The symbol of the lamb is crucial to understanding Clarice’s motivations. Clarice constantly dreams of the screaming lambs from her childhood, which disrupts her sleeping and causes her anxiety. As a child on her cousin’s ranch, she “woke up in the dark and heard the lambs screaming” as they were sent to slaughter (229). The way Clarice “couldn’t do anything” for the lambs at the time continues to traumatize her (230). Lambs conventionally symbolize innocence and purity, and here they represent the innocent victims of crime. Their screams represent the extreme violence that Gumb enacts upon his vulnerable victims. His victims were all tricked into trusting Gumb—like a lamb ignorantly following its slaughterer—when he was leading them to their deaths.

Clarice dreams of the screaming lambs whenever she feels unable to save the victims. The reader sees Clarice awaken from a dream of screaming lambs after Krendler sends her back to Quantico and sidelines her on the investigation. In her position, Clarice feels like she has no ability or power to save Catherine and the future victims of Buffalo Bill. When Clarice ultimately kills Gumb and saves Catherine Martin, she “sleeps […] in the silence of the lambs” (367), as Gumb can no longer victimize innocent women.