At the moment I’m doing a close re-reading of the Hannibal Lecter series (a hill I’ll die on is that this is one of the best trilogies of 20th century American lit) and I’m noticing, in RED DRAGON, that the climax shows both the hero (Graham) and villain (Dolarhyde) getting serious wounds in their cheeks. Opposite cheeks, in fact, *while* facing each other. Which I guess is supposed to emphasize how they’ve been semi-mirroring each other throughout the novel…
The villain also gets a deep hole bored into his thigh, and I know this is a reference to The Fisher King, and tends to imply something about impotence in modern literature (SUN ALSO RISES comes to mind…).
But a couple years ago, when Cormac McCarthy’s PASSENGER and Bret Easton Ellis’s THE SHARDS came out in the space of a couple months, I noticed a motif of broken legs/feet (the main character of PASSENGER walks with a limp following a life-changing car accident, and \*three\* characters in SHARDS suffer violent leg breaks).
Mostly, I’m curious if anybody’s got a tip about the significance of cheek/face wounds in literature, something to maybe clarify what Harris is alluding to in RED DRAGON, but are there other types of injury/mangling that tends to signify something in literature? I know a rib wound or skewered palm is likely a reference to Jesus, but others…?
SIDENOTE: Another injury I remember sparking lots of discussion — Fitzgerald apparently fighting against his editor on GATSBY to keep the passage describing how Myrtle’s breast was severed in the car accident.
by thousandmoviepod