“Silence of the Lambs” Character Analysis Essay Example

Hannibal Lecter multiple times and they begin to form a strange relationship where the more agent starling shares about herself the more information Dr. Hannibal Lecter gives to her about Buffalo Bill. Dr. Hannibal Lecter gets Clarice to share the details of her childhood and the death of her father. She tells him about her most traumatic memory from her childhood, was walking into a barn of sheep beginning slaughtered. She describes the sound of the sheep screaming and when she tried to free them, they wouldn’t run so she decided to grab one of the lambs and run away from the home. She admitted how she is still having nightmare about the screaming sheep. Dr. Lecter using his psychiatrist background gets inside of Clarice’s head and says that he thinks Clarice is trying to save Catherine from Buffalo Bill because it might stop her terrible nightmares. Dr Hannibal Lecter gives Clarice his thoughts on the case file on Buffalo Bill and she starts to solve the mysteries of the case. After this Dr. Hannibal Lecter is transferred to another prison because he hates Chilton. Chilton is the man in charge of the mental hospital and he often tortures Dr. Hannibal Lecter in many different ways. While in his new cell he kills his guards and escapes. Meanwhile Clarice finds out where Buffalo Bill lives and decides to go to his home herself even though the head of the FBI psychology department and the FBI HRT team are flying to another man’s home in Illinois.

Clarice knows that Buffalo Bill has to live nearby his first victim and that he would share interests with his first

victim. The first victim Frederica was very interested in sewing and so was Buffalo Bill. Buffalo Bill only targets larger women usually size 14 dress because being a man he needs a larger piece of skin to work with. He captures his victims and starve them to loosen their skin so he can skin or scalp them to make a full suit made of their skin. Buffalo Bill thought of himself as a transgender woman, but Dr. Hannibal Lecter described him as thinking he is a transsexual because he hated his own identity. Dr. Hannibal Lecter hints to Clarice about Buffalo Bill or “Billy” has applied for sex reassignment surgery but was denied. This helps Clarice pinpoint exactly who Buffalo Bill is. It turns out to be Jame Gumb, a former patient of Dr. Lecter’s. When she arrives at his front door, he invites her inside. While inside Jame Gumb or “Jack Gordon” as he tells her seems very nervous and is asking a lot of questions about the case but denies any relationship to the victim Fredericka. Clarice notices the same bred of moth flying that was found inside the victims flying around inside the house which alerts her that this is definitely Buffalo Bill. She pulls out her gun and aims it at him and he runs down into his large basement where his sewing and butterfly breeding rooms are and the well where Catherine was being held captive. Clarice tries to find Buffalo Bill down in the basement but her turns off all of the lights and uses his night vision goggles to get the advantage and kill her first. They are

in the same room when Buffalo Bill goes to cock his gun and the noise shows Clarice where he is, and she blindly fires her gun and kills Buffalo Bill. The movie concludes with Clarice graduating the FBI academy and getting a brief call from Dr. Hannibal Lecter stating that Clarice shouldn’t worry about him coming for her and that she wouldn’t try and come for him. Dr. Lecter’s last words to her were that he is having an old friend for dinner then the closing scene pans to Chilton who has just landed where Dr. Lecter has been hiding out. The movie refers to Buffalo Bill as being a psychopath serial killer.

Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb, age 30, is a very interesting character with a traumatic childhood. Dr. Hannibal Lecter was talking to Clarice when he stated, “Look for severe childhood disturbances associated with violence. Our Billy wasn’t born a criminal, Clarice — he was made one through years of systematic abuse. Our Billy hates his own identity, you see. He always has, and he thinks that makes him a transsexual. But his pathology is a thousand times more savage and more terrifying.”:Jonathan Demme(Director) Kenneth Utt, Edward Saxon, Ron Bozman, Gary Goetzman( Producers),( 1991.) Buffalo Bill had a rough childhood filled with abuse and hardships and this had an effect on the person he had turned into. Hated his own identity so he thought of himself as being a transgender woman, so he applied to well-known hospitals like John Hopkins for sexual reassignment surgery but was denied because of his disturbing past. Doctors did not think he was a true transgender woman. Dr. Lecter referred to Buffalo Bill’s pathology as

being savage and terrifying. This is very true, he has a pattern of manipulation, deceit, and vicious murder. He started close to home with his first victim then started traveling to hunt down his other victims. He lacks any sense of empathy towards his victims, while in the well Catherine noticed bloody claw marks from the other victims that had been trapped in there and she began to scream, Buffalo Bill started to mock her screams. Buffalo Bill is very cocky and admires himself in the mirror, while applying makeup. He thinks very highly of himself and has an inflated ego and is quite arrogant. His home seemed to be messy, the countertops were full of cluttered items. He had an abusive childhood with unstable parenting which increases his chances of his conduct disorder evolving into antisocial personality disorder. (Comer and Comer,481)

I would diagnose Buffalo Bill with 307.1 (F60.2) Antisocial Personality Disorder. Antisocial personality disorder is more common in men and Buffalo Bill fits all of the criteria in the DSM-5 for antisocial personality disorder. He does not conform to social norms; he is biologically a male but feels like he is meant to be a woman and tries to dress the way society feels is woman’s clothing. He is a serial killer which is illegal and not socially accepted Buffalo Bill is very deceitful and uses multiple aliases such as “Jack Gordon” in the movie when agent Starling asks him for his name. He uses costume or props like a fake cast to lure his victims. He pretended to be handicapped and tricked Catherine into helping him lift his couch into his van. While

Catherine is helping, he tells her to keep going farther into the van and then he beats her. Buffalo Bill is very irritable and aggressive and takes joy in his crimes. His mood seemed irregular and suspiciously calm. His actions are reckless, and he does not care what it takes for him to make his “woman suit” because he thinks that it will make him complete. While trying to make his “woman suit”, he has to capture women, place them in a well and starve them. Then he skins them and sews the skins together, after everything is done, he has no remorse for his actions. He always speaks to his victims as objects instead of people. He refers to the women as “it” and not their names. The only thing he showed any emotion to his dog Precious. When Catherine got Precious to fall into the well Buffalo Bill went running to the cries of his dog. He began to become furious and delusional at the thought of his dog being in pain. He has been disturbed since his early childhood. Our textbook states, “In support of the psychodynamic explanation, researchers have found that people with this disorder are more likely than others to have had significant stress in their childhoods, particularly in such forms as family poverty, family violence, child abuse, and parental conflict or divorce.” (Comer and Comer,482) He does not fit the criteria for schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. There was not a specific diagnosis for Buffalo Bill in the film, but Clarice referred to him as a psychopath but in those times all serial killers were referred to as psychopaths. Psychopathy

has a lot of similar symptoms of antisocial personality disorder, but it is used as more of a specifier for antisocial personality disorder not a disorder of its own. The movie accurately displays Buffalo Bill as having antisocial personality disorder even though they do not state it directly. (American Psychiatric Association, 2013)

The movie did not show any specific treatment for antisocial personality disorder. The movie showed the mental hospital where Dr. Hannibal Lecter was being held in a glass enclosure by himself. Treatment for antisocial personality disorder is psychotherapy or psychotropic medications but both are usually ineffective. It is hard to treat someone with antisocial personality disorder because of their interesting way of thinking. They do not have empathy or a conscience, so it is hard for them to put themselves in their victims’ shoes to see why their actions were wrong. People with antisocial personality disorder think highly of themselves so they usually do not think that anything is wrong with them. While most people with antisocial personality disorder are criminals, they are usually mandated by the courts to attend the therapy, so they have no interest on changing themselves. Our textbook states that , “A number of hospitals and prisons have tried to create a therapeutic community for people with this disorder, a structured environment that teaches responsibility toward others (Bressert, 2016). Some patients seem to profit from such approaches, but it appears that most do not.” (Comer and Comer,481) While the movie did not show any treatment methods but from what I have learned from this class is that the best thing we can do today is try to rehabilitate people with

anti-personality disorder and if you feel like you might have it you should contact a professional.

References

1. American Psychiartic Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.) Washington, DC: Author.
2. Orion Pictures ; screenplay by Ted Tally ; produced by Kenneth Utt, Edward Saxon and Ron Bozeman ; directed by Jonathan Demme. (2001). The silence of the lambs. Santa Monica, CA :MGM Home Entertainment
3. R.Comer and J.Comer,( 2018) Abnormal Psychology, tenth edition. New York: Worth publishers, Macmillian Learning