Title: Dexter, Darkly Dreaming
Author/Director: Jeff Lindsay
Text Type: Fiction
Information on Genre, Style and Theme:
The first book of the series, ‘Dexter, Darkly Dreaming’ is a fictional story, from the eyes of a forensics officer, Dexter Morgan.
The book starts with Dexter hiding in a priest car, the attacking him once he gets in to drive, and forces him to drive, which a noose around his neck, to an abandoned house, which caused the priest to be more anxious. Dexter takes the priest to a room, which he seems familiar with. He shows the priest seven dead bodies of the children the priest murdered, knowing he had killed more. He then ties the priest to a table then strangles him, and cuts away at his body.
Dexter experienced a traumatising event when he was three years old, that he doesn’t remember, which his foster-father said may lead him to doing terrible things.
When dexter was a teenager, he heard voices in his head, of what he called “Dark Passenger”, which was telling him to kill. His foster-father tells him, he can kill people who deserve it, and how to hide all evidence of what he did.
In the book there is another serial killer in the town, which Dexter seems to admire the work of this killer, but he has psychotic dreams about the killings, and doesn’t know if he is starting to kill in his sleep.
Further along, when he finds more evidence to the serial killers acts, he doesn’t know whether he wants to find the killer, or join in with him.
Anti-Hero:
I chose this book, as a anti-hero text, as Dexter the main character is an anti-hero.
Dexter is a serial killer, but he only kills people who do wrong, but he has joy in the killing, as he fails to feel emotion.
This makes him an anti-hero, as he is doing wrong, in the excessive killing of people, but he sees it as the right thing to do, to all the wrong doers in the town, but he does it more as he enjoys it, than for the reasons of justice.
React!