Gothic literature anticipated concepts about the medical category of psychopathy and the particularities of serial killers and, years later, crime novels advanced some of their characteristics, later supported by science. That is the main conclusion of the book The monster and the serial killer. From Frankenstein to Hannibal Lecter, an essay by Professor of Education and Criminology Vicente Garrido and Doctor of Law Virgilio Latorre. In it, they explain how four titles (Frankenstein, The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Portrait of Dorian Gray and Dracula) jumped and rebelled against the criminological theses of the moment and guided the subsequent definition of serial killers. Already in the 20th century, several crime novels and films advanced the archetype and behaviors of psychopaths. This literature crossed the two most widespread theories: marginalization as a requirement for the criminal and neurophysiology, which maintains that violence comes from neurofunctional alterations.
Ask. What do the characters in these works of Gothic literature have in common?
Vicente Garrido. They all have a need to kill and represent characteristics of psychopathy and lack of guilt awareness. The books reflect monsters in high social strata. The message is revolutionary: do not look among the unfortunate.
Virgilio Latorre. The four books have a common axis that has to do with the construction of identity. The failures of this identity construction are what lead to violence.
Q. How did the book come about?
V.G. For years, novels and films have given me a lot to think about and I wanted to investigate Gothic literature and crime novels to find out if they had followed or rebelled against the theses and challenged the paradigms of the time. I proposed it to Virgilio and that’s how we saw that scientists had followed the writers’ lines in the characteristics of psychopaths and serial killers.
Q. What signs about serial killers does it give Frankensteinfor example, that were later developed by science?
V.G. Frankenstein It challenges the paradigm of physiognomy, which determined that horrible beings could not be kind or intellectually gifted. It was the prevailing thesis of the time and, nevertheless, Mary Shelley describes in the book an eloquent and innocent man.
V.L. It represents fractured identity. You cannot build your identity because you do not achieve the recognition of third parties. That is what leads him to marginalization and violent actions, not his appearance. What is monstrous is not the subject, but the crime.
Q. And in the case of Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
V.G. In this case, Stevenson creates the figure of the double. Criminology was then based on the theory of the born criminal and it was not until after World War II that scientists admitted that the environment does not make the murderer. Dr. Jekyll was a respectable man who, deep down, was not happy and created another being about whose actions he had no remorse. It is this book that creates the lifestyle of a serial killer. With Dorian Gray, the concept of an integrated psychopath who, based on his good reputation, manipulates and corrupts, is deepened.
V.L. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the antecedent of the theory of the shadow, the dark side of the personality, which was exposed at the beginning of the 20th century, when the book is from 1886. In the case of Jekyll, when he realizes that The shadow has invaded him, he decides to commit suicide. The psychiatrist Carl Jung explained how the shadow self must be combined with the conscious self and only in this way can a healthy identity be achieved. In the case of the portrait of Dorian Gray, a process of denial of identity and the search for another occurs. The failure to develop that other identity is what generates violent acts. And with the crime novel, they are the same behaviors and the same mechanisms that science later details. The anticipation is amazing.
Q. Why do serial killers arouse so much attraction?
V.G. There are biological, anthropological and cultural reasons. The serial killer is the predator of the homo genus. We have lived 99.5% of our evolutionary history as hunters. It fascinates us because evolutionarily we are predestined to stay alert. It’s not morbid, it’s part of our nature.
V.L. There are several elements that are attractive to us: the romantic aspect of the villain before the police and that represents the desires that we are not capable of carrying out, but also the idea of the scapegoat because it reassures us that he is punished and comforts us in our idea of repression of those desires that we do not dare to do.
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