My Friend Dahmer

Derf Backderf

Nonfiction | Graphic Novel/Book | Adult | Published in 2012

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 2

Part 3-Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Symbols & Motifs

Shading and Lettering

One of the advantages of graphic novels over written prose is their ability to utilize visual text as symbolic accompaniment to a given work’s themes. Backderf uses shading in his drawings and bolds his lettering to significant symbolic effect.

To illustrate Dahmer’s inner turmoil, Backderf often draws his face in various degrees of shade, rarely revealing it in full. The reader almost never sees Dahmer’s eyes, which indicates others’ inability to read his turmoil as well. For the most part, Dahmer is framed as a cypher, a mystery, a hulking individual of awkward stance with no discernible expression. This indicates Dahmer’s lack of empathy and his failure to connect with anyone on a personal level. In later parts of the novel (especially Part 5), even the panels themselves get darker and darker, symbolizing Dahmer’s descent into madness and his gradual loss of the few human characteristics he possesses. The use of shading, the contrast between black and white spaces, highlights Dahmer’s duality as man and “monster.”

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Backderf’s bolded words capture Dahmer’s (and frequently, the narrator’s) thoughts. Bolded words generally indicate important information, the author’s deliberate use of them giving certain words more weight, symbolizing truths hidden from view.

Animals

The novel opens with Dahmer revealing his obsession with dissolving dead animals in acid to a group of peers. From this point on, animals become an important symbol. The dissolved animals represent not just Dahmer’s descent from an objective point of view, but his own inner process of mental dissolution. The stolen pig fetus, which Dahmer dissects, symbolizes his break with school and society as a whole (as he stole the fetus from the biology lab), a step towards later fantasy fulfillment. As for live animals, Dahmer slashes a fish while his friend watches dumbstruck during their trip to a man-made lake. The progression from road kill to pig fetus to a living fish speaks to Dahmer’s growing obsession with death and his gradual loss of impulse control. Only in the scene with the stray dog does Dahmer exercise control, but the narrator clearly indicates that this is “the last time he would show mercy” (106).

Animals serve as the final barrier for Dahmer’s future human victims. The dog skull on a stick (156) is Dahmer’s announcement to the world that his desires can no longer be relegated to dead or tortured animals; animals as symbols cease to exist because what they represent is no longer important. Thus, the disappearance of animals in the novel represents the final loss of control.

Inner Torture

Backderf depicts Dahmer’s inner torture to bring the reader closer to his state of mind and troubled soul. Throughout the novel, he frames Dahmer as fighting a losing battle with his inner demons. This battle is represented both visually (e.g., Dahmer’s occasional outbursts of sobbing and the sweat on his brow in close-ups of his tortured expression) and through textual information, especially phrases such as “living hell,” “anemic grab at normalcy,” and “too far gone” (160). The reader witnesses Dahmer nurture his growing obsession while trying to numb himself by drinking and faking fits. The author highlights such behavior to illustrate the degree to which Dahmer tried to resist his own temptation.

Backderf further frames Dahmer’s inner torture as needing an outlet, a result of his unhappy family life. Dahmer has no real friends, no one with whom he can talk about his ideations, so the author emphasizes him finding release via experimenting on dead animals and later killing humans. This self-torture represents the final traces of his own humanity, his final (unsuccessful) attempt at “normalcy.”