4.2 The Cause of Hannibal Lecter’s Psychopathic Personality
To understand the problem of the leading character, in this case psychopathic personality then we should know the background of the leading character itself.
There is a correlation between cause and impact as the correlation of childhood and adulthood. Most of psychological problems can be traced back from the childhood
because they do not involve heredity aspects such gen and chromosome. By focusing on the background of the leading character which is Hannibal Lecter, the cause of
psychopathic problem can be found out. Lester D. Crow and Alice Crow in Readings in Abnormal Psychology 1983:
87 said that psychopath is one kind of mental disorder which can be considered one of the prototypical disorders associated with empathic dysfunction. The psychopath
does not have conscience and feelings. It is characterized partly by antisocial behavior, a lack capacity for remorse, and poor behavioral controls. Someone can be
psychopath by some causes such as developmental crises, accidental crisis, and head trauma.
Derek Russel Davis in An Introduction to Psychopathology 1984: 63 said that psychopath as mental illness arises at crises and reflects failure to achieve
through changes in habits and roles a stable reorganization of the system. Those crises are divided into developmental and accidental.
Developmental crises happen in the normal sequences of life circle. Developmental crises are crises which develop since someone is born until the old
age of him. For example such as being born, going to school, leaving school, starting a job, becoming a parent and also being widowed. These developmental crises also
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happen to Hannibal Lecter as the leading character who has shown the characteristics of psychopath by some crises that he should face since he is child until he is adult.
The first developmental crisis happens when he is young where he should accept the birth of his younger sister, Mischa. He does not really like the sister’s birth since he
is the first son so he wants to be the only one who loved by his parents. Since the birth of his sister, absolutely his parents should share the love and affection between
him and his sister. The crisis is showed when there is contradiction between accepting his sister or hating her but finally he chooses to love his sister because he
is brother who should protect his sibling.
That fall he was presented with a baby sister, Mischa. He thought Mischa looked like a winkled red squirrel. He reflected privately that
it was a pity she did not get their mother’s looks. Usurped on all fronts, he thought how convenient it would be if the eagle that
sometimes soared over the castle should gather his sister up and gently transport her to some happy peasant home in a country far
away, where the residents all looked like squirrels and she would fit right in. at the same time, he found he loved her in a way he could
not help. Harris, 2006: 27
The second developmental crisis happens when he, his younger sister, and his parents escape to the family’s hunting lodge in the woods to hide from war. His
family survives in the wood for three and a half years. This crisis changes his habit where he usually lives as nobleman in Lecter Castle should adapt to live in the woods
far from luxurious thing he has in his castle. The third developmental crisis is the condition where he lives as an orphan in the orphanage which is built in his castle.
He should face the crisis where he lives alone without his parents and be antisocial child who exiles himself from orphans in that orphanage. He is tortured by some
monitors in the orphanage because his castle does not belong to him again. He is just
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orphan without his rich parents and the monitors do violent acts to him because of that reason.
“Too good to sing with us, Little Master?” First Monitor Petron said over singing. “You’re not Little Master here anymore, you are just
another orphan, and by God you’ll sing” Fist monitor swung his clipboard hard against the side of Hannibal’s face. Hannibal did not
change his expression. Neither did he sing. A trickle of blood came from the corner of his mouth.
Harris, 2006: 62
In that orphanage his personality develops from well mannered boy to antisocial guy. Then, when he is bought by his uncle to France, he is sent to monitor
classes in the village but he quarrels with a student there. He breaks the spitter’s coccyx and the nose of that student. That event shows the fourth crisis which
happens during his school period. This school period builds his personality into the characteristic of lack of remorse. He faces the crisis during his school life by doing
violent act to others without feeling guilty. Crisis also happen to him when he wants to takes revenge against the killers of his sister where he should ignore his ambition
to be a doctor and then becomes liar, cannibal, and serial killer. The contradiction also happens when his aunt, Lady Murasaki advices him to forget about his revenge
but he takes risks to take revenge against those killers even when he should sacrifice his life in that process. From those crises that happen in Hannibal Lecter’s life can be
seen that mental illness arises from the beginning of his life circle until the end of his life circle such as being born, having sister, escaping to the woods, surviving in the
hunting lodge, being orphan, going to school, and taking risks to take revenge against the killers of his sister. Those crises have been stimulated Hannibal’s psychopathic
personality. Psychopath as mental illness arises at developmental crises during the life circle of Hannibal himself.
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Accidental crises do not happen because of sequences of life circle or hereditary factors. They happen because of sudden shocking events in someone’s
life. Examples of accidental crises are the ultimately death or the desertion of member of the family or other loved person, loss of a job, illness, and the unexpected
pregnancy of a daughter. So the sadness after the death of the beloved family can changed someone personality. If the death of beloved someone for example family
member is inflicted by others then someone tends to take revenge against people who have murder his beloved family. Bad behavior and attitude as the result of mental
illness are aroused from the revenge itself.Hannibal Lecter is eight years old and he lives with his family in Lecter castle built by Hannibal the Grim, his paternal
ancestor. Lecter, his younger sister, Mischa, and his parents escape to the family’s hunting lodge in the woods on the second day of Operation Barbarossa when Hitler
sweeps across Eastern Europe into Russia. The Lecter family survives in the woods for three and a half years of Hitler’s eastern campaign. Then his parents die in the
invasion of Germans by the Stuka dive bomber which falls to his hunting lodge. Hannibal Lecter becomes psychopath because inacceptable death of his
parents and his younger sister during the war. His mother and his father are burnt in front of his eyes by the fire of Stuka dive bomber which fall to his hunting lodge in
the woods. He sees Mischa, his younger sister who is sick at that time eaten by those six Lithuanian militiamen who are consisted by Zigmas Milko, Bronys Grentz,
Enrikas Dortlich, Petras Kolnas, Kazys Porvik and Vladis Grutas. He is found as a deaf and mute boy in the woods with chain locked around his neck by Russian
soldier and he is bought to orphanage. Those tragedies affect to his life and make him depressed and he becomes psychopath. The symptom of psychopath itself has
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been seen when he is in the orphanage. He dreams about the death of his younger sister, Mischa and also the death of his parents and his teacher, Mr. Jakov. He draws
many sketches about unknown faces of the killers of his sister and puts it on the board of his bed because he forgets how Mischa dies.
“He wanted to know what they called each other. He had to finish his dream. He went into his memory palace and tried to cross the grounds
to the dark sheds, past Mr. Jakov’s brains on the snow, but he could not. He could endure to see his mother’s clothes on fire, his parents and
Berndt and Mr. Jakov dead in the yard. He could see the looters moving below him and Mischa in the hunting lodge. But he could not
go past Mischa suspended in the air, turning her head to look at him. He could remember nothing after that, he could only recall much later,
he was riding on a tank, found by the soldiers with the chain locked around his neck.”
Harris, 2006: 213-214
From the explanation above can be proved that accidental crisis in Hannibal Lecter’s life crisis is caused by the bad childhood memory where he should face the
death of his parents and his younger sister. The bad childhood memory haunts him and he commits to take revenge against the six Lithuanian militiamen which makes
him becomes psychopath. Head trauma is also the cause of Hannibal’s psychopathic personality. He is
found with the chain locked around his neck in the woods. After being examined by a psychiatrist named Dr. Rufin in France where he lives with his uncle and aunt then
the result shows that he has head trauma after the war. The head trauma affects to his mental disorder where he becomes psychopath.
“To be frank, he is perfectly opaque to me. I have examined him and physically he is sound. I find scars on his scalp but no evidence of a depressed
fracture. But I would guess the hemisphere of his brain may be acting independently, as he do in some cases of head trauma, when communication
between the hemispheres is compromised. He follows several trains of thought at once, without distraction from any, and one of the trains is always
for his own amusement.” “To the scar on his neck is a mark of a chain frozen to the skin. I have seen
others like it, just after the war when the camps were opened. He will not say
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what happen to his sister. I think he know, whether he realizes or not, and here is the danger”
Harris, 2006: 141
Head trauma that he get during the war affects to his mental disorder. He follows several trains of thought at once, without distraction from any, and one of the trains
is always for his own amusement. His brain abnormality influences his behavior and attitude. He does what he wants although something he does is despicable act for
fulfilling his own amusement. Trauma in his head makes him wants to take revenge against killers of his sister. His head trauma makes him dreams every night about
those killers although at that time he still gets amnesia. When he lives in France with his uncle, Robert Lecter and his aunt, Lady
Murasaki later he will remembers the killers of his younger sister who often appears in his dream since he is in the orphanage. He takes revenge against all those killers
and eats them all as they have ever eaten his sister. When he is eighteen years old, he goes back to Lithuania and kills Enrikas Dortlich, one of the killers of Mischa by
tiding him to Hannibal’s horse named Cesar and he eats his flesh as a sandwich as can be seen in the quotation below:
There was a coil of rope on Cesar’s broad back, Hannibal attached the free end to the traces of the harness. The other end was tied in hangman’s noose.
Hannibal paid out rope and brought the noose back to Dortlich. He opened Dortlich’s sandwich and greased the rope with mayonnaise, and applied a
liberal coating of mayonnaise to Dortlich’s neck. Harris, 2006: 266
From the explanation above, there are some causes that has made Hannibal Lecter becomes psychopat such as developmental crises, accidental crises, and also
the head trauma during the war where he is found with chain that is locked around his neck.
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CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
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