Will Graham

Will Graham is a fictional character in Thomas Harris' 1981 novel "Red Dragon"

Character overview

Will Graham has the ability to empathize with psychopaths. In the book, as well as the two film versions of it, Graham is portrayed as being disturbed, even disgusted, by his ability. While Graham is portrayed as humane and caring of his family, he has the ability to see a situation through the cold eyes of a psychopath. Analysis of both the book and the films indicate Graham differs slightly from the tortured serial killers that he is able to capture. Though Graham lacks the same desires as those he captures, he can tune into the thoughts of dangerous criminals. In Michael Mann's film version of the book, "Manhunter", Graham is played by William Petersen. In Brett Ratner's 2002 edition, "Red Dragon", he is played by Edward Norton.

Profile

"This history is based on the novel by Thomas Harris, not any of the screenplays in which Will Graham appears:"

"Red Dragon" establishes Graham's backstory. He had been a homicide detective in New Orleans who had grown up poor in Southern Louisiana. He leaves to attend graduate school in forensic science at George Washington University. After attaining his degree, Graham goes to work for the FBI's crime lab. Following exceptional work both in the crime lab and in the field, Graham is given a post as teacher at the FBI Academy. During both his field work while at the crime lab and the Academy, Graham is given the title of "Special Investigator" while he is in the field.

In one of Graham's field cases during the 1970s, he tracks a serial killer, who had been stabbing young women, many of them college coeds, for eight months. He eventually catches the killer, Garrett Jacob Hobbs, known as the Minnesota Shrike, and kills him. When Graham finds Hobbs at the suspect's home, Hobbs is repeatedly slashing his own daughter's throat. When Graham appears, Hobbs' wife is on the apartment landing, bleeding from multiple stab wounds, and clutches at Graham before he kicks in the door. He then shoots Hobbs to death (Hobbs' daughter survives and eventually returns to normal life following intensive psychotherapy.) Graham is profoundly disturbed by the incident, and is referred to the psychiatric ward of an unnamed major hospital (in a later letter to Graham, Hannibal Lecter theorizes that what unhinged Graham was not so much the killing as the fact that, secretly, Graham enjoyed doing it).He eventually returns to the FBI.

In 1975, he begins to track down another serial killer who is removing his victims' organs. He turns to renowned psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter for help. After looking around Lecter's office during a consultation, he sees the antique medical diagram "Wound Man", whose wounds match exactly those of one of the Ripper's victims, and realizes that Lecter is the killer he seeks. Graham goes to Lecter's outer office and makes a phone call to the FBI's Baltimore Field Office. Lecter sneaks up on Graham and stabs him in the abdomen, nearly disemboweling him. FBI agents and Maryland State Troopers arrive and arrest Lecter and Graham spends months recovering in a hospital. Graham's capture of Lecter made him a media celebrity (newspapers referred to him as "Super Cop", "Top Cop", and "Hero Cop"), and he was revered as a legend at the F.B.I. A tabloid reporter, Freddy Lounds, sneaks into the hospital where Graham is recuperating, photographed Graham's wounds and humiliated him in the "National Tattler". Graham retires after his recovery, and holds a grudge against Lounds.

Three years later, Graham, now living with his wife Molly and her son Willy in Marathon, Florida, is persuaded by his former boss, Jack Crawford, to come out of retirement and help the FBI again in catching a killer nicknamed "The Tooth Fairy". The Tooth Fairy, actually a man named Francis Dolarhyde, had killed two families on a lunar cycle, the first in Birmingham and the second in Atlanta. After studying the crime scenes, Graham consults Lecter on the case, but Lecter gives him only vague brainteasers as clues, and sends Graham's address to Dolarhyde in code, threatening the safety of his wife and stepson. The family are moved first to a cottage owned by Crawford's brother, but Molly later decides to take Willy to stay with her late husband's parents in Oregon. Graham resumes tracking Dolarhyde, and uses Lounds in an attempt to break the coded communication between Lecter and Dolarhyde by giving Lounds false information and also attributing fake insults against Dolarhyde to Lecter, which ultimately results in Dolarhyde kidnapping and brutally murdering Lounds. After linking him to a video production company, Graham, Crawford and FBI, agents arrive at Dolarhyde's home to arrest him, only to find that the killer had set it on fire while his blind girlfriend, Reba McClane, was inside, he then apparently committed suicide. Graham rescues and consoles McClane, and returns home, believing Dolarhyde's reign of terror is over.

However, Dolarhyde's apparent suicide is revealed to have been a ruse. Dolarhyde attacks Graham and his family at their Florida home, stabbing Graham in the face before being killed by Graham's wife. Graham and his family survive, but he is left disfigured. A brief reference in "The Silence of the Lambs", the sequel to "Red Dragon", implies that his wife had left him soon after that. In the book, Clarice Starling notes that “Will Graham, the keenest hound ever to run in Crawford’s pack, was a legend at the (FBI) Academy; he was also a drunk in Florida now with a face that’s hard to look at...” Crawford tells her that "his face looks like damned Picasso drew it." [cite book
last = Harris
first = Thomas
authorlink = Thomas Harris
title = Silence of the Lambs
url = http://www.amazon.com/Silence-Lambs-Hannibal-Lector/dp/0312924585/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201755346&sr=1-2
publisher = St. Martin's Press
date = February 15, 1991
isbn = 0312924585 ]

Films

Graham has been portrayed twice on screen; in "Manhunter" by William Petersen and again in "Red Dragon" by Edward Norton.

References

External links

* [http://www.manhunter.net/cast/william_l_petersen_will_graham.html William L Petersen as Will Graham in "Manhunter"]