Stella is a trainee agent of the FBI. She was ordered to visit Hannibal at the State Mental Crime Penitentiary. Hannibal is a well-known psychoanalyst, but he has a hobby of cannibalism and was arrested and imprisoned on suspicion of killing multiple patients. The intention of Stella's visit is to allow Hannibal to provide clues to arrest a perverted murderer nicknamed "Bison Bill". He has killed five women in a row and stripped part of the dead's skin. Hannibal asked Stella to share her childhood experiences in exchange for the assistance of capturing "Bison Bill." Since then, Hannibal and Stella have contacted many times, and the two sides have developed a delicate relationship in the process. At the same time, "Bison Bill" once again dispatched and captured the senator's daughter. Hannibal provided clues to the prison doctor on the condition of being transferred to a prison with natural scenery, but was deceived. An angry Hannibal managed to get a chance to be transferred out of the prison and escaped from the extremely tightly guarded iron cage. At this time, Stella, who was instructed by Hannibal, began to get closer and closer to the murderer. After a thrilling contact, Stella finally killed "Bison Bill" and rescued the senator's daughter.
"The Silent Lamb" is known as the most successful "psychoanalytic film" in American film history so far. It became a classic, shaping three distinctive characters including Hannibal, Stella and "Bison Bill". Next, I will use Freud and Lacan's psychoanalysis to analyze these three personalities and the reasons for their formation.
1. Hannibal, who makes people love and hate.
In the traditional psychoanalytic criticism period, art is regarded as a manifestation of neurosis. Artists are neurotic, pathological, and mentally disordered. Art in a certain sense Said to be a by-product of this morbidity and mental disorder. Hannibal is a classical writer, he likes to paint, he has a kind of elegant charm of an artist. At the same time, he is also a psychoanalyst and psychologist. Hannibal had the gift of God, extraordinary logical thinking, and insightful eyes, but he turned out to be an out-and-out "ogre", he lacked God's mercy. As a psychoanalyst, Hannibal used Freud's psychoanalytic therapy to help Stelle step by step to draw out the shadow of childhood, face the bloody traumatic situation, and give her a second chance to save the waiter. The slaughtered lamb overcomes the trauma of a miserable childhood.
Hannibal asked some questions based on Stelle’s case, especially reminding her of her childhood. Through Stelle’s words and memories, Hannibal helped Stelle analyze the desires, complexes and frustrations hidden deep in her heart and lead her She went through the illusion of consciousness, actually stole the core of her existence, found the cause of her disease, and helped her solve the case of "Bison Bill", so that Stelle could recover the psychological mechanism damaged in childhood, and finally reached the treatment of Stelle. The purpose of mental illness.
Second, completed a self-redemption Shidai Li
Shi Daili with calm in the face of adversity, experienced, strong character, relying on their willpower by fears of childhood hidden in a calm, under the cool exterior.
Having lost her father since she was a child, she has worked hard to become an excellent FBI. Stella thought she was brave enough and strong enough. These are what Freud called "consciousness". It is on the surface and is the content that a person directly perceives. And Hannibal could see the fragility in her eyes at a glance. He concluded that she had a humble background and an unsightly childhood. This is Stella's "preconscious" psychology. It is at the middle level, referring to past experiences that are not in a person's consciousness at the moment, but can be recalled by focusing or without interference. Stella's childhood shadow is equivalent to that part of the sea level, which occasionally appears on the surface of the water with the fluctuation of the sea, and sometimes does not enter the water.
According to Freud's explanation of the stages of personality development, the young Starling was once sent under a fence and was awakened by the screams of lambs to be slaughtered in the early morning. She tried to rescue them, picked up one of them and fled, but in the end she was sent to an orphanage and the lamb was also slaughtered. Since then, this experience has become Starling's nightmare, making her "often awakened in the dark and heard the lamb screaming". Maybe Starling herself didn't notice it, but subconsciously, she formed a certain identity with the "lamb", and the lamb's scream became a symbol of the weak and the victim. So Lamb's screams often sneak into Stella's nightmare. Become her subconscious.
With the help of Hannibal, Stella found "Bison Bill". In a fierce fight with the criminal, she overcame her psychological barriers and fears, and successfully rescued the little lamb trapped in the bottom of the well waiting to be slaughtered— —The congressman's daughter.
In the end, the Lamb became silent, and Stella completed the perfect redemption of herself.
3. The self-destructive "Bison Bill"
Freud believed that humans are anti-social in nature. He divided the instincts into 1, the instinct of life, including the instinct of self-instinct and the instinct of sex, and the instinct of death; 2, the instinct of death, which represents a destructive, aggressive and self-destructive impulse lurking in life. He believes that the root of crime in human society lies in the innate instinct. Both the death instinct and the sexual instinct can lead to crime. Let’s analyze "Bison Bill" again. When he was young, he was often abused by his stepmother, which made him gradually hate his gender and wanted to have sex reassignment surgery. Unfortunately, all three hospitals rejected him. In despair, Bill began to have sexual perversions. He killed several young women, peeled off their skins to sew clothes for himself, and then put a specimen of insect pupa in the mouth of the victim.
Graf regards the psychopath as a person who has a fixation in the early stage of superego formation, and this fixation involves hostile identification with both parents. When combined with the parent-child relationship experience that cannot satisfy the child's dependence needs, narcissistic fixation will occur, leading to self-centeredness and abusive tendencies. (Excerpted from Gao Weijian's Criminological Thinking on Freud's Instinct Theory—Also on its Philosophical Evaluation). The defects of the entire social system caused him to reject his three requests for sex change, so he took anti-social actions to realize his dream.
"Bison Bill"'s childhood unfortunately led to the abnormal development of his personality, and adopted anti-social negative behaviors, so in the end, only destruction awaited him.
Postscript: Everyone has a screaming lamb in their heart. Whenever it screams, it awakens some wounds in life. These wounds, if you don't touch it, you will never know how painful it is. Uncovering the scar, it was found that it was bloody and bloody. However, these injuries cannot be covered up, they must be uncovered and healed with bravery and love. In "The Silent Lambs", Stella always maintains the hope of self-rescue and finally integrates into the mainstream ideology of society, while "Bison Bill" self-exiles to the edge of society, and finally ends in a tragedy of moths fighting fire.
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