America and Hannibal Lecter: A Psychoanalytical – Political Reading of Harris’s Serial Killer

This paper argues that Thomas Harris’s Quartet draws detailed parallelism between the character of Hannibal Lecter and America as a political entity. Previous research has neither elaborated nor provided precise examples, from real-life American politics or psychology, highlighting this parallelism. In fiction, Simpson (2000) asserts, the serial killer character can be a political and ideological code in the midst of the post-war evolution of the serial killer fiction genre. Drawing on Zimbardo’s psychoanalytical theory and Danner’s political testimonial insights, this paper explains that both Hannibal Lecter, and America, as a political entity, are evil. After September 11, Bush administration has rationalized extreme measures to combat terrorism in Afghanistan, has established a detention camp at Guantanamo, Cuba, and has settled a torture site in Abu Gharib in Iraq. Danner’s political insights prove that there have been systematic killings and torture committed by the American troops in Iraq, which have been officially documented in the Schlesinger report, General Taguba’s report and Red Crescent reports. All of these documents can be fully accessed through Danner’s book whose political testimonies act as the backbone for assessing any claims of evil, narcissism, or psychopathy attributed to the character of America. Narcissism and psychopathy are studied as two main personality disorders of the character of Lecter and America as a political entity in the light of the psychoanalytical theory, mainly Kernberg’s and Ronningstam’s. Hence, this interdisciplinary paper highlights evil, narcissism, and psychopathy in the characters of Lecter and America, with reference to fiction, psychology and politics.