly seen in Hannibal Lector’s scenes throughout the movie. For example, after Lector has killed the police officers in his cell, he stands around, swaying as music plays, content with what he has just done, instead of feeling bad or guilty about the murders. In Buffalo Bill’s home, the senator’s daughter is seen trapped a well-like structure, screaming for help. Meanwhile, Buffalo Bill acts oblivious to her suffering and is not affected or remorseful about it. The DSM 5 also describes those affected by antisocial personality disorder as having pathological personality traits in antagonism and disinhibition. While antagonism has several defining characteristics, callousness and hostility are present throughout the movie, as well as disinhibition characterized by risk-taking behaviors. The other evident qualifications include these expressions not understood as being normative, not due to the effects of substance or medications, and the characters being over eighteen years old.

Jeffrey Dahmer, also commonly known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, is one of America’s most notorious serial killers. In the span of nearly 15 years, between the years 1978 and 1991, it is estimated that Dahmer was responsible for the death of fifteen to seventeen young men (Radford University). As his nickname suggests Dahmer was known for drugging his victims, then raping them, then disembodying them, and if the mood fit him, cooking and eating his victims. Dahmer’s unique case resulted in him being psychologically analyzed and diagnosed by at least seven different psychologists during his trial (Palermo & Bogaerts, 2014). This paper seeks to explore the diagnostics given to Jeffery Dahmer and prove, through the use of available information, their accuracy.

Throughout Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut chooses to use special literary techniques that better explain his own encounters in war as well as help his readers bare the horridness of war. Vonnegut adds black humor in his text to benefit readers as well as “an author-as-character” perspective to set barriers and help protect his own memories in the war. Without adding these two specific devices, Vonnegut could possibly have lost reader’s interests in the book or lost his own interest in writing the book.

In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five he talks about many different themes. He quotes, makes fun of, and uses many different themes. I would like to talk about one major theme in Slaughterhouse Five, religion. In the book he uses religion to teach important lessons, he used it as inspiration, and he even pokes fun at religion.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut takes places on two contrasting planets. One is Earth, where war tears apart families and minds, and the other is Tralfamadore, where supernatural alien beings share their extended knowledge of the world. Vonnegut uses the two planets, Earth and Tralfamadore, to show the contrasting ideas of chaos and order, and that human actions have limitations that render them helpless against a meaningless universe.

When choosing a movie from the approved movie list for this final research paper, Silence of the Lambs stood out more than the others. It not only leaves an impression, but the inspiration of the Buffalo Bill character comes from six real-life killers; Jerry Brudos aka “The Lust Killer,” Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway aka "The Green River Killer,” Edmund Kemper, and Gary M.

Slaughterhouse-five strives to remember the tragedy of the bombing of Dresden. Kurt Vonnegut constructs his novel around a main character who becomes “unstuck in time” (23). Billy Pilgrim’s life is told out of order, which gives him a different perspective than the rest of the world. Billy lives through his memories, and revisits events in his life at random times and without warning. Vonnegut introduces Billy Pilgrim to the Tralfamadorian way of thinking about memory and time so that he can cope with being unstuck in time. The Tralfamadorian ideology is set up as an alternative to the human ideology of life. In the novel Slaughterhouse-five, Kurt Vonnegut constructs a reality where memory is unproductive through the Tralfamadorian

The Movie The Silence of the Lambs is about a young FBI agent named Clarice Starling starring Jodie Foster, who is assigned to help find the missing daughter of a Tennessee Senator and save the daughter from a psychopathic serial killer who skins his victims. Starling tries to acquire a better perception into the depraved mind of the killer “Buffalo Bill” by talking to another psychopath named Hannibal Lecter, played by Anthony Hopkins, who used to be a great psychiatrist. Sterling’s boss, FBI agent Jack Crawford thinks that Lecter, who is also a very powerful and intelligent mind manipulator, has the solutions to their questions and can help locate the killer “Buffalo Bill”. Initially, Clarice must first gain Lecter's confidence before he

The character I choose to do my clinical diagnosis is Dr. Hannibal Lecter, from the movie The Silences of the Lambs, which is played by Anthony Hopkins. Dr. Hannibal is a psychopath serial killer who uses charm, manipulation, intimidation, and violence to control his victims and others to satisfy his own selfish needs. Because he lacks a conscience and feelings for others, he cold-bloodily takes what he wants and does what he pleases, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sin of remorse, guilt, or regret. Also Dr. Lecter suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which explains some of his other actions as psychopath serial killer.

Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Bastards entails a Jewish revenge fantasy that is told through a counterfactual history of events in World War II. However, this story follows a completely different plot than what we are currently familiar with. Within these circumstances, audiences now question the very ideas and arguments that are often associated with World War II. We believe that Inglourious Basterds is a Jewish revenge fantasy that forces us to rethink our previous understandings by disrupting the viewers sense of content and nature in the history of World War II. Within this thesis, this paper will cover the Jewish lens vs. American lens, counter-plots with-in the film, ignored social undercurrents, and the idea that nobody

Hannibal’s terror is derived from psychological manipulation and careful control rather than manic outbursts. According to film critic Desmond Ryan, “...the true strength of Demme's movie lies in its exploration of a place beyond physical revulsion - in the darkest corners of the souls of both the hunters and the hunted” (Desmond). Hannibal outsmarts his audience, quietly taking pride in his ability to scrutinize and exploit his opponents in order to get what he wants. Furthermore, the juxtaposition between Hopkins’ character and the skin-stealing serial murderer, Buffalo Bill, (played by Ted Levine) is yet another element which enhances the malicious complexity of Hannibal, making Bill seem like a mere “dime-store criminal” with his demented intentions and relative lack of motive

The love story between two different teenagers that come from completely different worlds is the most remarkable. The Notebook is about two young teenagers who fell head over heels with each other. They got separated by Allie’s upper-class parents who insist that Noah isn’t right for her. But that obstacle didn’t stop these two young lovers from being together even if it took years. This beautiful tale has a special meaning to an older gentleman who regularly reads the timeless love story to his aging wife to help her remember what they went through and that the story that he’s reading to her was their love story. The story he reads follows two young