Hannibal Lecter:

The psychology of a criminal

Money, sex, vengeance and madness, these are an entire part of the human being and we know that sometimes they can manipulate our actions and decisions in our life. In fact, unconsciously an undesirable acts could happen, considered a crime, which have different motives with many different consequences. Besides the atrocity of a crime, many people are fascinated by the different cases broadcast to them by TV, books, songs. For instance, on TV, we can see so many TV shows or movies about murder cases such as NCIS or Covert Affairs. To illustrate my work on this subject, I have chosen the example of the character of Hannibal Lecter, because I think that his personally is really interesting and it really shows the psychological aspect of a murderer. First of all, I would like to begin to talk of the character of Hannibal Lecter in the book and the movie Red Dragon. This film was directed by Brett Ratner and starring Anthony Hopkins as the psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter and Edward Norton as a FBI agent specialized on murdered cases. Red dragon shows the relationship between a cannibal serial killer and a FBI officer on a really bloody case. At the beginning of the movie, after a classical music concert, the psychiatric MD Hannibal Lecter organized a very weird dinner for his guests. In fact, he prepared a special recipe with some human meat pieces from a member of the orchestra who didnt play very well. At the end of the dinner, when all the guests left. Later, Hannibal Lecter was visited by the FBI officer, Will Graham about murders having the same types of characteristics, which Hannibal Lecter and him tried to solve. During the time that they were talking about the clues that they found, the inspector figured out that, on all the cases, the murderer took off some of the body parts such as the cheeks and the liver to prepare a human meal. It follows with the doctor trying to influence him, explaining his innocence. Then, Hannibal felt that it was the good moment to kill his guest before Will understood that he was the assassin. Discreetly, he took a knife and tried to kill him. The knife wounded him in the stomach but Will Graham shot him twice. However, Hannibal was still alive. In short, I took some time to talk about this scene, because it was one of the most interesting. The reflection of the manipulation that you can see really deeply in the eyes of Hannibal

Lecter and the weird mystery of the different clues that they find step by step are so intense. In fact, you can really feel that Will Graham is not just a normal cop, but he had the character to ask himself the good questions in order to understand the criminal. Can you imagine working with a person that you trust for a long time and one day, he tries to kill you? Of course, Red Dragon is just a movie, but it can easily demonstrate reality. For instance, the film director crossed some information about real criminals to build the character of Hannibal Lecter, i.e.. Hamilton Howard Fish called the werewolf of Wysteria and the Brooklyn vampire, who was an american, serial killer specialized on the cannibalism. After the capture of the assassin, the famous, psychiatric MD Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham decided to quit the FBI traumatized by this experience. During this time, he built a family and his new mission was just to take care of his wife and his son. Instead of this untroubled time, a new serial killer nicknamed the Tooth Fairy appeared. Therefore, Jack Crawford went to Florida to try to convince the most famous cop of Hannibal Lecters capture to help him catch this new assassin. He explained to Will that the The Tooth Fairy already killed two families when the moon was completely fool. He said that they would have some time to catch him. The old, mutilated officer took some time to make a decision. In fact, He thought of his family and he decided to go to the crimes scene to find some clues. At the beginning, Will Graham went to the first house. He looked really pale and we could see the fear in his eyes. This part of the movie was really well down. In fact, we could feel the feelings of the FBI officer and we could really follow the different clues that he found. I want to describe this scene precisely, because I think its really important to understand how he found the clues. Will waited for the night before entering in the house of crime to try to enter in the mind of the criminal in order to understand how the serial killer thought and acted. Firstly, he opened the door and he noticed that the first report didnt mention that the family had a dog. Where was the dog? In fact, its an important question, because this clue would say that the killer had spied on his victims and he probably killed the dog before organizing this horrible action. After that, he entered in the room of the crime and noticed that the Tooth Fairy broke all the mirrors in the house. He thought that he did it because he is hung-up on a malformation on his face. Secondly, he talked to himself about the murder of the Leeds family. The criminal began to kill the children with a gun and killed the dad, Mr. Leeds, with a knife. Then, he reserved the most terrible act for Mrs Leeds. He wounded her stomach and raped her in front of the eyes of a weird audience. He put Mr Leeds and his children against the wall and for a semblance of the reality, he inserted some pieces of mirrors into the eyes of his victims to reflect himself. Finally, at the end of his sexual assault on Mrs Leeds, he killed her. How do you do when you are an officer and your job is to analyze so many crime scenes and catch mad people? Personally, I think that you need to be strong psychologically. In fact, most of time, they are obliged to be able to enter directly in the head of the criminal to find a way to catch the assassin. After visiting the two crime scenes, Will Graham went to Jack Crawfords office to talk about his views on these two cases. Then, his boss convinced him to consult his old friend, the psychiatric MD, Hannibal Lecter, to help him. Will went to the prison with fear inside his stomach. They began to talk about the case, and Hannibal Lecter gave some clues to the FBI officer. Despite this, the MD betrayed him because he found a way to contact the fairy tooth by, first, talking about his impressions about the murderer of the Leeds family and giving the address of his hunter. However, the hospital security found the correspondence between these two famous killers. Then, Hannibal stopped giving his opinions about the case and fell into silence. The policemen reacted fast to protect Grahams family.

The Tooth Fairy is a mad man called Francis Dolarhyde who killed with the nickname of Red Dragon. In fact, this guy had another personality who controlled him. Despite this double nature, how did this man become a murderer? First of all, Francis had a really difficult childhood. His parents died when he was young and he lived with his grandmother who beat him. Secondly, he had a deformed face and he was obliged to have a surgery. To conclude, he was always alone in his private life and in his job. Besides that, he felt in love with a blind person who worked with him in a photo lab. Concerning the case, he was able to watch videos that people would send there to develop their personal movies, thus selecting his victims. He fell in love, but his second personality was to strong and he tried to kill her but he couldnt. In fact, he took her to his house and burned this place down. He tried to fake his own death, leaving the body of someone else. At the end, when the FBI realized that the body wasnt Dolarhydes, Will Graham went to his house but it was too late because the Red Dragon had already found a way to trap Wills family but the officer with all his bravery and intelligence and manipulate Dolarhyde personal history to save his family. The relationship between a criminal like Hannibal Lecter and a FBI officer. First of all, I would like to talk about the personality of the terrifying MD, Hannibal Lecter. At the beginning, it is important to know that Hannibal Lecter doesnt look like a mad man. In fact, he is a really sophisticated man with a passion for arts and classical music. During the period that he was in jail, he used his time to paint and read and he continued to give his theories and his medical knowledge to a psychiatric magazine. He had a really weird trait that he could enter into the brain of another person just by talking, controlling him in a certain way. Secondly, I will analyze the character of Will Graham. Will is not really a normal cop because he had the capacity to think as a murderer and I think that is very helpful when you need to find clues for a case. During the movie, after Hannibal tried to kill him, he tried to fight his fear to go to the prison to talk to him. At the beginning, Hannibal didnt want to give him any informations about his challenger. Despite this, he thought that it could be funny to play with Will by manipulating him and thus having his vengeance. Then, the FBI officer visited him several times to have information and Hannibal continued to feel the same pleasure by giving his opinions about the case. In fact, the case was really interesting for him because he felt an admiration for the Tooth Fairy. To conclude this part, I think that the relationship between Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham is the most interesting detail in this movie and the book. For instance, in the book Red Dragon and the Silence of the Lambs, there are huge chapters which describe the dialog between them with all the tensions and the feelings they both felt.

After this part of description of the movie, I would like to talk more about all the different types of crimes that we can find. The Enron case: Even if you work for one of the biggest company in the world, nobody is protected by bankruptcy. That was the situation of Enron company. In fact, on the surface, Enron which was specialized in natural gas and electricity looked healthy on the outside. For instance, this company employed 21,000 people from around the whole world. But inside the society, there were some illegal, financial manipulations, mostly in the accounting sector. Instead of what happened with the

internet crises, the cheating was found. The Securities and Exchange Commission began investigations on the accounts of the enterprise. At the end of November 2001, the companys stock cost one buck. That consequence was to lay off 4,000 salaries who had another shock after that because their retirement accounts which were based on company stock had completely vanished. Enron didnt kill anyone. However, they put all their employees in the misery with all these financial manipulations. Conclusion: To conclude, criminals can have different faces for example a mad man with psychological problem but also as a very intelligent person who went to a famous university and lived in a luxurious world. In fact, a criminal could be a king as well. For instance, what is going on right now in Libya or in Ivory Coast is just crazy. The Colonel Qaddafi and Gbagbo are organizing huge genocides against their own people to keep them in power. In Cuba, Fidel Castro did the revolution to give the power to the Cubans and force the Americans to leave. And then, he founded a reign of fear in his country. Most of the people think that it was the Castros private army which killed the Che. Money, power, madness... just some of the biggest roots which may push a person to become a criminal.

Reading
Red Dragon Harris the most Crimes in Society, Life

List:
by Thomas Notorious American magazine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dragon_(film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron