Mason Verger is the main antagonist in the 1999 novel Hannibal by Thomas Harris.
Character biography
Mason Verger is the son of Molson Verger, a wealthy meat packer. A sadistic pedophile, Mason is the main villain in the novel.
From an early age, Mason's cruelty was encouraged by his father Molson, a cruel and corrupt businessman who took Mason with him to livestock shows that his company sponsored. He allowed his son to watch as he slaughtered winning entries of the contests in front of their owners.
Mason systematically abuses, both physically and sexually, his younger sister Margot while growing up. He repeatedly sexually assault his sister, including forced sodomy with a candy bar, biting chunks out of her buttocks, and dislocating her shoulder. To keep the whole thing quiet, Molson sent Margot to a therapist — Dr. Hannibal Lecter, who suggested that as a form of catharsis, Margot should murder her brother.
As an adult, Mason turns his attention towards running his father's meat packing business as well as continuing to prey on children, using a Christian summer camp his father owned to find victims to molest.
During this time, Verger also claims to have traveled across the globe, ultimately befriending the African dictator Idi Amin. At one point, he was a participant at Easter of a re-enactment of the crucifixion; the re-enactment involved a manual laborer playing Jesus to literally be crucified, killing him in the process.
During the middle of the 1970s, several of Mason Verger's victims came forward to the authorities, putting Mason on trial. Mason used his influence to avoid jail time, but was forced to complete community service and undergo mandatory, court-ordered psychotherapy. The therapist was none other than Hannibal Lecter, who by this point was one of the most celebrated psychiatrists in Baltimore — and a cannibalistic serial killer.
Verger invites Lecter to his pied a terre in Owings Mills. After Verger shows him the noose he uses to perform auto-erotic asphyxiation, Lecter asks him to demonstrate the procedure. While Verger is dangling from the noose and masturbating, Lecter offers him amyl nitrite and several other mind-altering drugs, and convinces Verger to peel his face off with a shard of mirror and feed it to his pet dogs. Verger does so, and also gouges out one of his eyes and eats his own nose. Lecter finishes him off by manipulating the noose to break his neck. Amazingly, Verger survives, but is left a hideously disfigured quadriplegic dependent on a life support machine.
In the wake of his near death, Mason claims to have become a born-again Christian and accepted Jesus into his life, though he continues to engage in whatever sexual perversions his disability will allow. He takes on a new associate, Cordell, a Swiss physician who is also a sex offender. During this time Margot also reluctantly returns to her brother's side as his bodyguard. She does so in order to try to get into his good graces and convince him to donate his sperm to her lesbian partner, in order to take advantage of a stipulation in their father's will that denies her any inheritance but provides that his estate and business will go to any children that Verger might have.
According to the police, Verger is one of only two of Lecter's victims to have survived. Because of his condition, Verger is unable to identify Lecter as his attacker until Will Graham ultimately captures Lecter in 1975. Verger never issues a statement in Lecter's trial, though by the time of Lecter's escape from custody in 1988, he has begun offering a multi-million dollar reward for information pertaining to his arrest.
In secret, however, Verger begins planning to capture and execute Lecter himself. He concocts an elaborate plan to have Lecter eaten alive by boars, specially bred over several generations for viciousness and a taste for human flesh.
When Lecter resurfaces 10 years after escaping, via a letter sent to Clarice Starling, Verger begins searching for his target in order to get ahead of the FBI. A tipoff from Detective Rinaldo Pazzi locates Lecter in Florence, Italy, where he is living under the alias "Dr. Fell." Pazzi tries to kidnap Lecter in order to collect the bounty Verger is offering. Lecter gets the better of Pazzi, however, and kills him along with the Sardinian pig breeder and a pickpocket employed by Pazzi to get Lecter's fingerprints. Lecter then returns to the United States, contacting Verger and swearing that he will take his own revenge (as well as mocking Verger's denunciation in a recent interview of the notion that he ate his own nose).
Verger finds a new ally in corrupt Justice Department agent Paul Krendler. Together, they frame Clarice Starling for aiding Lecter in his flight from the police and use her as bait to draw Lecter to her. Lecter is eventually kidnapped by Verger's men and is about to be eaten by the man-eating boars when Starling rescues him. She is wounded and Lecter takes her to safety.
Verger is murdered by his sister Margot, who visits Lecter prior to his escape. Lecter makes Margot an offer: if she kills Mason, he'll allow her to frame him for the crime.
Margot, electric cattle prod in hand, forces her brother's beloved pet moray eel down his throat and then immediately sodomizes his corpse in order to force the body to ejaculate one last time. She then plants evidence, per her deal with Lecter, framing him for the crime and takes the sperm home to be frozen.
In other media
Verger was portrayed by Gary Oldman in the 2001 film adaptation of Hannibal. The character's appearance in the film was based on that of drunk-driving victim Jacqueline Saburido.[1]
The film features numerous changes to the novel, most notably the omission of the character of Margot Verger. In the film, Mason is murdered by Dr. Cordell Doemling (a combination of Cordell and Dr. Doemling, two separate characters in the novel), recast as Mason's personal physician and assistant. Lecter convinces Cordell to shove his employer out of his wheelchair and into the wild boar pen, where he is eaten alive. In the film, this character was portrayed by Željko Ivanek.
References
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