Clarice Starling

Clarice Starling is the underdog heroine of The Silence of the Lambs. She hails from a poverty-ridden rural small town, but grows up in an orphanage after the death of her father. She is intelligent, brave and capable. She wants more out of life than her upbringing might typically have brought her. Yet, although Starling desperately desires to rise above her childhood poverty, she does not turn against her roots, as some young people might. Starling is mature enough to take the valuable lessons and characteristics she learned from her parents and foster parents and make them a part of her guiding philosophy. She is a discerning young woman, who can discard what doesn't suit her about her upbringing and keep what does. For example, rather than hold bitterness towards her mother for sending her away to live with a relative after her father died, Starling instead...