Red Dragon

Francis Dolarhyde is the primary antagonist of Red Dragon. He is a serial killer who is given the name Tooth Fairy but adopts the title of the Red Dragon for himself. In the context of the novel, Dolarhyde emerges as the product of childhood abuse. He is “born with bilateral fissures in his upper lip and in his hard and soft palates” (244), leading his mother to reject him and his grandmother to abuse him so that he can overcome his speech impediment, just as she overcame her crooked teeth “with force of personality” (259). Dolarhyde suffers through a lifetime of abuse and then finds solace in inflicting pain on others. He begins with animal abuse, which Graham describes as “the first and worst sign” (66) that someone might develop into a sociopath. Such violence brings a “sweet and easy peace” (265) to Dolarhyde, allowing him to escape from his pain and trauma. The cycles of violence recur across generations; as Dolarhyde was abused, he abuses others. The generational violence is evident when Dolarhyde’s inner voice speaks to him, telling him to hurt others and framing the words in his abusers’ language. The Dragon speaks to him with his grandmother’s words, literally and figuratively as Dolarhyde dons his grandmother’s teeth while communing with the Dragon, echoing violence down across the generations and forging Dolarhyde into a murderer through decades of abuse.

Dolarhyde believes that he is undergoing a process of transformation. A key element of this transformation is his need for witnesses. The shy boy who always hid his face is vanishing, turning into the Red Dragon. The attention paid to him must increase but Dolarhyde only seems to be able to attract attention to himself through violence as intimacy and openness terrifies him. He kidnaps Lounds so that the reporter will be “privy to a great Becoming” (217) and he arranges his victims into an “audience” (98) to witness his crimes. When Dolarhyde begins his relationship with Reba, he feels conflicted. He can hold her attention, even though—ironically—she is visually impaired. The tension between Reba’s blind attention paid to Dolarhyde and his need for an audience to witness his transformation into the Dragon causes inner conflict which he struggles to resolve.

The competing identities within Dolarhyde lead him into uncertainty. The process of becoming the Dragon provides him with directions and goals in his life, as well as a certainty of a better future. After years of abuse, he considers himself unworthy of affection and believes that he must transform. When he develops feelings for Reba and his affection is returned, he is confused. He does not know how she could feel attracted to something as ugly and insignificant as Dolarhyde. His self-image is conflicted and the certainty about his future begins to waver. Dolarhyde tries to reason with the competing identities within himself. He stages his own suicide and allows Reba to escape, turning torture into a form of misdirection. When Dolarhyde attacks Graham, Molly catches him in the face with a fishing hook. The damage to his face is a physical return to Dolarhyde’s previous state, ripping open the scars and wounds of his youth. His words become incoherent, and he loses control of himself. In trying to become the Dragon, in trying to leave the identity of Dolarhyde behind, he has physically and emotionally regressed to his previous state.

Red Dragon introduces the character of Hannibal Lecter in a peripheral role. By the time the novel starts, Lecter is already incarcerated. He is locked away in a mental health institution and studied, placed where he theoretically can do no harm. Lecter’s physical freedoms are restricted, but he finds new ways in which to defy society. Though many psychiatrists have tried to diagnose or comprehend Lecter from a scientific standpoint, he remains “impenetrable” (75) to their tests. He resists definition as he exists beyond the boundaries of human ideals, such as morality or reason. Lecter is pure, unbridled evil, a man who kills for the simple pleasure of killing. Even violence does not move him as it moves most people, as his heart rate barely rises above 85 when he tears out a woman’s tongue. In this sense, society does not know what to do with Lecter. He is locked away, studied, and feared. He exists on the periphery of society, just as he exists on the periphery of the narrative, functioning as a reminder to the world and the audience of the depths of human evil when the shackles of morality are removed.

Lecter is also important due to his relationship with Graham. At the beginning of Red Dragon, Crawford seeks out Graham because he is the best at what he does. Bloom has international recognition and many accreditations, but Graham is the better criminal profiler. Graham’s introduction to the novel is framed in terms of his expertise. He can catch killers because he knows how to think like them. Lecter is presented as a man with a similar degree of expertise. He knows every test that the psychiatric world might try to impose on him, so he knows how to resist it. Even while incarcerated, he contributes to academic journals about psychiatry, proving himself to be better regarded than Chilton, the head of the institution where Lecter is held. In this sense, Lecter functions as a mirror to Graham. Lecter is keen to remind Graham that they are similar, so much so that he does so in every interaction between them. Lecter understands that Graham fears his own thoughts. He knows that Graham has the capacity to empathize with the worst people and only his morality holds him back from committing the crimes, as the killers do.

In a psychiatric sense, Lecter is the unbridled id who kills for the sake of killing. Crawford represents the ego, the institutional morality of society which tames the passions of the id. Graham emerges as the superego, the fusion of the two. Lecter is locked away in his cell as Graham locks away the darkest impulses of his id. Lecter is the evil, unconscious mind made manifest in the world, always teasing and poking at Graham in the hope that he will break down the barriers between Graham’s darkest thoughts and the rest of the world. Lecter is fascinated by Graham because he is a challenge, a puzzle to play with to pass the time. By destroying Graham and unleashing Graham’s darkest impulses, Lecter can feel as though he has won. He fails, in the end, and returns to the periphery to stalk society, waiting for the next trinket to fall into his lap.