Choose one such image or reference from this week's reading and analyze it, discussing how it works to reinforce the novel's themes or ideas about character.
One of the running images throughout Silence of the Lambs is of the predator/prey dichotomy. The novel opens on Clarice Starling, and already we have our first image that plays to both sides. The name Starling is no accident here; a starling is a common looking bird that itself is both predator and prey. The bird feasts on small insects and pests, yet it is susceptible to being eaten by hawks, owls, snakes, and cats. This is immediately reinforced by our first glimpse of her with “grass in her hair” (1). At her first meeting with Dr. Lecter, he emphasizes this vulnerable aspect of Starling’s character by referring to her regularly by that last name and even adding a “go back to school, little Starling” after he’s told her about eating the liver of a census taker (21). On that same page, he suggests to her that there is the potential for more in her by offering that she should string some “tiger’s eye” among the gold “add-a-beads” that cause her now to feel “less than”. Suggesting she add some tiger to herself shows that Lecter sees in her the potential for some predatory traits.
During a conversation in which Crawford tells Clarice he wants her to go talk to Lecter again, a clever play on words is inserted: “I figure you’re game” (116). In this sense, Clarice is not only prey, but the prey of Lecter. This metaphor is further explored more than once. Early on, when Clarice comes to see Lecter after walking through the rain, she first casts a shadow “on the bars of Dr. Lecter’s cage” (52). There is just a hint of the small bird walking carefully in front of the caged beast. He then politely offers her a towel, but it is not as simple as that. We are told, “Starling jumped when the food carrier rolled out… there was a clean, folded towel… she hadn’t heard him move” (53). Stealthy and quiet, Lecter is able to sneak up on her and startle her. Much later when she visits Lecter, he asks if she has injured herself as she is wearing a fresh band-aid. Clarice realizes that the cut is on her leg and is covered; Lecter cannot see it, but like the hungry predator he is, he can smell the blood (131).
More of this dichotomy shows up specific to Clarice with simple references like “from early life [she] had known much more than she wished to know about meat processing” (25). This demonstrates that she has the knowledge of the predator, but still holds the squeamishness of the prey. Another stronger reference to the predatory aspect of Clarice that Lecter saw immediately comes when she finds the link to the moths. As she is leaving the Smithsonian, Clarice thinks to herself, “I have to hunt a thing that lives on tears” (97). Though it is true she must hunt the moth that lives on tears, this is more a reference to the killer she must hunt who is living on the tears of his victims. This is perhaps the first clear image we see of Clarice as the hunter and not just the vulnerable hunted.
Despite this indication of strength and ferocity in Clarice, it seems her goal in being a predator is entirely to prevent other predators from harming innocent prey. As she explains to Dr. Lecter her recurring nightmare about the lambs screaming as they are being led to slaughter, he asks her if she thinks catching the killer and saving Catherine Martin will silence the lambs. Her immediate response is that yes, it will. The terror she finds in the defenseless, pure lambs being coldly destroyed translates to her feelings of being neglected, abandoned, and hurt as a helpless child. This translates into her need to hunt the predators before they can take any more victims.
Aside from the interesting imagery with Clarice and Lecter, there are many other images that bring to mind a predator/prey relationship. When the investigators realize the killer has a truck or van, it is because the victim they found has a burn “across the back of her calf” (86). The burn could have been anywhere, but Thomas Harris took the chance to put a burn on a calf. It may be part of a leg to some, but it is also a baby cow, and this image evokes a picture of branding the cow, burning its flesh. Later, the moth which is linked to the killer is classified by the specialists at the Smithsonian as an Owlet. Though this seems innocent enough, it is one more subtle way to identify the killer as a predator – specifically a nocturnal predator. This image seems fitting since we later see Jame Gumb walking through his basement in the dark with night vision goggles and staring down at his victim. He looks down at her observing that “the material is lying on her side, curled like a shrimp” (188). Adding to this image of small, helpless food, he thinks of how he will harvest “the hide” from her soon (189). The nocturnal predator angle brings us right back around to Dr. Lecter himself who we are told is awake “at night, always – even when his lights are off” (130).
In a novel about a killer who captures his victims and skins them, a killer who literally feeds on portions of his victims, and the chase of the killer before he can strike again it is no wonder that there is so much strong predator/prey imagery. Harris was obviously very deliberate in the names, images, and specific details he chose to include in the pages of his story. There are no accidents here – Harris intended for the reader to know this book is ultimately a tale about the relationship between predator and prey, the hunter and hunted, and what happens when one person is both.
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