Criticizing American Psycho

‘Change’ is a word which most correlates with postmodernism, but it hasn’t one particular definition, only theories. This undefined philosophy is comparable to the views on American Psycho. In the way that postmodernism is examined, it is either praised or condemned; some critics interpret in one way, other critics in another.

Generated from a reaction toward the rigidity of a previous philosophy, modernism, postmodernism was a term first explored during the late nineteenth century. A whole century later, roughly 1950-1960, the idiom (to begin with) started being applied to everyday life, chiefly the values of a western lifestyle. “The postmodern would be that which, in the moderns puts forward the unpresentable in presentation itself; that which denies itself the solace of good forms, the consensus of a taste which would make it possible to share collectively the nostalgia for the unattainable…” (Waugh, P. (ed.), 1992, Postmodernism A Reader, Kent: Edward Arnold, page 124) For Lyotard, postmodernism creates a negative aspect for society. The philosophical movement is an expression, in the beginning of its usage, of change and departing from the values of modernism, yet to create a vision of society so far from a realistic accomplishment. It would only cause society to crave the same needs, which goes against the postmodernist movement’s reason for its creation, which is to allow freedom for expression and differentiation.

American Psycho, like many other transgressive novels, is observed by some as, “…the proclamation of personal identity in recent American fiction [which] tends…to be more a product of the will than of the imagination.” (Waugh, P. (ed.), 1992, page 29) However, Bret Easton Ellis shaped the character of Patrick Bateman out of will, which could subtend from his imagination, and/or vice versa. The will couldn’t be enacted by an individual if there were no imagination, neither any imagination without will. But Howe doesn’t seem discouraging of the philosophy of postmodernism, unlike Lyotard’s perception. The two analyses of the concept illustrate how there is no definite answer to the exact ideals of the postmodern.

Ellis wrote American Psycho whilst living in New York in the 80s and found it unbearable after personal scrutiny. Much of the inspiration for the novel is drawn from his experiences and characters are brought to life through the use of traits taken from people in Ellis’ life. Patrick Bateman is based loosely on Ellis’ father. Aside from the reasoning for Ellis writing American Psycho from the author’s personal viewpoint, which plays a large part in the story direction of the novel, but the postmodernism throughout are influenced by Ellis’ background.

The first and glaring feature of the novel is the narrative technique used, which is incredibly systematic, bored and unemotional, to name but a few adjectives to describe it. “Each change of narrative level in a recursive structure also involves a change of ontological level, a change of world…recursive structure serves a tool for exploring issues of narrative authority, reliability and unreliability, the circulation of knowledge, and so forth.” (Waugh, P. (ed.), 1992, page 212) McHale’s insight of postmodern literary art is distinct in depicting Ellis’ use of factual and dreary narrative. The reader is purposefully forced to create, for themselves, an interest to read because of the narrator’s seemingly uninterested tone. So there is no sign of narrative authority and this is explored, as McHale points out, by the subtle changes of narration. However, the confident tone is a pretence to be authoritative, and the blasé, rambling voice loses that effect, suggesting the narrator might not be reliable or unreliable. Halfway into the novel, Patrick seems to lose sight of his own narration and its structure and inevitably his readers attention, or maybe not. “…“What am I doing? I cry out. ““Where are you?” And then “Patrick? What’s wrong?” “I’m not going to make it, Jean,” I say…’ (Ellis, B. E., 1991, American Psycho, New York: Random House, page 149) The dialogue and the narration run together with no distinction of what speech belongs to which character. For the entirety of the chapter “A Glimpse of a Thursday Afternoon”, the narration is a long-winded description of events. The first half contains many questions and there’s a sense of sincerity, but the second half is a release of the angst and insecurity Patrick harbored. However, the chapter is one long paragraph to reflect Patrick’s confliction between the subconscious freedom of expression and the conscious sense of belonging he “needs” to the society-imposed lifestyle.

The perspective is constantly in the first person, thereby indicating his self-obsession and pursuant of his individuality, but also his desire to integrate. The use of the intimate pronoun “I” allows the reader to empathise and relate to the narrator and yet Patrick is devoid of emotion, so the objective to be understood fails. Baudrillard explains, “…to differentiate oneself is precisely to affiliate to a model, to label oneself by reference to an abstract model, to a combinatorial pattern of fashion, and therefore to relinquish any real difference, any singularity…This is the miracle and the tragedy of differentiation.” (Baudrillard, J., 1998, The Consumer Society Myths & Structures, London: Sage Publications, page 88) There’s a conflict in Patrick which is paralleled in the language of American Psycho. The conflict is: he wants (almost needs) to express individualism and his real personality (whatever that is) and also to exist with an inconspicuous lifestyle which would require him to suppress much of himself. What Baudrillard points out signifies that there is no such thing as difference in Patrick’s life as an investment banker in Wall Street. However, no one but he is aware of his perverse and violent other life, but he tries to make it aware to some characters. For Patrick, that life may as well be a fantasy, and to the reader this is a possibility at certain points. The last few words of American Psycho are, “…THIS IS NOT AN EXIT.” (Ellis, Bret E., 1991, page 399) He realizes there is no escape from living in his yuppie reality. This is the tragedy of differentiation. Patrick gives in to the senseless existence after failing to escape it. If American Psycho were narrated by his friend Tim Price, he too would practice the same adversity. Within the first chapter Tim expresses, “…when you”ve just come to the point when your reaction to the times is one of total and sheer acceptance, when your body has become somehow tuned into the insanity and you reach that point where it all makes sense, when it clicks…’(Ellis, B. E., 1991, pages 5-6) It’s very possible Tim is just another version of Patrick in every way. Tim may have tried to escape, as Patrick does, and realizing the failure, gave in.

Based in Manhattan, New York during the 1980s couldn’t have been more cliché for the choice of the novel’s setting. It’s the perfect city to exhibit the infamous era of excess; the extreme ideals of money and image. “The city is often considered to be “anonymous’, a place of escape by those seeking to transgress conventional boundaries. Cities offer opportunities to those whose lifestyles are labelled deviant or perverse.’ (Jayne, M., 2006, Cities and Consumption, New York: Routledge, pages 140-141) The city is a playground for its inhabitants to exert their frustrations and desires in any way they wish. Patrick and his friends take drugs, dine at five-star restaurants recommended by Zagat, sleep with “hard-bodies” and purchase the current must-have gadgets based on popular opinion. The supposed desires allow an effect of distancing themselves from emotionality and the cityscape itself represents, and causes, that frigidity. “Reflection is useless, the world is senseless. Evil is its only permanence. God is not alive. Love cannot be trusted…this was civilization as I saw it, colossal and jagged…” (Ellis, B. E., 1991, page 375) He describes Manhattan as the epicentre of his ruined society which is excessive in its size and appearance to expose the inner workings of the fallen establishment of the Western culture and lifestyle. Any religious belief or any belief in compassion, even in himself, is obscured or non-existent from the influence of the cities psychological control.

There’s such confusion with emotion for Patrick. He cannot discern what he should be upset about or what makes him happy. “I”m on the verge of tears by the time we arrive at Pastels since I’m positive we won’t get seated but the table is good, and relief that is almost tidal in scope washes over me in an awesome wave.’ (Ellis, B. E., 1991, page 39) The possibly of not acquiring a good table in a high-class restaurant causes him to be on the verge of grief, but his anxiety stems from, “…capitalism [which] inherently possesses the power to derealize familiar objects, social roles, and institutions to such a degree that the so-called realistic representation can no longer evoke reality except as nostalgia or mockery, as an occasion for suffering than for satisfaction.” (Waugh, P., (ed.), 1992, page 119) Bateman distinguishes the restaurant as a society in itself, a microcosm within his own, but it’s equally important for him to be successful in all aspects of every society; to be a part of the highest level of that society and attain the highest rank. These impossible dreams of being the best at everything and having the best are what the 80s encompassed and it creates the anguish he suffers from so frequently. Manhattan, and any other city, is the epitome of freedom and liberalism during the 1980s, to many Americans, let alone the rest of the world. So, it’s ironic for Patrick not to display who he is, yet there are indications that he attempts to do so, but isn’t heard. ““Patrick is not a cynic, Timothy. He”s the boy next door, aren’t you honey?” “No I’m not,” I whisper to myself. “I’m a fucking evil psychopath.” “Oh so what,” Evelyn sighs.’ (Ellis, B. E., 1991, page 20) The city is a landscape of false hope and lies which affects Patrick. His expression is also what makes him be insular. This contradiction carries on throughout the novel.

American Psycho is presented as a novel belonging to the postmodern movement for its controversy and why such imagery and subject matters are expressed and developed to create an ideology of current society. In postmodernism, “…first and most evident is the emergence of a new kind of flatness or depthlessness, a new kind of superficiality in the most literal sense -” (Docherty, T. (ed.), 1993, Postmodernism A Reader, Cambridge: Harvester Wheatsheaf, page 68) Jameson states there are more mundane works being produced and the theory applies heavily to American Psycho. What is needed to be deciphered is: why the dull prose? Why is Patrick so pedantic? Why is the action devoid of emotion?

Commodification is the constant theme which essentially controls American Psycho. The pop cultured artwork of, “…Andy Warhol”s…in fact turns centrally around commodification, and the great billboard images of the Coca-Cola bottle or the Campbell’s Soup Can, which explicitly foreground the commodity fetishism of a transition to late capital…’ (Docherty, T. (ed.), 1993, page 68) According to Jameson, Warhol displays the simplicity and attraction of consumerism in his art and yet he and his art are icons of capitalism. Ellis does similar within American Psycho by dedicating whole chapters to pop music icons of the 80s. ““House by the Sea,”…its second instrumental part…Tom Rutherford washes the tracks over with dreamy synthesizers, and when Phil repeats the song”s third verse at the end it can give you chills.’ (Ellis, B. E., 1991, page 135) The incredible attention to detail on the band Genesis is astounding and would be beyond moot to include more than what is already mentioned by Bateman’s scrutinising. He “expresses” himself by boasting his knowledge of popular music and fashioning it into an expose. “Pop lays claim to be the art of the banal (it is on these grounds that it calls itself “pop(ular)’ art)…One could define pop as a game with – and a manipulation of – the different levels of mental perception…’ (Baudrillard, J., 1998, page 118-119) Baudrillard defines pop art as a reflection of society and a device of influence. Like the seemingly lively, individualistic 80s pop music Patrick listens to he is constantly trying to sustain that veneer of perfection about him, but both music and Patrick are just products of their society, much like walking advertisements.

Even the onslaught of product description in American Psycho is overwhelming for the reader, as it is for Patrick and other resident Manhattan yuppies. It is so virulent a theme that it causes violence and sex to turn into objects of consumerism. Killing a dog or a homeless man or a prostitute is as mundane as watching television. There’s no explanation of emotions or adrenalin, but as if the actions he commits are another commodity itself. “In my locker in the locker room at Xclusive lie three vaginas I recently sliced out of various women I”ve attacked in the past week. Two are washed off, one isn’t. There’s a barrette clipped to one of them, a blue ribbon from Hèrmes tied around my favourite.’ (Ellis, B. E., 1991, page 370) Patrick for, seemingly inexplicable reasons, adorns the mutilated genitals for a very sombre motive. He attaches himself to these vaginas which represent the beginning of life and their life-giving quality and it is what he seeks. “As Marx shows, all commodities have a “double existence,’ as both substance and form. A good or product has qualities of its own; but these are complemented, in a capitalist economy, by the “pure form” of exchange-value.’ (Waugh, P., (ed.), 1992, page 12) To analyse the surface of his act of hording is purely a compulsive fetish to consume and he has spun out of control to the point that he views these vaginas as objects of commodity. Applying Giddens explanation to Bateman’s deed demonstrates the two battling sides of his id (animal instincts) and his superego (conscience). Patrick consumes human lives to acquire a spiritually gratifying sensation that obviously music, clothes and entertainment cannot. “All societies have always wasted, squandered, expended and consumed beyond what is necessary for the simple reason that it is in the consumption of a surplus, of a superfluity that the individual – and society – feel not merely that they exist, but that they are alive.” (Baudrillard J., 1998, page 43) Bateman is attempting to define his own existence and more than anything, to prove that to himself, “The baby stares at Jean and me. We stare back. It”s really weird and I’m experiencing a spontaneous kind of internal sensation, I feel I’m moving toward as well as away from something, and anything is possible.’ (Ellis, B.E., 1991, page 380)

Characters of American Psycho are prototypes of one another in Patrick’s eyes and strangers are mistaken for a friend or acquaintance. “By the mass society we mean a relatively comfortable [society]…the population grows passive, indifferent and atomized…interests and opinions gradually fall apart…man becomes a consumer, himself mass-produced like the products diversions and values that he absorbs.” (Waugh, P., (ed.), 1992, page 24) No description of a characters personality is explored, only their materialistic accomplishments and societal rank is of any importance, “Van Patten is wearing a double-breasted wool and silk sport coat, button-fly wool and silk trousers with inverted pleats by Mario Valentino, a cotton shirt by Gitman brothers, a polka-dot silk tie by Bill Blass and leather shoes from Brooks Brothers.” (Ellis, B.E., 1991, page 31) The depiction of Van Patten, and just about every other character, weighs their worth in their choice of goods and it is threatening for Patrick to come across another “clone” who has a better product, usually a more expensive one, than he.

Price is the character who Patrick looks up to, but of course hates to do so. Price is more knowledgeable and yet resents himself for being that, which gives him anger issues, ““…we have a mayor who won”t listen to her, a mayor who won’t let the bitch have her way-Holy Christ-let the fucking bitch freeze to death, put her out of her goddamn self-made misery, and look, you’re back where you started, confused, fucked…”’ (Ellis, B.E., 1991, page 6) He subtly hints at Bateman that to digress from the self-obsessed, single-minded, consumerizing society of theirs is futile. Panic literally ensues as Craig McDermott’s jokes at Patrick’s expense reaches its peak, ““Keep touching me like this,” I say, eyes shut tight, entire body wired and ticking, coiled up ready, wanting to spring, “and you”ll draw back a stump.”’ (Ellis, B.E., 1991, page 155-156)

McDermott is an incredibly cocky character, who instigates a lot of Bateman’s frustrations. Craig challenges him in a forward-manner, but the tests he puts Patrick through, which seem silly and juvenile to the reader, are quite telling of McDermott’s purpose, which is to coax Patrick’s real character to be revealed, in other words: his id. Craig shows Patrick an article on Patrick’s hero, Donald Trump. Patrick hasn’t read it, which astonishes him and it informs that Donald Trump likes the pizza at Pastels and Patrick disagreed when McDermott said it was good, “…thoroughly annoyed, “So what? What does it mean? Wht are you, McDermott, trying to tell me?” “What do you think of the pizza at Pastels now, Bateman?” he asks smugly…”Brittle?” McDermott offers. “Yeah.” I shrug. “Brittle.” “Uh-huh.” McDermott smiles, triumphant…McDermott cackles gleefully, a victor.” (Ellis, B.E., 1991, page 110) On the surface, McDermott seems immature, but reading further into what he says to Patrick is along the same lines as Tim Price’s point of view of 1980s Manhattan they live in, except that McDermott finds it amusing to be in such a deadening situation. “The fundamental, unconscious, automatic choice of the consumer is to accept the style of life of a particular society (it is, therefore, no longer a choice(!) and the theory of the autonomy and sovereignty of the consumer is refuted).” (Baudrillard, J., 1998, page 70) Baudrillard proposes that there is no lifestyle choice and control and discipline of the self is merely theoretical. Price and McDermott have long come to that realization. They are products themselves; products created for consumption. They do have a purpose, which feeds their society for the greater good of civilization, otherwise disintegration ensues. However, man is illogical and is forced to live by logic. This is what Patrick fears: that he will lose himself to logic and rational thought which his true nature abhorrently opposes to.

Courtney is an interesting character as she is on a path of self-destruction affected by the horror which Price, McDermott and Bateman face. She is the most frequent drug-user in American Psycho and is rarely sober because she is fully aware of her lifeless existence and wants badly to end it, “I can barely see her face in the darkness but hear the sigh, painful and low, the sound of a prescription bottle snapping open, her body shifting in the bed.” (Ellis, B.E., 1991, page 360) She and Patrick just had sex and women are known to release hormones which aid bonding, love and trust. Courtney doesn’t exhibit any attempt to overcome her inability to possess such characteristics, but the reader can easily sense she secretly needs affection. Sometimes, Courtney takes on a maternal role towards Patrick, “I look down at my lap, at the blue cloth napkin, the words Deck Chairs sewn into the napkin”s edge, and for a moment think I’m going to cry; my chin trembles and I can’t swallow. Courtney reaches over and touches my wrist gently, stroking my Rolex. “It’s okay Patrick. It really is…”’ (Ellis, B.E., 1991, 98) Patrick is overcome with the comprehension of his empty life of glitz and glamour, but he keeps suppressing these sudden episodes of self insight throughout the novel. Courtney is aware because it’s possible she’s been through Patrick’s stage of denial and delusion. Unlike Price and McDermott, Courtney attempts to soothe Patrick of his fear, as a mother would care for her child. However, Courtney does self-pity to an extent that effects her self-worth in her eyes and causes her to give up entirely, ““I want to fuck you again,” I tell her, “but I don”t want to use a condom because I don’t feel anything,” and she says calmly, taking her mouth off my limp shrunken dick, glaring at me, “If you don’t use one you’re not going to feel anything anyway.”’ (Ellis, B.E., 1991, page 105) Courtney eventually turns into a hollow vessel of the former Courtney; into one of many products of Manhattan.

Jean is a polar opposite of everyone. What is most significant about her differentiation is that Patrick knows this and it intrigues him. He often experiences stirrings of emotion, but doesn’t explicitly say so because he doesn’t understand it. “I have a great secretary. She comes into the office five minutes later with the Perrier, a wedge of lime and the Ransom file, which she did not need to bring, and I am vaguely touched by her almost total devotion to me. I can”t help but be flattered.’ (Ellis, B.E., 1991, page 66) Jean is innocent of the pitfalls of 1980s Manhattan. Patrick wants that similar understanding of “ignorance is bliss”. If he immerses himself in Jean’s company he could escape his fears of his ineffectual reality. “And though it has been in no way a romantic evening, she embraces me and this time emanates a warmth I”m not familiar with…the havoc raging inside me is gradually subsiding and she is kissing me on the mouth and this jars me back into some kind of reality…I imagine running around central park on a cool spring afternoon with Jean, laughing, holding hands. We buy balloons, we let them go.’ (Ellis, B.E., 1991, pages 265-266) Unfortunately, for Bateman the mild sentiment of closeness with another person is a fleeting one and reverts to his despair by isolating himself from Jean. He can only visualize what it is to be free to feel emotionally.

Patrick psychologically deteriorates and in a last effort to conjure some affectivity he murders a young child and subsequently tries to help by masquerading as a doctor. “The mother makes a sound that I cannot describe-something high-pitched that turns into screaming…I find myself shouting out, my voice heavy with emotion, “I”m a doctor, move back, I’m a doctor”…I feel empty, hardly here at all…’ (Ellis, B.E., 1991, pages 299-300) It is one of the more disturbed acts he commits, although his effort in doing so was to push his limits or even if he had any. Murdering the child is Patrick’s ultimate epiphany that he cannot break from his unsubstantial entity because he doesn’t have a choice. “Consumption is, therefore, a powerful element of social control (by the atomization of consuming individuals), but by that very fact it brings with it a need for ever greater bureaucratic constraint on the processes of consumption – which will as a consequence be exalted more and more energetically as the realm of freedom. There is no escaping from this circle.” (Baudrillard, J., 1998, page 84)

There is a difference between these characters personalities and how Patrick relates to them all is different too, yet the reader is led to believe that Patrick doesn’t realize this because he can’t analyse himself. Characters in American Psycho are a representation of his psyche and symbols of societal control, much like advertisements plastered with images of consumerism. “Consumption provides everyone with a sense of control, and some semblance of authority over our lives…the idea of postmodern culture is the domination of information, media and signs, the desegregation of social structures into lifestyles…” (Jayne, M., 2006, page 67) The characters are just archetypes of the underlying themes of American Psycho: mainly the sordid society of purposeful soul-destroying.

American Psycho is Patrick Bateman’s epiphany, he no longer connects to the obsession of commodification he has lived with, and so terror develops. All the sadistic acts: killing a child, mutilating prostitutes, dogs and homeless people, cannibalism and torture are his forms of communication. It is all an attempt for a reason of his existence. The fear he suffers on a daily basis stems from the recognition that he has lost himself in his excessive lifestyle. None of what he does mean anything to him anymore and he surrenders to his soulless society after failing to regain himself. The reader is left in the dark as to whoever Patrick may have been, but it is because Patrick has forgotten that he failed.

Bateman confidently deludes himself on the ever-present knowledge that he has internally yielded, unwillingly, to the pressures of society which he has assisted in creating. This delusion is evident in his nonchalant name-dropping of brands and their value, “…my A. Testoni loafers sit on the floor, thirty-dollar socks from Barney”s balled up in them, sixty-dollar boxer shorts from Commes des Garçons are the only article of clothing I’m still wearing.’ (Ellis, B.E., 1991, page 114) His fantasies cause him to be an unreliable narrator and the reader is left wondering how much of the action which occurs is reality and what is possibly Patricks’ twisted imagination. “…I”m running down Broadway, then up Broadway, then down again screaming like a banshee, my coat open, flying out behind me like some kind of cape.’ (Ellis, B.E., 1991, page 166) He describes himself as some sort of anti-hero of his society and his desire is to attain true freedom which he ironically cannot achieve in the supposedly free world he lives in. Manhattan, Broadway is one of the busiest tourist sights in America and no one notices him or he doesn’t notice anyone. The reader would insist it’s a vision or a dream of Patrick’s. Troublesome acts like this, that make him seem insane, are his way of testing his society’s liberalism which ultimately demonstrates that “…consumerist man is haunted by the fear of “missing’ something, some form of enjoyment or other… it is no longer desire, or even “taste”, or a specific inclination that are at stake, but a generalized curiosity, driven by a vague sense of unease – it is the “fun morality” or the imperative to enjoy oneself, to exploit to the full one’s potential for thrills, pleasure or gratification.’ (Baudrillard, J., 1998, page 80) On Broadway he displays himself as evidence to all of Manhattan, that he is the representation of their “liberal” society. Patrick Bateman, a Manhattan product, has become a symbol of degradation “…as though the external and coloured surface of things – debased and contaminated in advance by their assimilation to glossy advertising images – has been stripped away to reveal the deathly black-and-white substratum of the…negative which subtends them.” (Docherty, T. (ed.), 1993, page 69) Jameson presents the products of society as not only a depiction of the negativity of society, but also the force of its perseverance. The characters of American Psycho are the products of Manhattan which are the integral cogs that are psychologically forced to create their culture of meaninglessness. Patrick’s journey, which is this novel, is a last attempt to be free from his insignificant lifestyle, but reminds himself it is a fruitless effort to do so. “There wasn”t a clear, identifiable emotion within me…I had all the characteristics of a human being-flesh, blood, skin, hair-but my depersonalization was so intense…the normal ability to feel compassion had been eradicated, the victim of a slow, purposeful erasure…imitating reality, a rough resemblance of a human being, with only a dim corner of my mind functioning.’ (Ellis, B.E., 1991, page 282) Calmly, he understands his purpose, and it is a very robotic account of his personality.

He gives in after murdering the child at the zoo and wholly accepts his fate as a programmed Manhattan yuppie of the 80s. The lack of emotion during the scene creates an unrealistic view of Patrick, but this causes the reader to be apprehensive of accepting the actions as truth because Patrick could be venting through a daydream. There’s plenty of evidence which give reason for the reader to speculate Patrick’s sanity and sincerity of his narration. “…I walked away, my hands soaked with blood, uncaught.” (Ellis, B.E., 1991, page 300) Then again, the reader is immediately reminded with images of consumerism that places Patrick’s liberal society, to the point of inanity, into perspective. Because of this, the reader can accept what is written, but Patrick subtly shatters the reader’s trust, “…I find a Burberry scarf and matching coat with a whale embroidered on it (something a little kid might wear) and it”s covered with what looks like dried chocolate syrup crisscrossed over the front, darkening the lapels.’ (Ellis, B.E., 1991, page 30) However, the hint he poses is almost three hundred pages before and it wouldn’t strike the reader later in the book. Patrick is testing not only his civilization, but also the trustworthiness of the reader.

Patrick killing the boy is a means of vicariously experiencing the death of his own innocence, symbolising the pain (of which he doesn’t feel); the act as cathartic reasoning (if Patrick had emotions). Jameson explains that “… of the more fashionable themes in contemporary theory – that the “death’ of the subject itself = the end of the autonomous bourgeois monad or ego or individual – and the accompanying stress, whether as some new moral ideal or a empirical description, on the decentring of that formerly centred subject or psyche.’ (Docherty, T. (ed.), 1993, page 71-72) Thus, Patrick Bateman’s life has either ended or it is only the beginning where American Psycho ends with the words: “THIS IS NOT AN EXIT.” (Ellis, B.E., 1991, page 399)

Gothic literature of the Victorian era was viewed as controversial and ahead of its time. It still produces similar analyses in the modern twentieth century. American Psycho is easily the counterpart to Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray or Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Victorian literature greatly influenced the postmodern movement. A century from now, American Psycho could too have a place in the literary world for influencing future postmodern books.

References

Primary resource:

Ellis, Bret E., 1991, American Psycho, New York: Random House, pages 5-6, 20, 30, 31, 39, 66, 98, 105, 110, 114, 135, 149, 155-156, 166, 265-266, 282, 299-300, 360, 370, 375, 380, 399.

Docherty, T. (ed.), 1993, Postmodernism a Reader, Cambridge: Harvester Wheatsheaf, pages 68, 69, 71-72.

Baudrillard, J., 1998, The Consumer Society Myths & Structures, London: Sage Publications, pages 43, 70, 80, 88, 118-119.

Jayne, M., 2006, Cities and Consumption, New York: Routledge, pages 67, 140-141.

Waugh, P. (ed.), 1992, Postmodernism A Reader, Kent: Edward Arnold, pages 12, 24, 29, 119, 124, 212.

Secondary resource:

Howe, I., 1959, Mass Society and Postmodern Fiction, Partisan Review, volume 26, pages 420-436.

Lyotard, J., 1986, The Postmodern Condition, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pages 71-82.

McHale, B., 1987, Postmodernist Fiction, London & New York: Methuen, pages 112-119.

Jameson, F., Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Verso, London/Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 1991, pages 53-57, 58-71, 80-92.

Giddens, A., 1981, From Modernism and Post-Modernism, New German Critique, volume 22, pages 15-18.