Jeff Lindsay created an enthralling and complicated character in his work Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Readers are presented with a twisted charismatic serial killer with a developed taste in who he kills. The protagonist, Dexter, relieves an inner need to murder through a trained system of killing other serial killers. With each passing page Dexter’s odd tendencies are revealed to readers highlighting traits of a character with an aversion to blood and mess. Lindsay has his own character refer to himself as a “neat monster” (Lindsay 12). This statement rang true with Dexter being meticulous and clean with each killing he commits. Outside of Dexter’s routine when he kills, his character has a strong sense of compassion and protectiveness towards …show more content…
Lindsay wrote of a character who showed great compassion towards kids. A character who passed each day with a front as a human would blossom with true emotion while around kids. Dexter benefited from his superficial relationship with Rita by enjoying the company of her two kids. Dexter experienced trauma very young, losing his mother to a drug deal that ended in a blood bath. Rita’s kids had been left with a scared mom after losing their dad to “First alcohol, then heroin, believe it or not, and finally crack” (Lindsay 55). Dexter had a sense of protectiveness over her kids as they had lost parents to drug related issues like Dexter. His compassion and protectiveness over children is the only vigilante characteristics that is purely motivated by selfless causes. “And best of all were her two children. Astor was eight and Cody was five and they were much too quiet. They would be, of course. Childeren whose parents frequently attempt to kill eachother with the furniture tend to be slightly withdrawn. Any child brought up in a horror zone is. But they can be brought out of it eventually- look at me. I had endured nameless and unknown horrors as a child, and yet here I was: a useful citizen, a pillar of the community.” (Lindsay 57). Dexter recalled Astor and Cody with hopefulness that he can play a role in bringing the two scarred kids out …show more content…
Yet once learning about his traumatic event no additional sympathy is needed for Dexter. Sympathy is called on for the three-year-old Dexter who is locked in with an inch of blood forced to stare at his mother’s decapitated head. Present day Dexter however does not need any sympathy from readers. He is a monster with standards and readers feel no sympathy for the characters that die at Dexter’s hands. Readers make peace with what Dexter is doing as he takes away people from society who are easily hated. With no negative emotions towards the quirk that Dexter kills due to who he kills sympathy was never called for the character. His traumatic event provides great insight to the character but does not elicit sympathy, not because the event was not terrible but because the character Dexter became is acceptable to
In Henry Slesar’s classic story “The Right Kind of House”, an old widow named Mrs. Grimes puts her tattered home up for sale with an asking price far more than it’s worth. Her real estate agent assumes she needs the money, living alone and all, but in reality, Mrs. Grimes has a complex plan to locate the man who murdered her son Michael, using the family house as bait. She then hopes to due justice to her son by ending the life of his assassin. Throughout this tale, Mrs. Grimes is best described as willing and clever, as she used her unconditional love for Michael and unsuspected intelligence as motivation to find and kill his murderer, putting herself in danger to succeed.
In Cold Blood, a novel written by Truman Capote and published in 1966, is, though written like fiction, a true account of the murder of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas in 1959. This evocative story illuminates new insights into the minds of criminals, and how society tends to act as a whole, and achieves its purpose by utilizing many of the techniques presented in Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor. In In Cold Blood, Capote uses symbols of escape and American values, and recurring themes of egotism and family to provide a new perspective on crime and illustrate an in-depth look at why people do the things they do.
Truman Capote put-to-words a captivating tale of two monsters who committed four murders in cold blood. However, despite their atrocities, Capote still managed to sway his readers into a mood of compassion. Although, his tone may have transformed several times throughout the book, his overall purpose never altered.
Vronsky, Peter. Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters. New York: Berkley, 2004. Print.
For as long as man has walked the earth, so has evil. There may be conflicting moral beliefs in this world, but one thing is universally considered wrong: serial killers. Although some people may try to use insanity as an explanation for these wicked people, they cannot explain away the heartlessness that resides in them. As shown in The Stranger Beside Me, infamous serial killer Ted Bundy is no exception to this. Even though books about true crimes may be considered insensitive to those involved, the commonly positively reviewed book The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule handles the somber issue of Ted Bundy’s emotionally destructive early life and the brutal crimes he committed that made people more fearful and aware of the evil that can exist in seemingly normal people well.
One of the prime examples of a young sociopath turned murderer is one of America’s most glorified and famous serial killers, Jeffrey Dahmer. Dahmer, also known as The...
Mass Murderers and Serial Killers are nothing new to today’s society. These vicious killers are all violent, brutal monsters and have an abnormal urge to kill. What gives people these urges to kill? What motivates them to keep killing? Do these killers get satisfaction from killing? Is there a difference between mass murderers and serial killers or are they the same. How do they choose their victims and what are some of their characteristics? These questions and many more are reasons why I was eager to write my paper on mass murderers and serial killers. However, the most interesting and sought after questions are the ones that have always been controversial. One example is; what goes on inside the mind of a killer? In this paper I will try to develop a better understanding of these driven killers and their motives.
Countless serial killers have had an abnormal childhood; many people believe this is where the catalyst of events starts. It is proven, that more often than not, serial killers have either lived in an inhabitable home, had lackadaisical parents, or could have a different frame of mind. This being said, when one hears about mass murderers or serial killers, the first question that pops into a person’s head is, “What were they thinking?” For all a person knows, this could be the killer’s normalcy.
Richard Mulcaster, a British instructor of English, once wrote, “Nature makes the boy toward, nurture sees him forward.” Mulcaster recognizes that both genetic and environmental factors determine the type of a person one becomes. Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood gives the reader an opportunity to see prime examples of how nature and nurture influence one’s character. Capote’s novel, In Cold Blood introduces the reader to two men; Richard Eugene Hickock known as Dick throughout the novel, and Perry Edward Smith whose lives of crime are almost identical; although both Perry and Richard come from very humble backgrounds, their childhood particularly their family life, has very little in common. It is not until later in their lives that we begin to see similarities between the two men. Despite their differences, Perry’s upbringing and Dick’s genetic disposition allow both men to share a disregard for life, which becomes apparent on the night they gruesomely burglarized and murdered four innocent members of the Clutter family.
Schechter, H. and Everitt, D. The A-Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. Pocket Books. N.Y. 1996
In Truman Capote’s non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, the Clutter family’s murderers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, are exposed like never before. The novel allows the reader to experience an intimate understanding of the murderer’s pasts, thoughts, and feelings. It goes into great detail of Smith and Hickock’s pasts which helps to explain the path of life they were walking leading up to the murder’s, as well as the thought’s that were running through their minds after the killings.
'Serial murder'; has long been a term used to describe those human beings that repeatedly commit heinous crimes. It is rare that the average person probes the mind of a serial killer without bias. However, what lies behind the eyes of a serial killer deserves more than the cold hard look that society so often gives (Aaronson, Inter...
In the saying of “Character is what you are in the dark” by Dwight Lyman Moody, can meaning many different things. One being, “you are most yourself when no one is watching”, another one also being, “dark and troubled times bring out a person's true nature”, and “your true nature is on the inside”. This quote can or cannot apply to the play of “Romeo and Juliet” by Shakespeare.
These numerous multiple murders, often without consequence and justice, have shocked civilized society with incomprehensible acts of inhumanity. Horrific amounts of body counts and volumes of spilt blood accompany the discovery of each new serial killer. The indescribable events associated with each murder leave such unanswered questions as: what deviations lurk in the mind of a serial killer, what provokes an individual to commit such hideous acts, and what can be done to reduce these inconceivable murders?