Manipulation is an important tool for all of the main players in the novel. The plot starts with Crawford manipulating Starling into speaking with Hannibal Lecter. Crawford tells Starling that he wants Lecter to fill out a questionnaire, knowing full well that Lecter will never agree to it. In reality, Crawford wants information on the Buffalo Bill case, but he knows he will never get it if he sends Starling in with that goal in mind. Additionally, Starling and Lecter’s conversations are full of manipulations, as each party tries to get information out of the other. Starling goes into her conversation with Lecter with a particular goal in mind and Lecter does the same, although his goal is often opposite Starling’s. As such, they try to manipulate the conversation to meet their own ends. For instance, Starling often plays to Lecter’s ego, allowing him to think he has figured out information about the Buffalo Bill case before the FBI. Meanwhile, Lecter slowly convinces Starling to give up personal information about herself, which he knows makes her uncomfortable. In addition to these subtle conversational acts of manipulation, Buffalo Bill and Lecter perform violent manipulative acts. Buffalo Bill tricks women into thinking he is injured so they will let their guard down around him. Meanwhile, Lecter pretends to be a dying police officer so he can escape from captivity.
Although manipulation is a term that can carry negative moral weight, The Silence of the Lambs demonstrates that it is not inherently moral or immoral. Starling manipulates Lecter because she is trying to save lives and her lies are inconsequential. Meanwhile, Lecter’s manipulations involve actively killing innocent people. As such, the novel argues that although manipulation always requires a victim—that is, the person being manipulated—it ultimately exists on a wide and often ambiguous moral spectrum.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Manipulation ThemeTracker
Manipulation Quotes in The Silence of the Lambs
“Do your job, just don’t ever forget what he is.”
“And what’s that? Do you know?”
“I know he’s a monster. Beyond that, nobody can say for sure.”
Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can’t reduce me to a set of influences. You’ve given up good and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You’ve got everybody in moral dignity pants—nothing is ever anybody’s fault. Look at me, Officer Starling. Can you stand to say I’m evil? Am I evil, Officer Starling?
I collect church collapses, recreationally. Did you see the recent one in Sicily? Marvelous! The facade fell on sixty-five grandmothers at a special Mass. Was that evil? If so, who did it? If He’s up there, He just loves it, Officer Starling. Typhoid and swans—it all comes from the same place.
You’d like to quantify me, Officer Starling. You’re so ambitious, aren’t you? Do you know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube. You’re a well-scrubbed, hustling rube with a little taste. Your eyes are like cheap birthstones—all surface shine when you stalk some little answer. And you’re bright behind them, aren’t you? Desperate not to be like your mother. Good nutrition has given you some length of bone, but you’re not more than one generation out of the mines, Officer Starling. Is it the West Virginia Starlings or the Okie Starlings, Officer? It was a toss-up between college and the opportunities in the Women’s Army Corps, wasn’t it? Let me tell you something specific about yourself, Student Starling. Back in your room, you have a string of gold add-a-beads and you feel an ugly little thump when you look at how tacky they are now, isn’t that so? All those tedious thank-yous, permitting all that sincere fumbling, getting all sticky once for every bead. Tedious. Tedious. Bo-o-o-o-r-i-ing. Being smart spoils a lot of things, doesn’t it?
“Sheriff, this kind of a sex crime has some aspects that I’d rather say to you just between us men, you understand what I mean?” Crawford said, indicating Starling’s presence with a small movement. of his head. He hustled the smaller man into a cluttered office off the hall and closed the door. Starling was left to mask her umbrage before the gaggle of deputies. Her teeth hard together, she gazed on Saint Cecilia and returned the saint’s ethereal smile while eavesdropping through the door. She could hear raised voices, then scraps of a telephone conversation.
That’s not a guess. He’s very likely right, and he could have told you why, but he wanted to tease you with it. It’s the only weakness I ever saw in him—he has to look smart, smarter than anybody. He’s been doing it for years.
“Clarice, he was working at night, in a pickup truck, armed only with a shotgun.... Tell me, did he wear a time clock on his belt by any chance? One of those things where they have keys screwed to posts all over town and you have to drive to them and stick them in your clock? So the town fathers know you weren’t asleep. Tell me if he wore one, Clarice.”
“Yes.”
“He was a night watchman, wasn’t he, Clarice, he wasn’t a marshal at all. I’ll know if you lie.”
“The job description said night marshal.”
“Thank you, Clarice.”
“Thank you, Dr. Lecter.”
And that is how he remained in Starling’s mind. Caught in the instant when he did not mock. Standing in his white cell, arched like a dancer, his hands clasped in front of him and his head slightly to the side.
