What Is Hannibal Character Analysis Essay

Hannibal is considered a monster that eats people, savoring the flesh of his victims. That he enjoys the fear that he invokes, while coming down on his victim with relish. While ingratiating himself into the lives of people he considered vulgar, he enjoyed putting them in their place. As well-known surgeon, he functioned normally. He enjoyed all the finer things in life. He believed that being the only one who knew everything, made him a superior being.
The beginning of Hannibal is very powerful and very moving. The actions of the rogue Nazis were so inhuman that it destroyed a young man’s mind. The mere thought of eating his beloved sister had to be horrifying. It is not difficult to imagine his revulsion, his unimaginable pain. As a person looking in at the tragedy caused by war, it can be imagined that if the mind is not

strong, pain cannot be diluted.
Peter Messent, a well-known Gothic writer and columnist, says “the absence of any discernible motivated link between killer and victim…leads to the criminological classification of serial murder as motiveless.” (23). In Hannibal’s life that statement is not true. In his mind his motive started as the way to stop the screaming from the horrors of war. Hannibal had a motive which was to exact revenge for the death of his parents, but the revenge that he enjoyed the most was the one he took for his sister. The author Peter Messent says “that civilizations dark secret is the pretense of refinement that masks secrets and increased appetite for flesh”. This statement is not accurate. Anyone, whether refined or not could mask a secret, which does not necessarily involve eating flesh. (26)
The Cannibalism that Mr. Messent refers to is the savage act of capitalism that is a used metaphorically. To feed off the living bodies and blood of hard workers.(26) It is the fear of losing authority and control. Body mutilation is used as a reminder of the fragile nature that we all exhibit. (26) That does make sense to me. The analogy that Mr. Messent uses, and then again as he goes into describing Clarice and Hannibal’s relationship where it would seem according to Mr. Messent; that they are involved sexually. Reading the novel, I never felt he was attracted to her in sexually. It is more in the way of an older brother, visualizing his little sister in the Clarice. (29)
Nathan Rabin, Columnist wrote “the public loved Lecter more than is probably healthy”. That is not a true statement, to believe that statement would mean that the public is incapable of enjoying any horror story, and that would mean that craziness abounds us. We are all so unique and hopefully smarter than Mr. Rabin gives us credit for. To discern the difference between a fictional story and a non-fictional story is not difficult to do. I believe Mr. Rabin, got more of a frothing at the mouth for the parts left out of the book. One in particular storyline that did not make the books was Margot Verger. Mason Verger’s sister, who he molested. She exacted revenge by violating him and killing Mason by stuffing his pet eel down his throat! Mr. Rabin says the public is insane, I do not believe so, more like the mind of Thomas Harris.
Clarice, (Jodi Foster) is wonderful in the role as an FBI Agent Starling. Unwittingly she becomes someone who Hannibal feels he has to protect. Mr. Rabin thinks that her strong independent feminist role is violated in this story. This is not what I read, she actually went toe to toe with Lecter and with buffalo bill, and she demonstrated strength and intelligence. Funny too, her morals stood the test of time, she stood steadfast and Hannibal respected that quality in Clarice.
John Lancaster (journalist, writer) states “This is a heavy nudge about Lecter, the fictional monster who, we are to surmise, speaks to the monster in all of us”.

We might be curious, but that does not make us into monsters. I like to know what occurs here in San Antonio and in the world to inform myself of the realities that really occur, to remind myself that there are a lot of weirdo’s and really sick depraved people you have to be on the lookout for. I do understand where Mr. Lancaster might get the impression that we all have a monster within us. Unless he is a trained physiologist, by his statement, I see he might not understand the intricacies of what someone would be thinking.
In the last story of Hannibal Lecter, the writer Thomas Harris seems to humanize him more, Hannibal’s beginnings are explained. His fixations are explained by his childhood story of his parents being killed by Nazi’s and his sister being eaten. You get a sense that the writer has softened his views, of what Hannibal is, that he is not completely the monster from the first book. I get the feeling that what he read and what I read are two different

stories.
I do not understand how the writer Mr. Lancaster believes that in the scene where Lecter is cooking Krendlers brain, he says that Lecter feeds his brains (Krendlers) to an eager Clarice? No, she is far from being eager; she has been drugged and cannot control her actions. Her disgust is emphasized in the novel. When the stories are being reviewed, the opinions of the writers are just that, there opinions. I do understand though, how they can feel that we have inner demons that we feed with the horror literature, but to say outright that we are all holding the monsters down is too farfetched. The reality is our lives are so complacent, we get the voyeurism and adventure, if you will, of being involved in what is a story we would otherwise have nothing to do with.