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
After Starling leaves the Baltimore Hospital, Barney and several other attendants restrain Lecter while inspecting his cell. While Lecter cannot move, he thinks about the last time he saw Raspail. In a flashback, Lecter recalls Raspail talking about Jame Gumb. According to Raspail, Gumb killed his grandparents at age 12, and authorities sent him to a mental institution. Raspail didn’t meet Gumb until later in life, when they lived in San Francisco together. Raspail recalls an incident where Gumb got fired because he stole butterfly cocoons from the shop he worked at. Gumb retained the cocoons and tended to them until they hatched into butterflies. When he saw the butterflies fly away, he identified with the creatures and their transformation.
Lecter’s flashback confirms what Starling and Crawford suspected all along; he knows exactly who Buffalo Bill is and could have turned him in at any time. However, he chose not to, partially to have something to bargain with and because he likes the chaos Gumb causes. Additionally, Lecter’s flashback reveals the symbolism behind the moths and butterflies in the novel. The cocoons Gumb plants in his victims’ throats represent his desire to transform into a woman. The butterflies and moths mark the completion of that transformation.
Themes
Klaus died because Gumb beheaded him. Afterward, Gumb stitched an apron out of Klaus’s skin. Still, Raspail continued to hang out with Gumb, apparently unafraid. Raspail even mocked Gumb for his behavior and told him the murder was just his way of trying to fit in. After Raspail told Lecter all of this information, Lecter killed Raspail because he was no longer useful or interesting. Back in the present moment, Lecter thinks about additional ways to lead Starling to Gumb without saying anything explicitly.
The relationship between Raspail and Gumb is inexplicable; the behavior on both sides is grotesque and unjustifiable. However, this dynamic is what Lecter likes about them, and it is why he continues to let Raspail be his patient. Only when Raspail bores Lecter because he does not have more interesting and amusing information does Lecter kill him.
Themes
