Agency Over Insanity: The Killer Inside Me

Agency Over Insanity: Analyzing The Killer Inside Me Throughout crime history, the debate of whether criminals that commit heinous acts are responsible for their own actions has remained present in the minds of the justice system and its witnesses. This is exemplified most in Jim Thompson’s, The Killer Inside Me. In this novel we are introduced to the main character, Lou Ford, a deputy sheriff who is plagued by homicidal tendencies that eventually ravage through Central City. Throughout the novel, Lou struggles with a “sickness” akin to schizophrenia that essentially leads him to murder. In Dr. Kenneth Payne’s article titled The Killers Inside Them: The Schizophrenic Protagonist in John Franklin Bardin’s Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly and Jim

Kenneth Payne’s article, The Killers Inside Them: The Schizophrenic Protagonist in John Franklin Bardin’s Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly and Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me, he argues that Lou is a rational schizophrenic. He discusses that Lou has the capability to rationalize his actions yet still succumbs to the negative aspects of schizophrenia. He then elaborates that Lou escapes the characterization of irrational murderer. He is highly intelligent and uses that to his advantage to carry out the murders. Payne ends the article by stating that perhaps Lou was never mentally ill in the first place, and that his story is just a part of his scheme as a murderer to make the reader sympathize and justify his actions. I also theorize that Lou is a rational schizophrenic, but I believe that he has more agency over his actions than what Thompson leads us to believe. Lou is fully aware of his situation and uses it to his advantage when he confronts other people. The consequences are clearly conveyed and Lou disregards them in favor of what he wishes. Lou Ford is crazy, but he knows he is. He understands that he has the capability to outsmart people and most importantly he knows he can easily fool people into believing that he knows