PATRICK BATEMAN

2. PUBLIC LIFE • white male, 26 • Investment Banker, Pierce & Pierce, unnecessary employment • Extremely wealthy • Child of divorce • Attractive (charming, physically) • Well-educated, very attentive to detail, informed, expert in high-end products and fashion, hyper-sensitive to projected style and aesthetics • “boy next door” • Successful with women • Anti-racist, humanist, socially conscious • Drug addict, but hates smokers PATRICK BATEMAN

3. PRIVATE LIFE • Misogynist, racist, sexist, classist, judgemental • Hyper self-conscious • attaches disproportionate value to social symbols of success (i.e. restaurants, clothing) • Obsessed with Patty Winters • Obsessed with violent and pornographic films • Scopophilia • Homophobic but homosocial • Actively plans ways to torture and kill women • Considers himself a type of “god” in that he decides who he will and will not kill • Conscious that his activities are “wrong”, sometimes convinces himself of nihilism in order to continue PATRICK BATEMAN

4. Major Characters: Evelyn Williams- Patrick's girlfriend/casual fiancé. Timothy Price- Patrick’s best friend and colleague. Paul Owen- Patrick's colleague. Jean- Patrick's secretary (who is also in love with him). Luis Carruthers- Patrick’s co-worker at Pierce & Pierce who is in love with Patrick (homosexual). Courtney Lawrence - Luis's girlfriend who is having an affair with Patrick. Craig McDermott- Patrick’s colleague, part of a main social foursome (Bateman, Timothy Price and David Van Patten). David Van Patten - Patrick's colleague, also part of Bateman's main social group. Minor characters Christie- A prostitute, and abused sexually on several occasions by Patrick. Marcus Halberstam- Patrick's colleague; Paul Owen constantly mistakes Patrick for Marcus. Donald Kimball- A private detective hired to investigate Paul Owens’s disappearance and death. Sean Bateman- Patrick’s younger brother. CHARACTER SUMMARIES

5. “a violently boring as well as boringly violent text”–Marco Abel • set in Manhattan • begins on April Fool’s Day and spans approx. 2 years of Patrick Bateman’s life • descriptions of his time at work, complicated social interactions,health and beauty routines and personal daily activities, opinions on music and fashion, sex life, his preparations forrapes and murders and the actual violent acts themselves • follows no coherent time line; a series of events which loosely illustrate Bateman’s psychological deterioration • first 3rd of the book shows no violent passages; sets up Bateman’s “public” life and establishes the importance of wealth and image via fashion, restaurants, sex; mostly “yuppie” culture dialogue (fashion etiquette, drugs, girls) • however there is some foreshadowing of Bateman’s homicidal tendencies; in the second 3rd of the book we see the violent side of Pat Bateman • Bateman describes his gruesome murders with the same incessant detail used earlier to describe his material world, opinions on pop culture and social activities PLOT SUMMARY

6. the last 3rd conveys a sense that Bateman’s violent outbursts can no longer be controlled and the murders get more sadistic, complex and grotesque • Bateman loses control of his narrative, which becomes more fragmented and nonsensical; he also becomes more philosophical and comments on the “meaning” of his violent behavior • we see Bateman also talking openly about his mass murders more frequently towards the last third of the book, but there is either no reaction or he is thought to be joking; his murders seems to go unpunished and unnoticed for the most part. PLOT SUMMARY

7. there are some references to Bateman recognizing he is harmful • towards the end of the book, Bateman’s violent tendencies take over his thoughts and life, as his appearances to the office decrease, (stable outlets such as the gym and the Patty Winters show ground him in this time) • Bateman describes strange occurrences that are too far-fetched to be true (e.g. the ATM tells him to feed it a kitten) • at the peak of his deterioration, Bateman has an emotional breakdown in his office where he calls his lawyer and leaves him a message confessing his murders and violent acts, including that of Paul Owen; the lawyer does not address Bateman initially, and does not believe that he has committed the crimes that were confessed and provides proof contradicting that he did PLOT SUMMARY

8. thus the question is raised whether any of these murders actually took place • whether any of the crimes committed in the book actually happened is left up to the reader to decide: Is Pat Bateman a serial killer, or a delusional psychotic? • the novel ends with Pat Bateman carrying a conversation with his “yuppie” social group about everyday nonsense, as it had began  • the last line of the book “This is not an exit” ties in with the first sentence of the novel “Abandon all hope ye who enter here”; this suggests both that Bateman has no escape from his psychological state, and also that the end of the book will not provide relief for the reader PLOT SUMMARY

9. Style/Naturalist/Surrealist/Absurd/Satire/Black ComedyPsychonarration, CommentaryFree association/Boredom/Stream of consciousnessOvert narrator/ is there any narrative distance? Present Tense? Recollection? (slice-of-life), TellabilityTelling – narrator is in overt control, Paralepsis/EgoPower (Mortality, Class, Utility, Structure)Who is the/Is there an antagonist? Foil charactersAnticlimactic? (Lack of) Catharsis?Realistic fiction? Apocalyptic/Speculative fiction?Information-Giving vs. StorytellingConcise (?) and reader-conscious expository information (block characterization)Implied author (overarching intratextual authority)? Implied audience?Any sort of reader identification (of self or of desires)? LITERARY ANALYSIS

10. Evidence refuting Bateman as a reliable narrator: • Bateman is explicitly aware of a reader audience. • answers implied questions, provides his reader with advice and addresses his audience directly, almost conversationally: Evelyn is an executive at a financial services company, FYI. pg 13 Never use cologne on your face, since the high alcohol content dries your face out and makes you look older. pg 27 • Yes my brain does explode and my stomach bursts open inwardly – a spastic, acidic gastric reaction…pg 239 • Dinner last night? At Splash. Not much to remember: a watery Bellini…Right now I’m in the middle of purchasing a belt… pg. 291 NARRATOR RELIABILITY

11. Bateman is concerned with projecting a particular image to whatever audience he has. • consciously defensive of his image and often lies in order to support a vision of himself: “Hi,” she says. “It’s me, Patricia.” “Could you hold on? I’ve got another call.” “Oh sure,” she says. I put her on hold for two minutes, then get back on the line. Armstrong just got back from the islands and has a very deep, very even tan, but so do I. pg 137 “Listen,” I say, pushing my chair in. “I just want everyone to know that I’m pro- family and anti-drug.” pg. 157 NARRATOR RELIABILITY

12. Bateman omits certain events and details from his narrative.  Narrative style is often disconnected, fragmented or surreal, sometimes slips into third person: Evelyn is talking but I’m not listening. Her mouth is moving but I’m not hearing anything and I can’t listen, I can’t really concentrate, since my rabbit has been cut to look…just…like…a…star!” pg 123 “Hip,” I murmur, remembering last night, how I lost it completely in a stall at Nell’s – my mouth foaming, all I could think about were insects, lots of insects, and running at pigeons. Pg 108 flames washing over the bodies of the policemen both living and dead, shattering all the windows of Lotus Blossom, Patrick’s ears ringing… …while running toward Wall Street, still in Tribeca, he stays away from where the streetlamps shine the brightest pg 350 NARRATOR RELIABILITY

13. Bateman includes details that support his image but are highly unlikely or absurd. Back at my apartment his body is already in rigor mortis, and after wrapping it up in four cheap-terry cloth towels I also bought at Conran’s Memorial Day sale, I place Owen headfirst and fully dressed into a Canalino goose-down sleeping bag, which I zip up and then drag easily into the elevator, then through the lobby, past the night doorman, down the block, where I briefly run into Arthur Crystal and Kitty Martin…I hail a taxi, effortlessly manage to swing the sleeping bag into the backseat, hop in and give the driver the address. pg 219 I quickly stand up, brushing myself off, and when I think his outburst has subsided and I’m able to walk away, Luis grabs at my a ankle and tries to hang on as I’m leaving Barney’s and I end up dragging him along for six feet before I have to kick him in the face. “I love you,” he miserably wails. “I love you.” pg 296 NARRATOR RELIABILITY

14. Questions which exploring the “reality” of Bateman’s rapes and murders: 1. Is Paul Owen dead? 2. Did Patrick kill and store bodies in Paul Owens’s apartment? “I suggest you go,” she says.We stand there in the hallway facing each other. “Don’t make any trouble,” she says again, quietly.I stand there a few seconds longer before finally backing away, holding up my hands, a gesture of assurance.“Don’t come back,” she says.“I won’t,” I say. “Don’t worry.” pg 370 REALITY VS. DREAM

15. 3. Does the Taxi driver know that Patrick is a murderer? 4. Are Patrick’s confessions to his lawyer an illusion? 5. Did he really leave a message on Harold’s answering machine? If he did confess, why wasn’t he caught, and why wasn’t the case looked into further? I decide to make public what has been, until now, my private dementia, but Harold isn’t in, business, London, I leave a message, admitting everything, leaving nothing out, thirty, forty, a hundred murders…sobbing though I don’t know why, into Harold’s machine… pg 352 REALITY VS. DREAM

16. NISHA When I first started reading the novel, I found myself getting impatient through the beginning, and anticipating to read the controversial violent scenes of the text, the “good part” (or “bad part” depending on how you look at it). After having a taste of the gruesome description of the murders in the book, I felt very scandalized and had to put the book down. Having have to read this book from cover to cover for the presentation, I can now appreciate certain aspects of it. For starters, it is written in a quite readable style, which I think is done intentionally to compensate for the difficulty squeamish readers will have in reading the more gruesome passages. This book also tended to stay with me while I was reading it; I noticed I would be thinking of it throughout the day which is a good indication that Ellis managed to place the novel firmly in the real world. Although this book did shock me, disturb me, and quite frankly frighten me, it still did manage to enlighten and educate me. PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS

17. DANIELLA This book took me a very long time to read. I found that I needed to “recover” from the violent scenes before I could move on – and honestly that process usually took up to a week. Once I managed to dull myself to the horrors Bateman describes – by reading and rereading, a sort of forced desensitization – I was able to look at the book objectively. I agree with the many critics who call it an “important book” and I also think its construction is very purposeful. It’s not a book I would have read in my personal life, since I don’t think I would have been able to force myself through the rape and murder scenes unless I absolutely had to. But once you get past all that, there really is an underlying hilarious irony that keeps you from taking the text too seriously. PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS

18. NEHREEN Initially, in my opinion, “American Psycho” is a very monotonous novel.  When Patrick Bateman begins torturing and murdering people, I started to get anxious and uncomfortable with his degrading nature and descriptions of women.  Overall, I was not comfortable reading this book because even when I was not reading it, I was still unconsciously thinking of the ways in which he tortured people.  On the other hand, Ellis has made a point to make people aware of the ghastly and horrific things people are capable of doing in society.  PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS

19. We experience the text in three ways:PRIMARY ACTANT first-person narrativeexpertiseunnatural detailsoften present tenseHELPLESS BYSTANDERunable to alter eventsforced to keep reading“allowing” or “condoning” by readingirreconcilable sense of guilt (suspense) TORTURED VICTIMsympathy/empathy for victimsvictim’s pain described emotionallyfear of this occurring in real worldfear of someday experiencing torture READER EXPERIENCE

20.  is our sense of justice violated?Crime and Punishmentkill without consequencemisogyny  The problems with affective fallacyour emotional responseobjectively assessing the bookcriticisms of book vs film READER EXPERIENCE

21.  DEFAMILIARIZATION • in order to access us, Ellis needs to push the boundaries of acceptability • desensitization • do we begin to subconsciously "crave" the murder/rape sequences as a break from the monotony of Bateman's life? • SPECULATIVE FICTION • cautionary tale? • self-involvement • misrepresentation • doublethink AUTHORIAL INTENT

22. What was your experience reading the excerpts? • Do you consider this novel pornographic? If so, is it purposeful or senseless pornography? • Do you think that Bateman’s murderous activity existed only inside his mind? Does this change your reading experience? • Would you consider Ellis’ portrayal of Manhattan and Bateman’s world satire, or naturalism/realism? • What did you feel most scandalized by? Rape, murder, torture, misogyny, racism, greed, lack of justice… • Do you think that you should have to be over 18 to purchase this novel? • Do you agree with the many critics who cite this book as “important”? DISCUSSION QUESTIONS