The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo- Lisbeth Salander

In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, the character of Lisbeth Salander at first appeared as a completely mystery through the perspective of Dragan Armansky. The book used third person omniscient perspective to give others opinions on the appearance of Lisbeth. Lisbeth came off as an emotionless recluse because of the way she would handle emotional reports in such dry tones. These things were shown through Dragan’s thoughts on her. The movie, on the other hand, portrays the character of Lisbeth shortly through Dragan’s words to Frode, but also her appearance and attitude in the first scene. She looks different because of her bleached eyebrows, facial piercings, and black mohawk. She also sits at the table with Dragan and Frode sideways in her chair facing the door rather than her boss and client.

The book begins to show the inner workings of Lisbeth through following her and seeing inside her head after she is introduced in one way. Lisbeth is changed because narration shows her go to see her ill mother at the assisted living community then later the dealings with her former guardian and father figure. The movie was able to show these things with Lisbeth as well in short clips that showed Lisbeth outside her guardian’s hospital room on the floor and on the train after finding out that he may never be the same completely zoned out in sadness. This reveals a different side to Lisbeth that cannot be seen usually through other characters, but only herself because of her closed off manner.

One way the film really changed Lisbeth and showed a more emotionally raw character was how her tattoos were not shown throughout the beginning of the film. Her dragon tattoo is only revealed after Bjurman has assaulted her. The camera angle shows her sitting on the floor curled into a ball looking at something with the tattoo exposed then it pans over her head to her face that is bright red with rage. This scene represents how the dragon has been released from inside Lisbeth revealing an independent warrior rather than a weak little girl.

Lisbeth, in the book, shows even more depth when she leaves Mikael after his ultimatum that she can either stay to be his friend or leave. Then after leaving, Lisbeth turns around realizing how much Mikael does mean to her. She then tells Mikael that she likes his company which the novel says “those were words that had never before passed her lips” (Larsson 399). In the novel, this scene shows a dramatic change in her character that was not so present in the movie. The movie never had her leave, but instead she just said that she liked Mikael, which still seemed like a big deal for her character.

Both the book and the movie represented Lisbeth as a very round character. This was shown through her appearance and how she acted around others as aloof, different, and introverted. Then on the inside, she showed herself to have emotions and feelings pertaining to others. Mikael worked as the character to break Lisbeth’s hard-shell and become close to her like not many others had done.