AMERICAN PSYCHO

'''American Psycho''' is a 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis. It is a first-person narrative of the life of a wealthy young Manhattanite and self-proclaimed serial killer. The graphic violence and sexual content was widely commented upon at the novel's release. A film adaptation was released in 2000 to mostly positive reviews.^[2] Also in 2000 Brett Easton Ellis composed emails collected under the title "AmPsycho 2000 Emails" that were sent from main character Patrick Bateman to his therapist. Users could sign up to receive these emails at Universal's website for the movie.

Contents

Synopsis

Rampage

Characters

Major characters

Minor characters

Bateman's personality

Controversy

International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs)

See also

Notes

External links

Synopsis

Set in Manhattan in the late 1980s, ''American Psycho'' spans roughly two years of the life of wealthy young investment banker Patrick Bateman. Bateman, 26 years old when the story begins, narrates his serial-killer antics; though the reliability is intentionally ambiguous, particularly toward the book's end.
Having graduated at Philips Exeter Academy and Harvard (class of '84), Bateman comes from a privileged background. He works as a Vice President at a fictional Wall Street investment bank, Pierce & Pierce, and lives in an expensive Manhattan apartment on the Upper West Side. He embodies the 1980s yuppie culture. Through the stream-of-consciousness narrative he describes his conversations with colleagues in bars and cafes, his office, and nightclubs, satirizing the vanity of Manhattan yuppies.
Bateman's narrative revolves around his murderous activities and includes renting and returning video tapes, reservations at trendy restaurants, the pursuit of cocaine in dance clubs, dates with various women, rivalries with colleagues, parties with vacuous associates, avoiding Luis (a closeted homosexual colleague of Bateman's who confesses his secret love for him), and pointless disputes at restaurants and bars over pop culture and fashion trivia.
Bateman dates several women besides his fiancée Evelyn, though without any deep feelings for anyone. He frequently solicits sex with attractive women (or 'hardbodies'). He spends excessive time on his appearance, and persistently tries to outclass his colleagues, though the only significant difference between him and them is his preoccupation with criminal acts of rape, torture and murder. To his misfortune, no matter how sincerely he insists that he is a psychopathic murderer, everyone either ignores or does not believe him, thus denying him the unique recognition he craves.
In the end, Bateman descends into despair as he ponders the futility of his actions. He cannot convince his own attorney of his murderous nature, and receives taunts for making up an unbelievable and absurd story. His failure is so complete that not even the thought of killing arouses any feeling. The final image is of a sign in a bar that declares "This Is Not An Exit." It remains unclear at the end whether his crimes were real or imaginary.

Rampage

Bateman tortures and kills both people and animals; most notably several attractive women, among them his ex-girlfriend Bethany, a prostitute, and various sexual partners he picks up; as well as many acquaintances, colleagues, homeless beggars and total strangers. Bateman is incredibly sadistic, recording his victims' pleas for mercy and deliberately keeping them alive and conscious in order to inflict more pain on them; he takes perverse pleasure in butchering and defiling their bodies, keeping various "trophies" and having sex with the corpses, sometimes only their heads. Bateman, at various points in the book, practices cannibalism, eating raw and cooked portions of his victims.
Bateman is suspicious and jealous by nature; he becomes especially intrigued by a colleague, the smug, successful Paul Owen, who is handling one of the firm's most prestigious accounts and can easily acquire reservations at Dorsia, the trendiest restaurant in the city. Bateman takes Paul to dinner (using the name of a colleague on the reservation), where he gets him drunk, before leading him back to his apartment, and then killing him with an axe.

Characters

Major characters

★ 'Patrick Bateman'

★ 'Evelyn Williams' - Bateman's girlfriend

★ 'Timothy Price' - Bateman's best friend and colleague

★ 'Paul Owen (books) Allen in movie' - Bateman's colleague

★ 'Jean' - Bateman's secretary (who is in love with him)

★ 'Luis Carruthers' - Co-worker who is in love with Bateman

★ 'Courtney Rawlinson' - Luis's girlfriend who is having an affair with Bateman

★ 'Craig McDermott' - Bateman's colleague, part of a social foursome (later a trio for most of the novel) alongside Bateman, Timothy Price and David Van Patten

Minor characters

★ 'Christie' - A prostitute, employed and abused sexually on multiple occasions by Bateman

★ 'David Van Patten' - Bateman's colleague, also part of Bateman's main social group

★ 'Marcus Halberstam' - Bateman's colleague; Paul Owen repeatedly mistakes Bateman for Marcus

★ 'Donald Kimball' - Private detective hired to investigate Paul Owen's disappearance

★ 'Tom Cruise' - Patrick Bateman shares an apartment block with Cruise, and encounters him in the building's elevator

★ 'Sean Bateman' - younger brother of Patrick Bateman and also the lead character of ''The Rules of Attraction''

★ 'Christopher Armstrong' - Bateman's colleague at Pierce & Pierce

Bateman's personality

:''Main article: Patrick Bateman''

On first appearance, Bateman exemplifies the image of the successful Manhattan executive; he is well-educated, wealthy, unusually popular with women, abreast of cultural trends, belongs to a prominent family, has a high-paying job, and lives in an upscale, chic apartment complex. Bateman passes for a refined, intelligent, thoughtful young man. Yet, contrary to his persona, he murders and tortures victims, practices violent sex, cannibalizes victims, and sexually penetrates body parts of corpses.
Bateman is extremely style-conscious, and appears an expert in fashion and high-end consumer products. In his narrative, he obsessively describes his and other people's possessions in exhaustive detail, even noting articles like pens, socks, and pocket squares; he also describes his own wardrobe and accessories, including the material of which they are made, the name of the designer, and the store where they were purchased. For transportation, Bateman uses personal limousines to search for suitable victims in the streets. Bateman incisively answers his friends' and co-workers' queries, authoritatively explicating the difference between various types of mineral water, which tie knot is less bulky than a Windsor knot, and the proper way to wear a cummerbund, pocket square, or tie bar.
Bateman's job is a sinecure to which he feels no need to apply himself, owing to his family's wealth and influence. He is supreme in his own world; he usually comes to work late—sometimes by more than an hour—and indulges in long lunches. Despite these advantages, Bateman's envy of his peers runs throughout the novel. In a scene in which characters compare business cards, Bateman panics when he realizes a friend's card is superior to his because it includes a watermark.

Controversy

★ The book was originally to have been published by Simon & Schuster in March 1991, but the company withdrew from the project because of the novel's content. Vintage Books purchased the rights to the novel and published an edited version of Ellis' original manuscript. Some say the book was not changed all that much, while others have contended that the version that is in circulation today is significantly toned down from Ellis' original work.

★ Bret Easton Ellis received numerous death threats and hate mail after the publication of ''American Psycho''.^1[3]

★ Feminist activist Gloria Steinem was among those opposed to the release of Ellis' book because of its portrayal of violence towards women. Steinem is also the stepmother of Christian Bale, who portrayed Bateman in the film adaptation of the novel. This irony is mentioned in Ellis's mock memoir ''Lunar Park''.

★ In Germany the book was deemed "harmful to minors," hence its sales and marketing were severely restricted from 1995 to 2000.

★ A copy of the book was found in the house rented by Canadian serial murderers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, leading to speculation that the book had motivated Bernardo's crimes. However, there is no evidence that this was the case. Bernardo committed his real-life crimes assisted by Homolka, whereas in the book, Bateman committed his crimes by himself. In addition, the first murder by Bernardo and Homolka happened in December 1990, before the book's publication.

★ In Australia and New Zealand, the book is sold shrink-wrapped and is classified R18 under the censorship law and may not be sold to those under 18 years of age. Along with other Category 1 publications, its sale is banned in the state of Queensland. Even so, in Brisbane, the novel is available to those over 18 from all public libraries and is still able to be ordered and purchased (shrink wrapped) from many book stores.

International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs)

★ ISBN 0-671-66397-6 (hardcover, 1991)

★ ISBN 0-679-73577-1 (paperback, 1991)

★ ISBN 84-406-3712-8 (paperback, 2000)

★ ISBN 2-02-025380-1 (paperback, 2000)

★ ISBN 3-462-02261-X (paperback, 2000)

★ ISBN 0-330-48477-X (paperback, 2000)

★ ISBN 0-330-49189-X (paperback, 2002)

★ ISBN 978-0-330-44801-7 (paperback, 2006)

See also

★ Aestheticization of violence

Notes

1. Canons of Transgression: Shock, Scandal, and Subversion from Matthew Lewis's ''The Monk'' to Bret Easton Ellis's ''American Psycho'', , Vartan, Messier, Dissertation Abstracts International, 2005 (University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez). Chapter ''Pornography and Violence: The Dialectics of Transgression in Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho'' provides an in-depth analysis of the novel.
2. Metacritic reviews for American Psycho
3. IMDb biography of Bret Easton Ellis

External links

★ A long-running site and discussion forum dedicated to both the novel and movie for American Psycho

★ Review of the novel

★ Another take on the novel

★ AmPsycho 2000 Emails which were a continuation of the story by Brett Easton Ellis over the internet