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
Gumb and Precious sit on Gumb’s bed and watch a video that Gumb always watches before killing someone. The video is a recording of the 1948 Miss Sacramento competition, which features Gumb’s mother. Gumb watches the video and talks to his mother, remarking upon how beautiful she is. After the beauty competition, a few more snippets play, including images of women swimming and a naked woman going down a water slide. Apparently, Gumb believes the woman on the slide is also his mother.
Behavioralism—which Lecter abhors—would dictate that Gumb acts the way he does because of his upbringing. If this is the case, then his mother, whom he watches before murdering someone, is partially responsible for what he turned into. However, both Lecter and the novel in general question whether one can boil evil down to such simplistic explanations.
Themes
After the tape finishes, Gumb moves to his work station. He hears Catherine screaming and does his best to ignore her. Gumb goes over all of his plans and materials carefully. Gumb learned sewing while he was in a mental institution as a youth. He always enjoys the process and practices it often as an adult. Before committing his designs to human skin, Gumb makes prototypes with regular materials. At this point, he cannot wait to kill Catherine, but he decides to wait until the following morning to ensure everything is perfect.
Like Lecter, Gumb has hobbies that he is deeply passionate about, which is difficult to reconcile when examining everything else about him. He does not seem like someone who would be sentimental or enjoy sewing, yet it is a genuine thrill for him. The fact that all of these qualities could exist in one human being is part of why Lecter despises what he sees as overly simplistic psychological labels.
Themes
