Mental Instability/Homicidal Capabilities

A major theme of the novel, Red Dragon, is the concept of mental instability and the idea of a human being having the capacity to commit murder. Will Graham is a gifted investigator, who has tracked down two serial killers who both taxed his mental state before he retired from the FBI. The first killer forces Graham to kill him while he holds a young girl in his arms with a knife at her neck. Graham is haunted by the girl's expression of terror, and the fact that it took many bullets to bring down the murderer. As a result of his nightmares in the aftermath of this situation, Graham is hospitalized for depression in a time when any psychiatric hospitalization is stigmatizing. Graham also faces down the notorious Dr. Hannibal Lecter and finds himself forced to listen to this experienced psychiatrist compare Graham to...