Gumb kills sad, overweight teenage girls and skins them. How might Lecter also be deemed politically less monstrous as a concept of the Other than Jame Gumb?

The novel thus makes the point that when society chooses its monsters, it does not necessarily choose them on the basis of evil acts alone.

In other words, despite the cannibalism and the sociopathy, Lecter is a much easier for the average person to relate as someone who is not occupying a lower level on the evolutionary scale than the rest of us. By contrast, Hannibal Lecter is a great artist, an actual doctor with an actual Ph.D, speaks several language and, above all else, is charming. He is the kind of sexual freak that took the place of werewolves, vampires and strangers with candy as suburban boogey men to be pointed out to kids as something to be avoided. These two factors coalesce to make it seem deceptively simple to figure him out. Buffalo Bill-James Gumb-is dealing with the kind of sexual confusion and gender identity problems that not only make for easy jokes, but are also understandable. The transformation of Hannibal Lecter from repulsive serial-killing cannibal into a figure of almost Dracula-level romance begins the moment Clarice Starling enters into the prison where he is being kept. Explain how he transforms into what might be termed a “civilized serial killer” as opposed to Buffalo Bill being merely a monster. When introduced in Red Dragon-a prequel to The Silence of the Lambs published several years earlier-Hannibal Lector was also helping an FBI agent track down a serial killer, but he himself still remained mainly a kind of modern day boogey man. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.

The silence of the lambs books in order