Today several films are portraying the characters of serial killers. In most of these films, the murderer kills purely from his desires without any goals or morals. Many of these serial killers engage in their crooked acts as a way of satisfying their twisted needs. However, every one of the killers has his reason for engaging in the act. For instance, some of the serial murderers have experienced a traumatized event during their childhood that has resulted in their crooked behaviors. Darkly Dreaming Dexter is a film based on Lindsey’s writing portraying the lead character as a serial killer. Dexter Morgan, the protagonist in the film is a regular man who has a regular job at a police department, where he is a blood spatter during the day. He leads a normal life interacting with other people but hides his secret about his killing behavior. Working at the Miami police department and killing people is a risky business, which makes Dexter operate within certain rules to avoid being caught. Dexter learned about the basics of his killing code from his foster father. Harry discovered Dexter's homicidal instincts and wanted to create a solution to allow the son to continue killing but avoid harming innocent people. Dexter's heroic vigilantism bleeds into the real world. It would be important to compare and contrast how literary analysis assesses Dexter’s vigilantism differently from the film analysis of the same.
The literary analysis assesses how the film works in its specialized form to portray its meaning. More so, the literary analysis is capable of extending interest to the meanings and topics that are far beyond the particular text in question (Pearson Education Canada, n.d.). Expanded inquiry is a common aspect in literary analysis, in which the film's characters can be connected to their viewers, authors, historical times, and cultures. For instance, in the first episode of the opening sequences, the director can play with the viewers' expectations by subverting the persona of Dexter, which is displaced with the themes surrounding vigilantism.
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In the opening scenes, Dexter drives through Miami city at night in which the camera shows the multicultural population, that exhibits various social issues including homelessness, drugs, and prostitution in the society. In such scenes, a literary analysis will try to probe the reasons why vigilantism is occurring in American history. One of the victims of Dexter is Donovan, who is depicted as a serial killer of children. Donovan is a person who is involved in both the community and the church, in which he leads a conservative middle-class life. In this aspect the literary analysis will try to analyze the factors in the society that enable Donovan to carry out his deeds in the community, portraying the social organization’s faults in the various problems facing the community (Pearson Education Canada, n.d.). Contrariwise, film analysis is only concerned with the application of various aspects of mise-en-scene such as color to portray the main theme. For instance, the red lighting as Dexter drives through the community portrays danger. Therefore, film analysis is concerned mainly with themes depicted in the films while literary analysis is intrigued with the expanded inquiry.
In the literary analysis, the analysts break down the film into meaningful parts, which they evaluate according to a standard that they perceive suitable. Some of the standards the literary analysts can use to evaluate Dexter's film are practicality, logic, spirituality, and ethics (Pearson Education Canada, n.d.). In literary analysis, the introductory work mainly emphasizes the mechanical angle. This aspect relates to how the director in Dexter's film uses the technique to achieve certain effects thus implying a particular meaning. Therefore, both the film analysis and literary analysis take account of the application of various aspects such as the use of color and sound to illustrate meaning. For instance, in the introductory scenes in the first episode, both the literary and film analysts will take account of the red lighting. However, the literary analysts will also need to consider the language following the mechanical structures to understand the work's intentions, to decide whether the lightings have any broad significance to that particular work. Therefore, literary analysis takes account of structure and language to make sense of the mechanical aspects in the film while, film analysis can use only a single component.
Both the literary and film analysis are concerned about the subject matter in the film. Pearson Education Canada explains that subject refers to what the film seems to be about. Darkly Dreaming Dexter 's film presents Morgan who is involved in serial killings of the bad people that he thinks have been able to fool the justice system. However, the two methods of analysis differ on how they discuss the subject matter with the literary analysis concerned with the symbolic aspect of the characters in the film (Pearson Education Canada, n.d.). At the symbolic level, the film refers to aspects beyond its characters and its local setting. Literary analysts believe that Dexter and his particular situation in the film serve to portray an abstract or a large concept, such as failures in the US criminal justice system (Lundberg, 2014). Additionally, the concept of masculinity is evident. Masculine men such as Dexter engage in violence for various reasons, such as self-protection, honor, pride or to defend their close ones (Oakley, 2012). Masculines are expected by society to seek employment, to feed their families. Dexter has a family and has an honorable job at the police department, which is one of the expectations of society. Therefore, literary analysis is concerned with identifying the different subjects that the main character and situation portray. Contrariwise, film analysis tends to be more straightforward on the subject matter, involving only the simple things such as lighting, camera movement to portray the film's subject matter.
Literary analysis is also concerned with the application of various vigilantism models in Dexter film, which may not be common in the film analysis of the same. Literary analysis is concerned with bringing an understanding to a work of art. The literary analysts use Dexter's film as an interrogatory and powerful space to understand various aspects that surround the vigilantism aspect while allowing various explorations of the themes that are related to the topic (Pearson Education Canada, n.d.). For instance to acknowledge Dexter's film relevance in understanding contemporary society, one can understand that the film depicts some general truths concerning the human condition, making people rethink their unique codes that influence their actions. Literary analysts are also concerned about the continued relevance of Dexter's film, which led to its success up to its last season. These analysts try to understand the American population's fascination with violent crimes. With Dexter's film being filled with several scenes of vigilantism, it makes the literary analysts try to identify theories to explain America's attitude toward being involved with violence and criminality. Therefore, as a way of explaining how Dexter's heroic vigilantism bleed into the real world, literary analysts borrow from other people's models, which is an aspect that lacks in the film analysis.
Both the literary and film analysts can identify Dexter as a vigilante serial killer who works at the police department in Miami. He evades the justice system by following a particular code that he was taught by his foster father. He believes that he is protecting his loved ones by targeting only the murderers that have evaded the criminal justice system. However, the literary and film analysis differs in several aspects such as on the symbolic aspect and the application of models to explain certain aspects. Therefore, the literary analysis approach to the film seems to be more detailed than the film analysis technique.
References
Lundberg, R. (2014). Unreliable narration in Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho and Jeff Lindsay’s Darkly Dreaming Dexter . [Ebook]. Retrieved July 2, 2021, from https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:781673/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Oakley, H. (2012). Dissecting the Darkness Dexter. In V. Miller & H. Oakley, Cross-Cultural Connections in Crime Fictions . Palgrave Macmillan.
Pearson Education Canada. Rhetorical analysis of Film or TV Series [Ebook] (pp. 1-68). Retrieved 5 July 2021, from http://www.pearsoned.ca/highered/divisions/text/brundage08/data/Rhetoric/Ch15/04_Literary&FilmAnalysisfinal.pdf.
