Dexter and Philosophy

by Greene, Richard; Reisch, George A. ; Robison, Rachel

  10

  The Sublime Dexter

  PATRICIA BRACE

  In Dexter by Design, the fourth book in Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter series, Dexter and his new bride Rita honeymoon in Paris. They visit the Galerie Réalité to view a performance piece titled “Jennifer’s Leg.” This gruesome work consists of a series of video monitors showing a young woman, clearly in agony, de-fleshing her own still attached leg down to the bone from knee to ankle, then a sculptural display of the amputated leg itself and finally, the artist enters the room on crutches, her stump bandaged, and declares her missing limb “Sexy.”

  While Dexter has a fellow flesh artist’s interest in the de-fleshing saw technique, he wonders what makes the rest of the audience, including gentle Rita, continue to move from monitor to monitor as the images grow more and more horrific. For that matter, why even create such a work? What aesthetic purpose can something like this fulfill?

  Eighteenth-century English philosopher Edmund Burke is well known for his writings on beauty and its juxtaposition to what he called “the sublime.” In his Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful,27 Burke explains that art works which induce a violently emotional state, such as terror, are sublime. Most people can readily understand how one may derive pleasure from the perception of beautiful things, but Burke argues that the horrible, excessive, and dark may also provide pleasure for the perceiver. They may not be beautiful but they may be sublime.

  Astonishment, horror, and then pleasure are common reactions to first contact with the Dexter novels or the Dexter TV show. Though critically praised and a winner of multiple writing, design, and acting awards (most recently garnering both a Golden Globe and SAG Best Actor statue for its star, Michael C. Hall) Dexter’s violent and gore dripping scenes of murderous excess combined with its moral ambiguity are disturbing to critics and regular viewers alike.

  The protagonist of these tales is a cold-blooded serial killer, but since he follows his adoptive father Harry’s Code and only kills other killers, he is set as our hero. But, as Dexter’s unapologetically murderous brother Brian “The Ice Truck Killer” Moser tells him, “You can’t be a killer and a hero—it doesn’t work that way!”(Season 1, “Born Free”). The tension created by the fine line Dexter walks between his secret murderous vigilantism and his other “legitimate” life, created through his relationships with his foster-sister Deb, girlfriend Rita and her children, and his co-workers, heightens the sense of terror, pushing the viewer deeper and deeper into the sublime. As we watch, wondering if he will finally get caught this time, our fear for the hero is necessarily ambiguous. He is a criminal so we should root for his downfall and yell at the screen to warn his next victim or point out a clue to Sergeant Doakes or Lieutenant LaGuerta so they can apprehend him. But we don’t. Instead we cheer him on.

  The Power of the Sublime

  Burke’s concept of the sublime explains our ability to feel more alive by experiencing strong emotional reactions to the world we perceive around us. Humans, Burke explained, go through life in three states: indifference, pleasure, and pain. While many believe that the absence of or relief from pain and deprivation is the motivating force behind human action, Burke insisted instead that feelings such as fear, terror, and astonishment are much more powerful and effective. We seek out things which provoke, reinforce and sustain these stronger emotions. As Burke put it,

  Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. (p. 35)

  In Season 2’s first episode, “It’s Alive,” we see a teenage Dexter lean over the edge of a very tall building, almost to the point of falling—just so he can feel his heart race in terror. Numbed from his childhood trauma, he only feels alive when experiencing the sublime.

  Like Dexter, we may seek out these kinds of experiences to feel more alive. The observation and experience of sublime works of art also provoke these emotions. We derive pleasure as we identify and sympathize with characters in the works, and, as Burke states, “It is by this principle chiefly that . . . arts . . . are often capable of grafting a delight on wretchedness, misery, and death itself” (p. 40).

  People slow down to look at traffic accidents or experience satisfaction at the misfortune of others—what the Germans call “Schadenfreude.” Burke seemed aware of this phenomenon, but cautioned, “I am convinced we have a degree of delight . . . in the real misfortunes and pains of others . . . This is not an unmixed delight, but blended with no small uneasiness” (pp. 40–41). We understand that someone is suffering, and hopefully our moral compass draws us forward to offer aid and assistance, but there is also a thrill at the observation of tragic events and their aftermath. As Burke continues, “When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, . . . they are, delightful, as we every day experience” (p. 36).

  Most people not living in New York City or Washington DC experienced this while glued to their television sets after 9/11, by definition an example of the Burkean sublime. Of course a fictional depiction of an extreme series of events can provoke this same response. Andrew Frost, in his review of the film 2012, cites Burke when discussing why audiences delight in apocalyptic disaster epics. But Frost somberly reminds us, “The problem with our collective imagination is that the end of the world isn’t something that we’ll get to watch from a comfortable chair in an air-conditioned cinema. It’s something that we’d be a part of.”28 That may be the best reason for the unease—we watch the spectacle unfold, then wonder how we would react when faced with the situation in the real world.

  If feelings of fear, terror, and unease are our goal, then the most effective way of achieving them, outside of the observation of real events, is through the viewing of the performance of a theatrical tragedy. According to Burke, our full identification with the protagonist is the key: “The nearer it approaches the reality, and the farther it removes us from all idea of fiction, the more perfect is its power” (p. 42). We need to believe in the reality of the action; say to ourselves, “That could really happen” or “That must happen all the time,” to remain engaged in the narrative and most fully experience the sublime. Most of us are familiar with popular police procedurals from Dragnet to CSI. When watching a show like Dexter, then, there’s already some familiarity with what it takes to catch a killer, making Dexter’s career choice even more titillating. Adopted and raised by a policeman, schooled in forensic science as a blood-spatter expert, working with his detective sister, Debra, and socializing almost exclusively with other cops in the Homicide Division of Miami Metro, Dexter is quite literally surrounded by the enemy. However, because of Harry’s Code, Dexter is also a decidedly moral monster, with strict rules on who deserves his particular brand of justice. He’s terrifying, but only if you’re guilty of some heinous crime, usually murder. Knowing how he got to be this moral monster only helps us identify with him all the more.

  The Passions Aroused by the Sublime

  Of the “passions caused by the great and sublime in nature,” Burke lists pain, danger, fear, astonishment, and horror, and their sources the uncontrolled excess of things like power, strength, infinity and vastness. Another powerful passion, terror, with “death as its king,” is caused by the perception of color, light, sound and smells. Pain is an emissary of death, for “what generally makes pain itself . . . more painful, is, that it is considered as an emissary of this king of terrors.” And like the pain he inflicts, Dexter may also be seen as an emissary of death. As Burke tells us: except for strong red, mostly dark colors like black and purple are the only sublime ones; “excessive loudness alone is sufficient to overpower the soul, to suspend its action, and to fill it with terror. . . ,” and that “. . . no smells
or tastes can produce a grand sensation, except excessive bitters, and intolerable stenches.”

  A seminal incident in Dexter’s life, full of all of these passions, put him on the road to the sublime, and allows us to understand the root of his compulsion to kill, that thing which he refers to as his “Dark Passenger.” In the Season 1 episode, “Truth Be Told,” Dexter calls the memory of his mother’s murder “The Dark Passenger,” but in the books, it is personified as a living entity, “IT,” existing not only in Dexter, but in his serial killer targets and even in Rita’s abused children Astor and Cody. The introduction to Dexter in the Dark, “In the Beginning,” traces its existence back to before the primordial ooze: “IT had been there first and, seemingly, forever, except for the vague and disturbing memory of falling.”

  Dexter Morgan was born Dexter Moser, son of police confidential informant Laura Moser, and brother to Brian. In 1973, when Dexter was three and his brother was five, the drug dealers on whom she had been informing locked them with their mother in a shipping container. While the boys watched, the dealers used a chainsaw to kill and dismember Laura, then left them locked in the container, where they remained, sitting in two inches of blood, undiscovered for two days. To live through their mother’s horrible death and the terror it incited within them, their minds had to create some kind of coping mechanism. In a sense, they fought their fear of death by becoming its agents. The trauma of that event created in them what Burke would call a passion for survival: “The passions therefore which are conversant about the preservation of the individual turn chiefly on pain and danger, and they are the most powerful of all the passions” (p. 35). In Dexter’s case, his need to inflict pain and death on others was recognized and channeled by his adoptive father, Harry Morgan, into a Code that would allow him to kill evil-doers and survive. For Brian, without Harry’s guiding hand, the compulsion to kill led to him becoming a remorseless serial killer who enjoyed inflicting horror and pain on his victims by slowing dismembering them over several days while they were still alive.29 They never knew when the final cut would come, ending their lives, which made the anticipation all the more terrible. As Burke reminds us, “. . . because there are very few pains, however exquisite, which are not preferred to death: nay, what generally makes pain itself, if I may say so, more painful, is, that it is considered as an emissary of this king of terrors.”

  When Brian comes back into Dexter’s life more than thirty years later, he wants to reconnect with his baby brother, and so sets up a series of puzzles for Dexter to solve using the dismembered body parts he has gleaned from his victims, and from which he has removed all the blood. To an ordinary person, this appears sick and not a little twisted, but for our hero, it is astonishing and gives him great pleasure. Brian understands Dexter, and, it seems, may have read his Burke: “The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment ; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. Astonishment, as I have said, is the effect of the sublime in its highest degree; the inferior effects are admiration, reverence, and respect.” And that is exactly how Dexter reacts to the Ice Truck Killer. As Brian’s ever more personal clues hidden in horribly inventive murders draw Dexter’s thrilled admiration, they also unlock his buried memories of his mother’s gruesome end. Brian’s killings set up a competition—a sort of serial killer sibling rivalry—in which both technique and artistry draw the brothers closer together. Even something as simple as Rudy/Brian helping Dexter pack up their biological father’s house is wrought with his desire to have Dexter as his partner in slaughter. Watch as they use all the same tools as for murder: duct tape, rope, black plastic bags, and a very sharp box cutter (“Father Knows Best,” Season 1).

  One incident in particular triggers both a physical and emotional terror in Dexter by making use of color, light and darkness, sound and smell. In Season 1’s “Seeing Red,” Brian stages a motel room to resemble the cargo container by dousing it with the thirtyfive quarts of blood he had saved from bleeding his previous victims. 30 As a blood spatter analyst, Dexter is dressed in a white hazmat suit and sent in first. The dark, relatively small space has deep red blood pooled at least two inches deep on the floor, flung on every wall, piece of furniture and the ceiling, the radio blaring and a stench so foul later analysts entering will wear face masks. He takes two steps into the room and totally freaks out, having a flashback of a small boy covered in blood, then falling head first into the pooled blood in a faint. Remember, this is the usually fearless man who matter-of-factly stabs and then dismembers his victims for easy disposal. Now, as he says in voice-over, “The boy in the blood scares me and I want him to go away.” That Dexter’s white suit resembles one of his own spatter pattern tests is not lost on us—Brian is pushing Dexter to remember and testing him by using the perception of the senses as triggers.31

  When he later returns to the room, he remembers his mother as she was about to be killed, telling him to close his eyes, as if the darkness could save him. Dexter has retreated into that darkness, which Burke recognizes as one of the most powerful indicators of the sublime. The following episode, “Truth Be Told,” opens with Dexter’s vision of a Hell, a long dark blood red corridor with flashing police lights and weird strobing sound, a terror scene much like what Burke describes as the effects of the intermittent: “But light now appearing and now leaving us, and so off and on, is even more terrible than total darkness; and a sort of uncertain sounds are, when the necessary dispositions concur, more alarming than a total silence” (pp. 70–71). The cargo container scene as a point of extreme sensory horror is invoked throughout the series, but never more devastatingly than when it is intercut with the shocking season four finale, “The Getaway,” when Dexter finds his infant son Harrison covered in Rita’s blood as she lies, murdered, in their bathroom tub. He had just been so hopeful that he could finally leave his need behind and have a normal life, but instead he came full circle. We despaired along with him as he says in voice over, “Born in blood. Both of us. Harry was right. I’m what’s wrong. This is fate.” This is the sublime.

  Look for Something Bludgeony

  A second source of passion which can arouse the sublime is uncontrolled excess of power. As Burke says, “I know of nothing sublime, which is not some modification of power” (p. 55).

  In the first season Dexter finds himself in a power struggle for the affections of Rita and her children when their father, Paul Bennett, is released from prison. A former drug addict, Paul beat Rita and the kids, and was arrested by Debra, reporting to the domestic abuse call made by little Astor. Debra then introduced them to Dexter. Still, Bennett claims to love his children and tries to worm his way back into their affections. At different points he threatens both Rita and Dexter when they try to limit his access to the children, culminating in his drunken attempt to rape Rita (which she quite effectively stops by bludgeoning him with a baseball bat kept under her bed).

  Blocked by Harry’s code from unleashing his dark monster to murder Paul, who is not a killer, Dexter reaches a breaking point when Paul files charges against Rita for defending herself, a power play to gain custody of Astor and Cody. In “Seeing Red,” while they are quietly talking in the kitchen, Paul taunts Dexter, saying, “If you or that skinny bitch try to screw with what’s mine I swear to God I don’t care who I have to hurt”—and wham!—our hero cracks Paul over the head with a cast iron skillet.32 The sudden unexpectedness of the violence makes it shocking and powerful. In one eloquent, violent act, Dexter totally reversed the power dynamic from Paul to himself. Burke understood how suddenness could be sublime, “In everything sudden and unexpected, we are apt to start; that is we have a perception of danger, and our nature rouses us to guard against it.” (p. 70). For the viewer, who has been primed to dislike him since the first mention of his name, there is pleasure in seeing Paul drop to the floor like a stone. There is also pleasure in his frame up, sub
sequent arrest, and prison sentence because it removes him from Rita and the kids’ lives. Yet there’s also a deep ambiguity—Dexter uses the very type of violence that we condemn Paul for committing—in the storyline’s symmetry.

  In the third season, Dexter struggles for power with his “frenemy” Machiavellian Assistant District Attorney Miguel Prado. As an effect of his need to kill, and subsequent need for secrecy in keeping with Harry’s Code, Dexter avoids any truly honest relationships. He cares for the two women in his life, his foster sister Debra and his girlfriend and wife Rita, but chooses to keep his true nature hidden from both of them. On those few occasions where he has given up some of his carefully controlled power by trusting someone enough to reveal his true face, such as his brother Brian in Season 1, his lover Lila in Season 2, and his buddy Miguel in Season 3, it hasn’t gone well (he was forced to kill all three) mostly because those in whom he chose to confide refused to even attempt to rein in their own darkness.