Dexter Morgan
(Fictional character; from Novels Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Dearly Devoted Dexter, Dexter in the Dark, and Dexter by Design by Jeff Lindsay*; also in the Showtime TV series Dexter, played by Michael C. Hall)
Occupation: Blood Splatter Analyst for the Miami – Metro Police Department
LIFE STORY
When Dexter was three, he and his older brother Brian witnessed their mother and three other people being brutally murdered by drug dealers, and were left sitting covered in blood and surrounded by four dismembered corpses for days. Harry Morgan took Dexter from the scene and adopted him, while Brian was sent to a mental institution for disturbed children. Both boys grew up to be serial killers, but Dexter was raised with morals.
Harry began to teach Dexter how to be a cautious, meticulous, and efficient killer after he discovered the remains of the neighborhood pets Dexter had been killing. Harry suspected that Dexter was a Sociopath with an innate need to kill, and taught Dexter to force his violent tendencies towards a positive cause; killing other killers.
Not only did Harry teach Dexter to kill efficiently, he also taught him to live a lifestyle that would keep suspicion away from him. He taught Dexter to fake emotions and to give people the reactions they would expect from a normal person, even though he never truly felt any of it. In the end, Harry gave Dexter a system of ethical principles that Dexter grows to call the “Code of Harry.”
Dexter killed his first victim at the age of 19, when his father, dying of coronary artery disease, gave him “permission” to kill a nurse that had been killing people in the hospital with overdoses of Morphine.
PSYCHOLOGICAL MAP
Dexter is driven to kill by an inner voice he likes to call the “Dark Passenger.” When that voice can no longer be controlled, he “lets ‘the Dark Passenger’ do the driving.” – This is very reminiscent of what Ted Bundy said about his other half, “The Entity.” He claimed that all of the darkness inside him was pushed into “The Entity” and when it could no longer be controlled, he was forced to let it take over.
He explains his “code” in the TV show as: “My intention was never to save lives, but save lives I did.”
Dexter considers himself emotionally “divorced” from the rest of humanity, and he often refers to humans as though he isn’t one himself. He makes frequent references to an internal “emptiness,” and says that he kills to feel alive.
He has no interest in romance, and claims that he only uses his girlfriend as a cover for what he is. He does, however, show that he is capable of feeling; he says once that “If I were capable of love, how I would have loved Harry.”
Dexter likes children. He won’t hurt them, and if someone has killed children, he becomes even more violent in killing them than he would normally be.
“1 in 25 ordinary Americans secretly has no consience and can do anything at all without feeling guilty.” – Martha Stout, Ph.D.
