Cannibalism is considered by many to be one of the most taboo acts a human being can accomplish, and one of the most well known cannibals is the infamous Doctor Hannibal Lector. Dr. Lector first appeared in a series of novels by Thomas Harries back in the 80s, then his novels were turned into film one of the most famous being the Academy Award winning The Silence of the Lambs.
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Silence of the Lambs movie poster
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This film premiered in February of 1991, starring Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling an FBI trainee who seeks the help of Hannibal Lector, played by Anthony Hopkins, to catch a deranged serial killer nicknamed Buffalo Bill. As well as being a central character in a award winning movie, there is also a fairly recent T.V show about everyone's favorite cannibal simply titled Hannibal,which is very loosely based on the novel Red Dragon.
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| "Hannibal" poster |
This series stars Hugh Dancy as Will Graham and Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lector.
Will Graham has a special ability to look into the minds of killers and understand their thought process in order to catch them. Lector is Graham's psychiatrist who is fascinated by his unique mind (btw he's a cannibal that goes without saying I hope) and experiments and toys with him through out the first season. Hannibal is currently on its second season which premiered last Friday, it's a quality show.
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| Yeah don't eat that |
But not all cannibals are as vicious as our friend Doctor Lector, and most of the time their names don't even rhyme with cannibal! In fact most of the time people only become cannibals in the most desperate of situations, to ensure their own survival. And this is exactly what occurred in early Jamestown, in other words people ate each other to survive. These acts of cannibalism were confirmed by the skeleton of a 14 year old girl, whose face scientist were able to reconstruct.
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| The face reconstructed |
This cannibalism happened during what was known as the starving time in Jamestown, where there was hardly any food to come by causing many of the colonists to die of starvation, and people became very desperate. And desperate people are capable of doing anything, including the unspeakable, such as a man killing his own wife and eating her. Which begs the question can these horrific acts of murder and cannibalism be justified by the absolute hopelessness of the time, or are these acts unforgivable regardless of circumstance?
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| The Skeleton of the 14 year old |
In conclusion desperate acts call for desperate measures, which certainly can be applied to the cannibalistic citizens of Jamestown. Cannibalism is often perceived to be something psychotic an act only a sociopath like Hannibal Lector could accomplish. However for the people starving in early Jamestown cannibalism seemed to be more of an act of desperation rather than cruelty.
(and no I am not trying to defend cannibals)
(and Hannibal is not a real cannibal in case you didn't catch on)
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Stromberg, Joseph. "Starving Settlers in Jamestown Colony Resorted to Cannibalism." Smithsonian. N.p., 3 June 2013. Web. 4 Mar. 2014. <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/starving-settlers-in-jamestown-colony-resorted-to-cannibalism-46000815/?no-ist>.
"Scientists find evidence of cannibalism at Jamestown settlement." Fox News. FOX News Network, 1 May 2013. Web. 4 Mar. 2014. <http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/05/01/scientists-find-evidence-cannibalism-at-jamestown/>.
Really like the post. You connected two pieces of evidence greatly to our class. I really liked how the paragraphs were evenly spaced out and the amount of pictures you used. Stinks that two pictures did not work but that is okay. I loved how you had the little parts in parentheses. it really showed off your personality and showed that you cared and were interested in the topic. Keep bloggin'.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post! There was enough information in the paragraphs and I was never bored. The pictures were also really good and related well to what you were talking about! O loved how you used the parenthesis to put a little but of your personality into your blogpost. It made it YOURS. I also really liked how you connected cannibalism in the colonies to the show. It was a good connection that many people can connect to (because maybe they've watched it.)
ReplyDeleteI had a good time reading this! I like how you had a lot of facts, in addition to the funny comments. The pictures were interesting, and your additions in parentheses were awesome. I've also seen The Silence of The Lambs, and you made it easy to connect to Jamestown. Good Job!
ReplyDeleteI love your post Shaelyn. I liked how you connected Jamestown to the movies, books, and TV show about Hannibal it made it interesting and fun to read. I also liked how you used your personality in the post to make less like a hugh fancy essay and more like an informal blog post. High quality post you got here, nice work.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good blog post, Shaelyn. I thought you made a very interesting connection between several different sources that included the morbid topic of cannibalism and the Jamestown unit that we learned about a little while ago. I really enjoyed the fact that you put a lot of your personal opinions into this post, which made it more interesting to read then if you were to just list the information/connection. All the pictures were relevant, and I don't have much to say as far as things you could add. A job well done, no doubts about that.
ReplyDeleteThere was a good connection between Jamestown and Hannibal. It was a really funny post so we all wanted to keep reading. You used alot of pictures which really added to the post. It is good you pointed out that you don't support cannibalism cause I was getting some supporting vibes there. Good job
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your blog post! it was very informative and you used a great connection to Hannibal. It really did display just how much of a struggle it is to live back then and how far they would go to survive. Great job!
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