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Gothic Tropes Within Hannibal

The words that encapsulate the narrative and visual elements of NBC’s Hannibal include

horror, artistic, psychological thriller, macabre, crime fiction, and romance. Each of these

descriptors fit together like puzzle pieces, clicking into place due to the dark nature they evoke --

yet ‘romance’ seems like an outlier, a mistake, even. Despite this, when Hannibal’s gothic and

queer undertones are examined, the romantic label begins to fall into place -- snapping into it’s

rightful position along with the other parts of the puzzle, the pieces that make Hannibal. NBC’s

Hannibal is a gothic romance, due to the gothic tropes within the narrative and how Will Graham

and Hannibal Lecter interact according to such tropes -- all while making them their own.

To establish that Hannibal is indeed a series within the gothic genre, and not

simply selecting bits and pieces of tropes and elements of the gothic, an analysis must be

conducted. The narrative aspects of the gothic genre can be defined by some of the following

elements: The supernatural, the uncanny, the sublime, and power (Bowen). Some of these

elements are more prevalent than others -- whether being the main focus in a single series or a

prevalent aspect of the series as a whole.

 Beginning with season one, the first elements introduced in Hannibal include the

supernatural and the uncanny. While supernatural elements in gothic literature typically feature

ghosts, vampires, and other such creatures, Hannibal takes a more ‘superhuman’ approach with

the abilities of it’s main character -- Will Graham. Graham possesses an uncanny ability to

empathize with killers to the point of near psychic ability. All he needs is a crime scene or a body

to slip into the shoes of killers -- to feel their emotions, hints of their motives, and the intention

of the killer (sorrowful, mocking, etc). While there are no true supernatural elements in the series

-- as the narrative is rooted in a scientific reality -- there are ‘creatures’ and dreams that have

supernatural appearances, yet these are only visible to Graham, as the series mostly follows him.

The aforementioned creatures depict Hannibal Lecter’s inner nature -- initially taking the shape

of a feathered stag, then a wendigo with tarr-like skin and Lecter’s features -- however, Graham

only sees them in dreams or moments of psychosis.

Graham’s dreams maintain a supernatural element while introducing the uncanny --

which in gothic literature, takes on a deeper meaning. The uncanny “...confronts the subject with

something long repressed or forgotten [...] the person is literally or figuratively “haunted” by this

reminder of a past that she cannot identify and cannot escape.”( Heiland, 6). Graham's dreams

haunt in a manner akin to gothic ghosts, with bloody images of victim's bodys and the killer

who’s life he’d ended -- which embody the uncanny through guilt and his instability keeping him

from being a field agent. While illustrating Graham's guilty conscience, these dreams also

highlight the darker side of him -- as he fears losing himself to instability, he also craves it.

Graham’s anxiety of his empathy morphing him into the very killers he hunts is juxtaposed by

his attraction to violence. He chooses to teach criminal psychology at the FBI academy, which

lets him slip into the shoes of killers and dive into their minds from a distance -- using photos of
crime scenes rather than the actual scenes to reconstruct the killer’s motives. Even before he

taught, Graham wanted to be a field agent -- though, as previously stated, was denied due to his

unstable mind --, a career which also involves contact with violence. He reluctantly accepts Jack

Crawford’s request to join him in the field -- albeit at constant insistence -- and catch killers in a

more direct and active manner. Graham’s uncanny ghosts are guilt, fear, and a lust for violence

that he tries his best to repress and keep away from the world -- isolating himself in the process,

which only makes him friendless and miserable.

As Graham becomes closer to both Lecter and violence through the series, the uncanny

becomes the sublime. Through the gothic lens, the sublime is defined as the “...break[ing] down

[of] boundaries between a perceiving subject and something outside herself…”(Heiland, pg 6)

While the uncanny is repressing internal nature, sublime is a becoming -- which is the reason

Lecter manipulated Graham: to expose/develop Graham’s true nature, and have a companion in

shared monstrosity. A similar concept to the sublime is abjection, defined as “...experience of

something monstrously alien and disturbing which fills us with both repulsion and a perverse

attraction.”(Kearny, 7) -- sharing elements of “...disgust and fascination…”(Kearny, 7) with the

sublime. Graham experiences his ‘becoming’ through Hannibal’s manipulation and guidance --

the closer he gets to Lecter, the more warped his mind becomes. This makes Lecter the vessel of

the sublime and abject in the series, Hannibal is the being of which Graham experiences these

concepts through. While in the beginning the uncanny was prevalent in Graham’s repression of

minor monstrosity, his bond with Lecter throughout the series is what makes him feel abjection

at the end of season three. As a result, abjection “...shatters the wall of repression and its

judgments [...] [i]t is an alchemy that transforms death drive into a start of life, of new

significance. The abject is related to perversion.”(Kristeva, Powers of Horror). With the end of
the series, Graham remarks on the beauty of his becoming, of Hannibal’s vision for him all along

-- his rebirth as a perverse, monstrous, free creature.

Power is a significant and prevalent aspect of Graham and Lecter’s relationship through

the series. In season one the scales are uneven, with Lecter holding significantly more power

over Graham due to his manipulation and influence over the man -- as well as Will’s skewed and

unhealthy mental state --, he is severely vulnerable. This relationship mirrors many of those in

gothic literature, “A young woman in danger [...] is often at the centre of Gothic fiction. Against

such vulnerable women are set the great criminals or transgressors…”(Bowen). Initially, Graham

seems to be one of these vulnerable heroines that must vanquish and conquer the villainous

Lecter -- yet as their relationship develops, the model of hero and villain morphs. In season two,

Graham begins to level the playing field when he breaks from Lecter’s manipulation, and starts

to manipulate him in turn -- a switch from the trusting relationship in season one. Lecter loves

Graham deeply, he loves feeling understood by him, but Graham resists and fights Lecter.

Because Lecter is a vessel for the sublime and the abject, it can be inferred that Graham is

fighting his becoming, his darker side -- he feels the uncanny. As aforementioned, Graham

finalizes his becoming at the end of season three, but he also relinquishes the fight and gives into

his love for Leceter, therefore giving into his becoming -- even giving up the family he gained,

something he initially wanted with Lecter, for this love and becoming. NBC’s Hannibal is a

gothic love story, but it is a romance of corruption that changes the traditional model of gothic

relationships.

The supernatural, the uncanny, the sublime, and power are crucial elements in the

construction of a gothic novel -- elements that Hannibal possesses and executes in ways that are

similar and entirely different from gothic literature. Hannibal creates a narrative centered around
corruption -- a perversion of the typical heroine and villain relationship where the hero fights

against the love of the monster and simultaneously the hero’s own monstrous nature, a nature

once repressed, now freed by a monster who craved connection. The hero transitions from being

haunted by the ghosts of dreams and the true nature of one he once trusted, to fully embracing

this violent identity and love through rebirth. Hannibal uses the puzzle pieces of the traditional

gothic drama while reshaping some parts of the jigsaw — in the form of narrative and character

relationships/transformations — to create its own, unique addition to the gothic romance genre.
 Works Cited

Professor John Bowen, “The Gothic”, The British Library, Youtube, Jun 6, 2014,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNohDegnaOQ&t=30s)

Bowen, John. “Gothic Motifs.” British Library, https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-

victorians/articles/gothic-motifs#:~:text=Power%20and%20constraint,happening

%20or%20about%20to%20happen.

Heiland, Donna. “Introduction.” Gothic and Gender: An Introduction, Blackwell, Malden,

MA, 2005, pp. 1–210.

Willette, Jeanne. “Julia Kristeva and Abjection.” Art History Unstuffed,

https://arthistoryunstuffed.com/julia-kristeva-and-abjection/.

Kearney, Richard. “Evil, Monstrosity and The Sublime.” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, vol.

57, no. 3, Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, 2001, pp. 485–502,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40337638