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A Lunatic

Most people are born with healthy minds. However, some people gradually develop mental illness because of the environment they grew up in. Under the stimulation of their environment, the inner dark side of people is gradually enlarged. Finally, they are treated as madmen because of their abnormal behaviors. The character from the novel The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, Hannibal, is such a character. He lost his sister in his childhood, which caused him to become a cannibal. This behavior was triggered due to the desire of revenge. The captain Ahab in Madness and Masquerade by Michael DePorte also is blind by the desire to revenge the white whale. Both of these two authors choose to portray the character’s madness throughout their desire of revenge. Not only these two authors, the way which uses character’s experience to write the story is often used by most authors.

It all began for Hannibal when Hannibal was a child. The things start changing after he and his sister were shackled by the bandits while avoiding the army. The weather was too cold, so the bandits boiled his sister into a soup and drank it for keeping warm. This matter is like leaving a seed in his mind, and this seed slowly grow over the time. Loss of family causes Hannibal’s abnormal behavior, eating people. This disorder also referred in The Burden of Loss, “Unexpected death is associated with heightened vulnerability for onset of virtually all commonly occurring psychiatric disorders that we assessed. This heightened incidence risk is observable from childhood through late adulthood for major depression, PTSD, and panic disorder, and is particularly concentrated in older age groups for manic episodes, phobias, and alcohol use disorders”(Keyes). This quote can show how the death of family affect a person. The experience shown in the article above can prove that loss of family would cause the psychiatric disorders. In psychological level, loss of family is a distal risk of the risk factors that can cause the abnormal behaviors. This factor have stronger effect to a child who loss families. And this factor may serve as a distal contributory cause predisposing a person to depression or antisocial behaviors in later life. For Hannibal, the antisocial behavior is eating people. The shadow in his childhood is potential reason that causes he become a lunatic. The author uses the experience in the childhood of character to describe the reason that causes character’s madman.

In “Madness and Masquerade”, Michael Deporte also wrote many character’s experience to discuss his theme. The character Hannibal from “Silence of the Lambs” have same experience with the character Captain Ahab from Moby Dick which is a short story from “Madness and Masquerade”. The author describes details to portray the character Ahab. Like Ahab called for, “Aye, aye! and it was that accursed white whale that razed me…Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom and round perdition’s flames before I give him up”(Deporte 649). A white whale took off Ahab’s leg, this matter resulted in Ahab being blinded by revenge, and wanting to catch the white whale. To the point of losing his sanity, and finally let the crew of the entire ship fall into the sea. One crew member, Starbuck, criticized his captain for, “Vengeance on a dumb brute… that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Aha, seems blepharons”(Deporte 649). Ahab’s self-respect is strong because the fierce and clever white whale took off his leg, so he wants revenge against the white whale. Regardless of the interests of other shipowners, regardless of the crew’s life and death. He forced the crew to hunt down the white whale with  him. He has lost his mind, only to chase and kill the white whale. By the author’s description, the readers can easily picture the image of character who is crazy.

Also, the author of “Silence of the Lambs” wrote the revenge’s behavior to portray the character Hannibal’s madness. But the Hannibal’s revenge is only a superficial rhetoric. The Hannibal’s behavior of eating people can be comprehended as the commemoration for the death of his sister.  The reason people think that Hannibal is a madman is because he eats people. Hannibal ate his sister by mistake, so he avenged those who killed his sister. He ate the meat on their faces. The psychology of revenge is a self-protection behavior. Hannibal wanted to cover up the cruel reality of the meat he had eaten is his sister’s flesh, so he began to eat human flesh. He wants to turn the cannibalism into a normal thing to make up for his embarrassment to his sister. Compare to Ahab and Hannibal, Ahab made him no longer awake because of revenge, desperate for revenge and became a madman; Hannibal’s revenge also made him start eating, so he was labeled as a madman by others.

However, the author also describes a lot of space for the readers while describing the madness of the characters. In some societies, cannibalism can be a cultural norm like tribal society. The action of eating people cannot be allowed under present society, so Hannibal’s cannibalism is considered as a lunatic behavior. Just like Madness and Masquerade wrote that, “Nobody will trust a lunatic he knows is a lunatic, but people will rally round someone whose lunacy is sufficiently close to their own predilections to be invisible. Throughout history, Swift suggests, those most famed for establishing new empires, new religions, and new philosophical systems have been both mad and fortunate in their choice of audience.”(Deporte 639) People think that one of his actions is not normal because their behavior is different from their ideas. But the emergence of many new ideas was not recognized at the beginning, and philosophers were generally considered to be mad because the theory they proposed was something they had not heard before. Hannibal is a very interesting character. He is a cannibal and is imprisoned as a “murderer”. His behavior seems to be abnormal in the present society. However it was normal behavior in the past, because of the lack of food, people would eat the old, weak, sick, dying or newborn babies for food. Cannibalism is a very common phenomenon at the time. Lector was just born the wrong time period. Furthermore, he is a famous doctor of psychology. For this reason, he will accumulate a lot of negative things in his heart, but he wouldn’t express it. No one can understand his inner thoughts, so he commits cannibalism as an goal. He ate those who wanted to spy on his inner world because he thought that those who were eaten were under him. All kind of behaviors that are not understood make people think that he is a madman. Actually, he cannot be accepted by society, his ideas are not acclaimed before. People think this idea is unusual just like the ideas provided by philosophers. When a new idea is announced by philosopher, some audiences maybe can have empathy with philosopher, but most people will think they are mad like Hannibal. From this aspect to explain the behavior of Hannibal, he can be considered as a common person.

Furthermore, the author developed the mental illness of Hannibal throughout the Hannibal’s personal experience. Hannibal is usually regarded as a madman, but he is also a excellent philosopher.     After he was arrested and imprisoned for eating human flesh. The story of The Silence of the Lambs really started. Because of his wisdom and knowledge, FBI often asks him to help analyze the criminal behavior and psychology of the prisoner. There are a few lines Hannibal said to FBI agent Clarice who errant to ask for help, “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.” This short sentence expresses his contempt for human beings. As I mentioned above, Hannibal thinks he is superior, so he ate him for those who want to investigate him. This includes one. With a sense of self-protection, he wants those who want to provoke him to disappear. Hannibal also expressed himself in this process. He seemed to find the exit of the soul, and the peace of the soul in eating, killing and blood. He ate the meat of his sister, he was bent on filling and covering up this unbearable fact. He wants to make up for his embarrassment to his sister by eating human flesh into a normal state. People always regard similar “lost” as their own “incompetence”, and Hannibal is no exception. Clear-headed Hannibal lost himself in the process, leaving only a perfect empty shell. Hannibal becomes a real madman finally. The storyline gradually developed as the experiences of character.

Hannibal’s childhood shadows coupled with his psychoanalysis and his escape from reality. He tried to use the behaviors of eating for calming his guilty. This actions of revenge make him more and more lost his real self. Similarly like the captain Ahab, he becomes crazy under the desire of revenge to the white whale. Ahab is a captain who eventually led to the death of all crew members. By contract, Hannibal is a protagonist who is good at treating other people’s injuries. Unfortunately, there is nobody can saves him from such mental torture. Finally, Hannibal changed from a normal person to a madman by the time. From these two novella, we can find that the author often use the experiences to portray the character’s madness, and expresse the theme throughout the storyline.

 

 

Works Cited

Keyes, Katherine M. et al. “The Burden of Loss: Unexpected Death of a Loved One and Psychiatric Disorders across the Life Course in a National Study.” The American journal of psychiatry 171.8 (2014): 864–871. PMC. Web. 16 Oct. 2018.

Michael DePorte, Madness and Masquerade. The Georgia Review, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Winter 1990), pp. 636-650

Poietes, Lola “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.” July 28, 2009.