Personality of Hannibal Lecter

Personality of Hannibal Lecter

Introduction

This paper examines the Personality and psychopathology of Hannibal Lecter, the fictional killer and cannibal in Thomas Harris's trilogy: Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal from an object relations point of view. The victim of childhood trauma involving the killing of his family and the cannibalization of his baby sister, Lecter suffers from posttraumatic stress disorder. Using the theories of Melanie Klein, Harry Guntrip, D.W. Winnicott, M. Khan, as well as Otto Kernberg, this paper explores the reasons Lecter is compelled to kill and eat parts of some of his victims. Also this paper main task is to analyze Personality of Hannibal Lecter.

A major antagonist as well as primary character in a series of horror novels by Thomas Harris, which were later adapted into film, the plights of Hannibal Lecter M.D. steer the suspenseful plotline throughout the books as well as the movie adaptations, portrayed most eloquently by actor Sir Anthony Hopkins (Utt, Saxon & Bozmon, 1991). Renowned Psychiatrist and compulsive cannibalistic serial killer, Hannibal Lector, is the perfect blend of sophistication, control and intellect coupled with an uninhibited taste for human flesh. Lector was raised and orphaned during the onset of WWII and was consequentially a witness to horrific scenes of survival and brutality. Seemingly a product of his environment Hannibal retaliates by targeting, tracking and murdering those that had hurt him most during the war in his adolescence and early adulthood, subsequently while taking an interest in medicine (Friedman & Schustack, 2009). Lecter later emigrates from the Soviet Union to the US for medical school. By the time he had received his M.D., Lecter had acquired a talent for murder and was continually cultivating it with each new kill. Lector tends to target victims who portray un-polite or crass qualities. Possessing a dark and twisted sense of humor, he may kill for irony or poetic justice. He also attacks anyone who might reveal his identity or simply for retaliation. Unlike many serial killers, Lector does not kill for the attention it may gain him, but more so for the aesthetic euphoria it provides him as well as the opportunity to taste and or eat organs or small parts of the victim's body. Some serial killers participate in cannibalism as it gives them a trophy from each kill which they then internalize, thereby remaining with them forever. Lecter's rational for cannibalism however seems slightly more complex (Laurentiis & Scott, 2001).

Ivan Pavlov

Behaviorist Approach via Classical Conditioning

Ivan Pavlov, in his biological study of dog's digestive tracts, stumbled upon the primary concepts involved with Classical Conditional learning. In one trial he placed a dog in a harness and measured the dog's unconditional response (UR) or the amount of saliva the dog elicited when presented with a meat substance or unconditional stimulus (US). Pavlov then took this response one step further by introducing the sound of a bell or conditioned stimulus (CS), directly before giving the dog the US or meat substance (Laurentiis ...