My Friend Dahmer

The graphic novel, My Friend Dahmer (2012), by Derf Backderf, is proof that graphic novels can stimulate critical thinking and be a very valuable tool in the classroom. Backderf's novel is likely to engage a variety of readers, particularly reluctant readers and teenage boys -- or anyone with a taste for the macabre.

Jeffrey Dahmer will forever be known as an infamous, deranged serial killer. Backderf doesn't come close to condoning and of Dahmer's sick deeds. What he does is show there was a person behind Dahmer. Backderf's novel puts Dahmer in a more human, sympathetic lens by showing the troubled family life, alcoholism, and mental illness which led to his later crimes.

A couple key, powerful passages stand out to me:

“Dahmer knew full well that his sexual urges were sick and twisted. But there was no one he could turn to for help. It was his nightmare alone.

'It was unsharable,' he later explained.

The constant thoughts of corpses and entrails titillated Dahmer, but also filled him with revulsion and a growing sense of panic. How could he make these hellish fantasies stop?

His solution…was alcohol.

This was the party-hardy seventies, and lots of kids were getting high. But Dahmer wasn’t after a buzz. He was making himself…numb.

He was now tortured every waking hour by ghastly sexual fantasies. Urges that were growing stronger and stronger. Urges he could only dull with alcohol. I didn’t drink or get high. But in my naivete, I recognized this wasn’t fun-loving partying. This was twisted" (Backderf 83).

And one more: “If just one adult had stepped up and said, 'Whoa, this kid needs help,' could Dahmer have been saved? Or his victims spared their grisly fate? I’m not saying that he would have had a normal life…He probably would have spent the rest of his days doped up on antidepressants and living in his dad’s spare room. A sad, lonely life that Dahmer would have gladly accepted over the hellish future that awaited him" (Backderf 88).

The questions above are just a couple that will stoke conversation in the classroom. Others: What drives a person to kill? Is there anyone else to blame for Dahmer's crimes, or is he the only culpable one? Are we all capable of evil, which the far majority of us are able to subdue? Do you find Dahmer more tragic or sympathetic, or something else? Is any town capable of producing a serial killer? How does your school compare to Dahmer and Backderf's school? What would you have done as one of Dahmer's high school classmates? The novel also considers issues such as homosexuality, bullying, and animal cruelty. My Friend Dahmer asks many questions and answers few. 

Some possible classroom activities could involve students drawing and writing their own scenes. They could add a scene where someone intervened in Dahmer's life and gave him the help he needed to avoid his gruesome path. Another option could be drawing (and writing) themselves into the story and how they would have treated Dahmer. Since there are many pictures, the novel gives students plenty of opportunity to predict what will happen or describe what they believe is taking place based on the graphics.  I really like the activity, "Add Words to Silence," found on page three of the Teacher's Guide to My Friend Dahmer by the author.