Editing Clarice Starling (section)

==''The Silence of the Lambs''==
In ''The Silence of the Lambs'', Starling is a student at the [[FBI Academy]]. Her mentor, [[Behavioral Sciences Unit]] chief [[Jack Crawford (character)|Jack Crawford]], sends her to interview Dr. [[Hannibal Lecter]], a brilliant [[psychiatrist]] and [[Human cannibalism|cannibalistic]] [[serial killer]]. He is housed in a [[Baltimore]] [[mental institution]]. Upon arriving at the asylum for her first interview with Lecter, the asylum manager [[Frederick Chilton]] makes a crude pass at her, which she rebuffs; this helps her bond with Lecter, who despises Chilton. "Multiple" Miggs, the inmate in the cell next to Lecter, throws his [[semen]] at her; this offends Lecter, who "influences" Miggs to commit [[suicide]] as a way of apologizing to her.

As time passes, Lecter gives Starling information about [[Buffalo Bill (character)|Buffalo Bill]], a currently active serial killer being hunted by the FBI, but only in exchange for personal information, which Crawford had specifically warned her to keep secret from Lecter.

Starling tells Lecter that she was raised in a small town in [[West Virginia]] by her father, a night marshal. When she was a young child, her father was shot when responding to a [[robbery]]; he died a month after the incident. Her mother managed to keep the family together for more than two years after his death, working as a motel maid in the daytime and cooking at a café at night, but she was ultimately unable to support the entire family. When Starling was 10 years old, she was sent to live with her mother's cousin on a [[Montana]] sheep and horse ranch, but she ran away when she witnessed the spring lambs being [[Slaughter (livestock)|slaughtered]], fleeing with a mare also destined for the slaughterhouse whom she named Hannah. Starling was caught, but her mother's cousin eventually agreed to let her go, and she and Hannah both went to a [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] [[orphanage]], where she spent the rest of her childhood.

According to the novel, Starling attended the [[University of Virginia]] as a [[double major]] in [[psychology]] and [[criminology]]. During that time, she spent two summers working as a counselor in a mental health center. Starling first met Crawford when he was a guest lecturer at UVA. His criminology seminars were a factor in her decision to join the FBI.

During the investigation, Starling is assigned to coax Lecter into revealing Buffalo Bill's identity. Lecter gives her clues in the form of cryptic, riddling information designed to help Starling figure it out for herself. The two grow to respect each other, so when Lecter escapes during a transfer to a state prison in [[Tennessee]], Starling does not fear that he will kill her, as he "would consider it rude".

Starling deduces from Lecter's hints that Buffalo Bill's first victim had a personal relationship with him, and so goes to the victim's home in [[Belvedere, Ohio]], to interview people who knew her. She unknowingly stumbles onto the killer himself, Jame Gumb, who is living under the alias "Jack Gordon". When she sees a [[Death's-head hawkmoth|Death's-head Moth]], the same rare kind that Buffalo Bill stuffs in the throats of each of his victims, flutter through the house, she knows that she has found her man and tries to arrest him. Gumb flees, and Starling follows him into his basement, where his latest victim is alive and screaming for help. Gumb turns off the electricity in the basement, and stalks Starling through the rooms wearing [[Night-vision device|night-vision goggles]]. As Gumb readies to shoot Starling, Starling hears him cock the hammer of his revolver and opens fire towards the sound, killing him. She is lauded as a hero in the press, and graduates with honors from the FBI Academy, becoming a full-fledged agent.

Weeks later, Lecter writes Starling a letter from a hotel room somewhere in [[St. Louis]] asking her if the lambs have stopped screaming.

The final scene of the novel has Starling sleeping peacefully at a friend's vacation house at the [[Maryland]] seashore.