It’s weird. If someone asked me what type of movies/books I like, I would not respond by saying that I like crime drama, police procedurals, etc. If the story follows the work of a cop or a detective, I typically do not think of it as something I like. However, after I watch or read one of those (as long as it is a well-done one), I like it. And that’s how it was for Red Dragon.
This novel fits well with chapter 5 from Howdunit. However, I’m not sure which category Dolarhyde would fit. He seems to show characteristics of all of them. Here are a few examples:
“Many serial murderers are not considered to be psychologically impaired. They are in touch with the real world but have absolutely no feelings for other people. The opposite of that would be the delusional killer who murders because he has seen or heard people or voices that demand he kill a certain type of person or persons” (42). The Dragon seems to be an actual voice that Dolarhyde hears talking to him. He hears it and responds to it. The voice of the Dragon eventually sounds like his grandmother because the voice tells him to get the teeth and he goes to get the grandmother's teeth. The voice then tells him to “put them in your palms. lock your fingers and squeeze my teeth together.” This is reminiscent of the time when she threatened to cut of his penis using a pair of scissors.
“The delusional serial killer’s crime scene is in total disarray. There are probably signs of forced entry, and the scene shows signs of a struggle, such as the victims attempting to flee” (42-43). I got the impression that the crime scene where the Leeds family died was in disarray. “Graham switched on the lights and bloodstains shouted at him from the walls, from the mattress and the floor. The very air had screams smeared on it.” The whole description was just violent (one kid hid under a bed and was dragged out, the father ran to protect the kids with his throad slit, the bodies were moved around after the fact).
“When the delusional serial killer goes out looking for his victims, he has an idea he wants to kill but doesn’t have a particular person targeted” (43). This part does not seem to match. Dolarhyde was very deliberate in who he selected.
“The goal-oriented serial killer wants to achieve some result from his murders” (43). “The gold-oriented serial killer has an obsessive-compulsive mind-set and may have deep-rooted psychosexual problems, but he is not delusional. This type of killer does not hear voices or see visions directing him to kill certain types of people” (43). Part of this sounds like Dolarhyde. He does have a goal AND he does hear voices giving him direction. “With the fervor of conversion he saw that if he worked at it, if he followed the true urges he had kept down for so long – cultivated them as the inspiration they truly were – he could Become.” He uses his murders to help him reach his goal: “The Jacobis were the first to help him, the first to lift him into the Glory of his Becoming.” Even though this factual part does not fit the description of the character, it does not take away from the character at all. This is not a detail I would have even been aware of had I not read that Howdunit chapter.
“This killer [the domineering serial killer] actually enjoys seeing his victims suffer. He likes to inspire fear” (44). I saw this in the way Dolarhyde killed Lounds. He glued him to a chair, bit of his lips, and then set him on fire.
The sexually obedient serial killer “is emotionally immature and was probably physically and/or sexually abused as a young child” and he “kills for the sexual pleasure he derives from his killings” (45). I think part of this fits him as well. He murdered the other family members, but he did more than just kill the women. In addition, he was abused as a child and elements of that abuse linger into his adulthood.
In the end though, Dolarhyde is a believable psycho, regardless of how well he matches the descriptions of serial killers. He is believable and totally crazy.
Works Cited
Boertlein, John. Howdunit: How Crimes are Committed and Solved. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 2001.
Harris, Thomas. Red Dragon. New York: Berkley Books, 1981.
I like how you analyzed Dolarhyde, trying to see which psychopath-category he fit in and seeing that he has a bit of everything. I think it's for this reason that I find Dolarhyde to be more than a two-dimensional character. Had Dolarhyde fallen into the delusional category right off the bat, I have the feeling that I wouldn't have been as terrified of him. After all, I think anyone can hear voices, it's just a matter of whether we actually do whatever said voices tell us to do. Also, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have felt any shred of sympathy for Dolarhyde when he attempted to save Reba from the Red Dragon.
ReplyDeleteI'm the same way--I am typically not a fan of the police-procedural genre; I prefer supernatural horror and write primarily in that genre. But what drew me into this book, both now and the first time I read it some 20 years ago, is the way Harris develops Dolarhyde. A lot of writers would be content to just make him "crazy" and leave it at that, thinking that's enough to scare people. For me, the most frightening part of his story is when he's splitting apart, he's aware of it, and he's desperate to stop.
ReplyDeleteDittoing Jenn, the point when Dolarhyde realized he was over the edge, that was the scariest part for me. Crazy for the sake of crazy isn't all that scary because some people really can't help that. But a person who we can relate to and even sympathize with witnessing his or her own spiral into The Crazy is hard to watch.
ReplyDeleteDittoing Jenn and Rhonda -- and I'm proud to assume that I'm the first person in the history of the English language to write that precise phrase -- I also thought the scariest part was when Dolarhyde wanted to stop but couldn't. You do a nice job analyzing him along lines of the article we read.
ReplyDeleteExcellent analysis. Now comes the question... What parts of the "typical" serial killers would you use in your own writing, and how?
ReplyDelete