“The unconscious fear of women goads some men with a compulsive urge to conquer, humiliate, hurt, or render powerless some available sample of womanhood.” (Menninger, 183) Gumb was deeply disturbed and unable to overcome the death of his mother and he wanted to be like her and resented any woman because he feels that he should have been born a woman instead of the man that he is. He is sewing a skin of women to try to become more like his mother and less of the man that he is. This is how he received his nickname “Buffalo Bill” because the way he murders and then skins his victims. Jame Gumb is a very disturbed individual and his “violence and crimes are often attempts to escape from insanity.” (Menninger, 181) Jame Gumb is in a word where he believes that he can become a woman and live somehow be with his mother again or even attempt to become her. “Men who are violently afraid of their repressed but nearly emergent homosexual desired often try to overcome these fears with violent demonstrations.” (Menninger, 183) Jame Gumb did not know what he was in terms of sexuality and decided that he would rather be a woman than a man. This desire drove him to commit such horrible crimes and try to become a woman using their skins. The foils to Jame Gumb are a much stronger force that he is or could ever be, they are the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the FBI. They want to stop the murders as soon as possible so that no other lives are lost and the country can get back to normal without living with the fear of a serial killer on the loose. Along with the FBI, an X-psychiatrist named Dr. Hannibal Lecter and, Clarice Starling they try to stop the murders and regain order to society, this is not an easy task and there are many obstacles along the way. The first obstacle is that the whereabouts of Gumb are unknown and his identity has alluded the FBI since the murders first begun. The only link tha...
