Dexter & Olympia

          Geek Love is truly an interesting novel in which you run into several very unique personalities, ethics, and morals with in each of the characters. As we approach the end of Geek Love, a novel written by Katherine Dunn, we can reflect and compare the novel to other media sources such as other novels, movies, TV shows, short stories, and possibly newspaper articles. As common as it may be to make contrasts with this novel and as odd as comparisons are to make to this novel, there is one I am able to make. The comparison takes place in comparing the television series Dexter. Being aired on CBS and Showtime, Dexter works as a blood spatter pattern expert for the Miami police department. But by night he takes on the entirely different role as a serial killer. But as you might think, Dexter isn't your average serial killer. He will only kill people the fit a very specific "moral code" taught to him by his father Harry. This “moral code” is one in which he kills only people he believes to have escaped justice. In comparing Dexter’s story to Geek Love, you can wonder how Dexter has anything in common with a bunch of circus freaks. In fact, with my specific character, Olympia, the most harmless and caring of them all, how do she and Dexter tie together? In fact, I think that Olympia and Dexter are the closest of all of the other characters in Geek Love on terms of their thoughts. Dexter decides to kill people that he believes “have it coming for them”. In a weird way, you could say that Dexter “cares” too much, and decides to take things into his own hands in order to “make things right”. Dexter does not go out and kill people cold bloodedly for no reason. He goes out with a motive, that motive getting back at the people in which caused pain for others, and got away because the judicial system failed to make the right verdict.  You could argue in a sense that Dexter is a “hero” figure; he just takes a very aggressive and illegal approach in order to make sure that justice is served. Oly can also be viewed as a heroic figure in the novel Geek Love. She cares very much for her family, and doesn’t want anything wrong to go about in her presence. She a peacekeeper and she tries to single handedly holds down the fort as her family around her does some pretty questionable stuff. Oly has a more caring and legal approach than Dexter, but you can see that both of them, even though they also do some questionably legal, moral, and ethical, things, are heroic figures in their stories. I believe that Dexter and Oly share very similar traits, more so than do any of the other characters in Geek Love. As we continue to reach the end of the novel, we see Oly become more and more of this type of figure. I think she’ll continue to show traits of being a hero, and I also think that we’ll see her doing more for the good of others, and not for her own good.