Jeffrey Dalhmer
Why does a Jeffrey Dahmer happen? How does a man become a serial killer, necrophiliac, cannibal and psychopath? Very few convincing answers are forthcoming, despite a spate of books that propose to understand the problem.
Many of the theories would have you believe that the answers can always be found in childhood abuse, bad parenting, head trauma, fetal alcoholism and drug addiction. Perhaps in some cases, these are contributing factors, but not for Jeffrey Dahmer.
His father, Lionel Dahmer, wrote a very sad and poignant book called A Father's Story which explores the very common phenomenon of a parents trying desperately to give their child a good upbringing and discovering to their ...
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lost, lost."
Lionel seems to be fairly straightforward in recognising the negative influences in Jeff's life. No family is perfect. Jeff's mother had various physical ailments and appeared to be high strung, coming from a background in which her father's alcoholism deeply affected her life.
Lionel, a chemist who went on to get his Ph.D., stayed at work more often than he should to avoid
Turmoil on the home front. Eventually, the marriage dissolved in divorce when Jeff was eighteen.
However, none of this commonplace domestic discord accounts for serial murder, necrophilia, etc.
Jeff Dahmer was born in Milwaukee on May 21, 1960, to Lionel and Joyce Dahmer. He was a child
who was wanted and adored, in spite of the difficulties of Joyce's pregnancy. He was a normal,
healthy child whose birth was the occasion of great joy. As a tot, he was a happy bubbly youngster
who loved stuffed bunnies, wooden blocks, etc. He also had a dog-named Frisky, his much ...
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to correct the problem. He never seemed to recover his ebullience and buoyancy. "He seemed smaller, somehow more vulnerable...he grew more inward, sitting quietly for long periods, hardly stirring, his face oddly motionless."
In 1966, Lionel had completed his graduate work in Iowa and got a job as a research chemist in Akron, Ohio. Joyce was pregnant with their second son David by that time Jeff was in the first grade and "a strange fear had begun to creep into his personality, a dread of others that was combined with a general lack of self-confidence. He was developing a reluctance to change, a need to feel the assurance of familiar places. The prospect of going to school ...
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"Jeffrey Dalhmer." Essayworld.com. August 23, 2006. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Jeffrey-Dalhmer/51249.
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