Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Silence of the Lambs, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Sexism and Law Enforcement
The Nature of Evil
Class and Shame
Manipulation
Summary
Analysis
Starling returns to Lecter with the deal in her hand. Barney gets her a desk to use, and then Starling lays out the deal for Lecter. She tells him that he will get a room with a view in a federal facility and spend some time every year on Plum Island. During his stays on the island, he can walk around freely and do whatever he pleases, although a SWAT team will always watch him. Starling does her best to make the island sound appealing, though Lecter is skeptical of its allure.
Here, Starling overtly manipulates Lecter to get what she wants. She knows the deal is not real and that Crawford designed it to sound enticing to someone like Lecter, who values freedom and beauty. Throughout the novel, characters manipulate one another, sometimes in immoral ways (such as how Buffalo Bill lures his victims) and sometimes in ethically sound ways (such as how Starling deals with Lecter).
Themes
Still not quite satisfied, Lecter tells Starling that he wants to speak with Catherine if the FBI manages to rescue her. Starling says she will make that happen. Again, Lecter is skeptical of Starling's promises, but she assures him that Senator Martin will do whatever it takes to get her daughter back.
Lecter knows that access to Catherine will allow him to create a professional account of her situation. Although nothing Lecter does will ever get him out of captivity, he still cares about his professional image as a psychiatrist.
Themes
Lecter agrees to give Starling more information about Buffalo Bill as long as she tells him more about her life. Starling agrees to the condition. Lecter pounces at the opportunity and asks her more about her father and his death. Starling reveals that she lied about her father's job; he was not a town marshal. Rather, he was a glorified security guard who got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Lecter knows there is a chance that Starling’s deal is fake, so he asks for something that will satisfy him immediately: more personal information. Here, Starling’s shows some insecurity about her father’s job, which relates to her class background. It is an uncomfortable admission for her, especially since she is talking to Lecter.
Themes
Additionally, Starling talks about how she went to live with her mother's cousin after her father's death. She was 10 years old at the time, and she had to move to a ranch. Although Starling initially enjoyed the ranch, she soon discovered that her relatives killed the animals, which she considered her friends. One day, she stole a horse and ran away because she knew it was about to be slaughtered.
In this memory, Starling shows how much she cares for all life forms. She is a deeply empathetic person who despises cruelty. These traits are what led her to join the FBI, and they also make her job difficult. Empathy is painful when the majority of one’s job involves examining corpses and hunting down killers.
Themes
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As Starling tells her childhood story, she occasionally manages to get information out of Lecter. Lecter tells Starling that Buffalo Bill thinks he is transsexual, even though he is not. Lecter says that Buffalo Bill has tried on many different identities throughout his life, only to discover that none of them fit. He tells Starling that Buffalo Bill likely applied to various hospitals for sex reassignment surgery and was rejected because he was not genuinely transsexual. Lecter advises Starling to check the logs at important hospitals performing such surgeries because they will lead her to Buffalo Bill. After that, he refuses to give further information until Starling figures out more for herself.
Here, everything Lecter says tracks with the details of the case so far, and so, if he is lying, it is an especially calculated lie. The reader knows more than Starling at this point because of the chapters from Gumb’s perspective, and Lecter’s account also matches the information Harris provides there as well. However, although Lecter is willing to help Starling, he still holds off on giving her a name. His help and advice are always indirect, perhaps because he likes playing games and wants to ensure his deal goes through.
Themes
