Darkly Dreaming Dexter Character Analysis

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

children despite his supposed lack of humanity. Insight to these charming, perplexing traits, is provided when Lindsay writes of the “The Traumatic Event” (Lindsay 275).
“I don’t pretend to understand what it is about Dexter and blood. Just thinking of it sets my teeth on edge- and yet I have, after all, made it my career, my study, and part of my real work. Clearly some very deep things are going on,” (Lindsay 22). Lindsay writes of Dexter, referring to the character’s own repugnance to blood while at a Miami crime scene. This disgust towards bodily fluids and mess is carried throughout the novel. Reason is brought to light towards the end of the novel and the reasoning behind a murderer having a distaste towards blood is revealed. Dexter’s severe trauma happened to him at the age of three, “Two and a half days later. Stuck to the floor in dried blood, an inch deep.” His voice was grating, horrible; he said that awful word, blood, just the way I would have said it, with contemptuous and utter loathing” (Lindsay 274). This particular quote was pulled from a scene where Dexter confronted the killer he had long idolized, discovering it to be a forgotten older brother. A young toddler Dexter was stuck in a thick pool blood so long that it had dried around him. With being so young a moment like this tainted the way he kills, creating a set pattern where he avoids the thing that had played a critical role in his traumatic stress.
While stuck for two days in the dried blood of his own mother and others, Dexter is forced to see multiple bodies hacked and in pieces. This sight sticks with Dexter and he adopts his own habit of cutting bodies, and idolizing the skill of a clean cut. “Very clean,” I said. And it was, even beyond the neatness of cutting. I had never seen such clean, dry, neat-looking dead flesh. Wonderful.” (Lindsay 28). When the protagonist encounters his first prostitute body he sees similarities to his own execution of killing and recognizes it took expertise that is on another level, leaving him in awe. Dexter prizes the prostitute’s bodies he finds, idolizing the artistic cuts and bloodless kill. His own personal kills are kept clean and neat consistently throughout the book. Each habit that had been developed by Dexter were subconsciously inspired by his trauma. Each killing, even with the intention of releasing his inner evil, would make him relive the events as a child.
The horrors Dexter experienced did not only shape his demoness killer tendencies, it shaped the sliver of honest humanity that he contained.

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

of their shells and become functional. At age three Dexter saw his mother brutally murdered and this event shaped his life and warped his mind stripping away his humanity. Due to this Dexter’s small remaining humanity is for children.
Throughout the book readers are faced with a character who idolizes murder and commits nameless monstrosities himself.

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

readers.