More than Murderers, Other than Men: Views of Masculinity in Modern Crime Fiction

Abstract

In the crime novels The Silence of the Lambs (SL) by the American author Thomas Harris, 1 The Mermaids Singing (MS) by British Val McDermid, and Night Sister (NS) by Norwegian Unni Lindell 2 the murderers in these texts are discussed, explicitly in two cases and implicitly in one, as not being homosexual, transsexual or transvestite. The narrative technique is subtly elaborate: to propose that someone is not homosexual, for example, concurrently verbalizes homosexuality. Furthermore, considering the fact that the characters are so firmly located in a narrated environment characterized by heterosexuality and heteronormativity, they stand out as being, to say the least, and for want of a more appropriate word, non-heterosexual. This article argues that the murderers‟ non-heterosexuality is depicted as contributing to, or is even suggested as the reason for, their violent behavior; it drives them to murder and ultimately to their own death. Joseph Grixti describes Jame Gumb in The Silence of the Lambs as “the psychopathic loner who turns into a vicious beast, largely as a consequence of serious gender identity problems [...]” (91). This is true of all three killers: in the novels „gender identity problems‟ are equated with psychological problems. By providing these characterizations, masculinity as a result is represented as being „sane,‟ normal, and more or less stable.