MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO

76 Pages·2011·0.59 MB·English

MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
Department of English Language and Literature

Satirical and Transgressive Elements in Bret
Easton Ellis’ American Psycho

Diploma Thesis

Brno 2011

Author: Supervisor:
Bc. Jaroslav Matula Ing. Mgr. Věra Eliášová, Ph.D.
Declaration

Prohlašuji, že jsem závěrečnou diplomovou práci vypracoval samostatně, s
využitím pouze citovaných literárních pramenů, dalších informací a zdrojů v souladu s
Disciplinárním řádem pro studenty Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity a se
zákonem č. 121/2000 Sb., o právu autorském, o právech souvisejících s právem
autorským a o změně některých zákonů (autorský zákon), ve znění pozdějších
předpisů.

I hereby declare that I have written this diploma thesis myself and that all the
sources I have used are listed in the bibliography section.

Jihlava, 6 December 2011

Bc. Jaroslav Matula

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Acknowledgements

My sincere thanks are due to my supervisor, Ing. Mgr. Věra Eliášová, Ph.D.,
for her constructive feedback, challenging ideas and valuable advice.
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Table of Contents

Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 5

1 Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho: an overview of a “very annoying novel” .......... 7
1.1 From “moronic junk” to a “postmodern classic” ............................................ 9
1.2 Pigeonholing American Psycho ..................................................................... 11
1.3 American Psycho as a mélange of genres ..................................................... 14
1.4 American Psycho as a satire .......................................................................... 17
1.5 American Psycho as transgressive fiction ..................................................... 19
1.6 American Psycho as a postmodern novel: a brief summary .......................... 21
2 Patrick Bateman: a postmodern narrator ................................................................... 23
2.1 Patrick Bateman’s narration: defining characteristics ................................... 23
2.1.1 Moving in a circle ............................................................................. 24
2.1.2 Creating ambiguity ............................................................................ 25
2.1.3 Reliability issues ............................................................................... 28
2.1.4 Satirical edge ..................................................................................... 33
2.2 Patrick Bateman’s narration: the impact ....................................................... 35
2.3 Patrick Bateman’s narration: a summary ...................................................... 39
3 Patrick Bateman: “total GQ” ..................................................................................... 40
3.1 Like a fashion magazine come to life: identity in American Psycho ............ 40
3.2 Like in a soap opera: pop culture in American Psycho ................................. 49
3.3 American Psycho: the death of thinking and the reception of the novel ....... 58
4 Patrick Bateman: a stylish killer ................................................................................ 61

Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 70
Works Cited .................................................................................................................. 72

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Introduction

As the title suggests, the prime objective that this diploma thesis tries to attain is
to identify various satirical and transgressive elements contained in Bret Easton Ellis’
American Psycho and subsequently analyse and interpret the role these elements
perform in both the novel’s structure and its storyworld. Since the complexity and
thematic richness of American Psycho preclude dealing with the whole range of topics
found in the text, the focus will be on several carefully selected motifs between which
close connections are to be established so that a single overarching interpretation may
then be suggested.
The explanation for why I have chosen Ellis’ novel as the topic of my thesis is
fairly straightforward. It is a fascinating book in so many respects; not least because of
the ambivalent feelings it may inspire. It sends a relatable message about present-day
society, one possible interpretation of which is presented in this thesis, yet I do not share
the grim view the author appears to take. It is witty, amusing and full of black humour,
yet it has one of the most disgusting depictions of violence I have ever encountered in a
work of literature. It is a page-turner, yet it seems at times as though the author tries on
purpose to bore the reader out of his or her mind. It clearly has literary merit, yet it was
catastrophically misunderstood and dismissed after its publication. All these
characteristics of the novel will be discussed, or at least touched upon, in the following
four chapters.
Chapter 1 is an introductory chapter that provides an overview of the main
features of American Psycho. The first part summarises the controversy surrounding the
novel’s publication, while the second focuses on four perspectives from which Ellis’
work may be looked at.
The next three chapters are all structured similarly – each of them takes one
specific role of the novel’s main protagonist, Patrick Bateman, as a starting point from
which themes and formal aspects relevant to each of these roles are explored.
Throughout these chapters attention is consistently drawn to the satirical and
transgressive nature of Ellis’ text – I will demonstrate that satire and transgressions, in
terms of either content or form, constitute the basic building blocks of American
Psycho.
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Chapter 2 thus concerns itself with Bateman as a narrator and with the features
defining his narration. Topics such as ambiguity and the narrator’s reliability are
discussed in detail, and the consequences of the employment of such a narrator are
analysed.
Chapter 3 centres around the portrayal of Bateman as a fashionista and pop
culture aficionado, which brings into focus the question of pop culture as a source from
which Ellis may have derived inspiration for the novel’s structure as well as for the
method of characterisation. The motifs of unstable identity and distorted perception are
then identified as key components of the narrative.
Chapter 4 concentrates on Bateman as a serial killer and deals with the depiction
of violence in the novel. It is a further expansion of the conclusions made in the
previous two chapters.
My reading of American Psycho put forward in this thesis is an attempt to
provide an interpretation that takes into consideration certain aspects of the novel that
appear to have been neglected in the existing analyses of the text, especially the
significant impact of pop culture upon the novel’s structure and storyworld. Moreover,
it is also an attempt to offer an interpretation that establishes causal links between
several of the novel’s themes with a view to identifying the key idea that may be
considered to be the common denominator behind Bret Easton Ellis’ scathing attacks on
present-day society.

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1 Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho: An Overview of a
“Very Annoying Novel”1

American Psycho, the third of the seven thus far published literary works by
American writer Bret Easton Ellis (born 1964), is a novel that had been written in the
late 1980s and published in 1991. Having drawn a great deal of fierce criticism even
prior to its official release, American Psycho provoked a veritable storm of protest and
led to many a heated debate when it finally appeared following a great furore over the
publication of the book. Although the opinion on the novel among academics and
literary critics has considerably changed ever since and the novel has achieved cult
status among lay readers, American Psycho still remains known primarily for the
notoriety it has gained because of its highly controversial content.2
Set in New York City in the closing years of the 1980s,3 the story tracks the life
of its main protagonist, the archetypal yuppie Patrick Bateman, and in doing so a picture
is painted of a superficial, self-absorbed and self-centred narcissist par excellence.
Bateman spends all his time (as well as substantial sums of money) securing
reservations at the hippest restaurants, keeping his body in shape at the gym and his face
and hair always superbly groomed, constantly making sure that he wears clothes by
those fashion designers that are considered definitely in at that moment in time,
obsessively keeping up to date with the latest developments in technology so as to own
the most state-of-the-art stereo or a new top-notch cordless telephone, slavishly
following pop music artists such as Whitney Houston or Genesis, and never missing a
single episode of his favourite television talk show. In short, the main character is
trapped in a world of fashion trends, advertisements for various products and pop
culture where everything is for sale and meant to be consumed.
There is, however, another aspect of the main character’s description – a rather
troubling one that has sparked all the controversy over the novel: apart from his yuppie,

1 This is how Ellis called his book in response to the widespread criticism that had been levelled at him
after the publication (Cohen).What he obviously meant is that the book annoyed people by revealing
unpleasant truths about our society.
2 All the controversy has undoubtedly helped to make American Psycho the best known of Ellis’ books –
the author has been asked questions about the novel repeatedly in many interviews over the last two
decades (Brien 11); Ellis himself said in an interview: “[P]eople not forgiving me for American Psycho –
that’s going to stay true for a very long time” (Amerika).
3 Specific references to certain songs and pop music albums make it possible to determine the years
during which the story takes place as 1988 and 1989.
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metrosexual self, Patrick Bateman is also a brutal serial killer, whose numerous
murders, tortures and mutilations of his victims are presented in graphic detail.
As a consequence, what the reader faces is Patrick Bateman’s first-person
narrative in the form of a stream of more or less self-contained short chapters, the
content of which switches between several topics: meetings at restaurants, drug-fuelled
nights at trendy clubs, fashion and grooming, new gadgets, music, and murder and
torture. The repetitive pattern in which these topics appear in the novel time and again
reflects the vicious circle of the main character’s superficial and vacuous life.
Confronted with the narrative of American Psycho, it is of paramount
importance that the reader decide from which perspective he or she will be looking at
the text as a whole – with both its portrayals of glamorous lifestyles and its depictions
of horrific and often disgusting violence. Specifically, the reader has to determine how
literally the novel is to be taken. Leaning towards one point of view or the other makes
a big difference in the interpretation of American Psycho – simply put, if the reader
chooses to take the novel literally, then he or she gets a thriller about a young man with
homicidal tendencies whose life is spiralling out of control as the story unfolds; if, on
the other hand, the reader elects to view the novel as a metaphor or an allegory, then he
or she gets a biting satire on consumer society the product of which is Patrick Bateman.
Needless to say, it is vital that one or the other perspective be used consistently, because
the fact that some parts of American Psycho had been taken completely out of context
was the main reason for the uproar the novel caused after its publication (see below).
In the following chapters of this thesis American Psycho will be viewed from the
latter perspective and arguments will be presented in favour of the novel’s satirical
nature as it appears to be evident that the mode in which both the above-mentioned
dimensions of the main protagonist are treated is based on exaggeration and caricature.
If the depiction of the lavish lifestyle is to be taken as a social commentary on consumer
society, then it is only logical to try to discover similar undertones in the portrayal of
excessive violence and extreme cruelty.

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1.1 From “moronic junk” to a “postmodern classic”4

This section will focus briefly on what has been touched upon above – the
controversy surrounding American Psycho and the re-evaluation of its literary merit that
has taken place over the past two decades.
In her article from March 1991, Entertainment Weekly reviewer Maureen
O’Brien provides a contemporary account of the outcry that accompanied the
publication of American Psycho: Several excerpts from the novel containing ghastly
depictions of murder and torture of Patrick Bateman’s women victims had been leaked
from the Simon & Schuster publishing house; then TIME and Spy magazines ran articles
dissecting these violent scenes from the still unpublished book, which resulted in such
an uproar that the publishers promptly announced that the publication of the novel had
been cancelled. Just two days later Ellis’ agent sold the manuscript to a new publishing
house (Vintage) and the book was subsequently printed and published (O’Brien).
However, the damage had already been done and Ellis found himself in the
firing line for his novel. The vast majority of American literary critics launched scathing
attacks against both the book and its author5 – one of the harshest was written by The
New York Times columnist Roger Rosenblatt.6 In a review entitled Snuff This Book! Will
Bret Easton Ellis Get Away with Murder? – the word ‘snuff’ being an obvious reference
to snuff porn – the journalist called the novel “moronic”, “junk” and “obvious rot”
(Rosenblatt) and generally expounded upon “the worthlessness of the book”
(Rosenblatt).
Besides literary critics, Ellis came under attack from feminist activists as well.
Having leapt to conclusions based on several out-of-context passages of the book, some
representatives of the National Organization for Women (NOW) condemned the novel
as a “how-to manual on the torture and dismemberment of women” (Eldridge 20). Some

4 The epithets ‘moronic’ and ‘junk’ appeared in The New York Times review of the book (Rosenblatt),
whereas David Eldridge’s article calls it “a postmodern classic” (19).
5 See Brien for a very useful summary of contemporary reviews – a selection of especially adverse
reactions to the novel and its author can be found in the article.
6 It would also appear that this review has become quite difficult for Ellis himself to rise above – asked
about it in an interview in 2006, Ellis said referring to Rosenblatt: “He was just another idiot who was
putting his two cents in on a book that he obviously completely misread” (Birnbaum).
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diagnosed Ellis as “a confused, sick young man with a deep hatred of women” (Cohen)
and regarded the book as “misogynistic garbage” (Cohen).7
There were, nevertheless, a few people who came to defend American Psycho
and its author. Among them was Fay Weldon – a British writer, and ironically enough, a
feminist. In an article in The Guardian from 1991 Weldon dismisses all accusations that
the novel is misogynistic as she wittily points out that Patrick Bateman also murders a
dog, a child and several beggars. Thus, if the novel is anti-woman, then it is equally
“anti-dog, and anti-beggar, and anti-child” (Weldon).
More importantly, Fay Weldon makes what I assume is a very accurate and valid
point about the true nature of the controversy over American Psycho:

This man Bret Easton Ellis is a very, very good writer. He gets us to a T.
And we can’t stand it. It’s our problem, not his. American Psycho is a
beautifully controlled, careful, important novel which revolves about its
own nasty bits. Brilliant. (Weldon)

In other words, Weldon believes, and quite rightly so, that what makes American
Psycho so difficult to stomach for some critics and readers is Ellis’ brutal honesty about
present-day society – the novel clearly does not try to falsely pretend that our overly
materialistic, pop culture-obsessed, consumer society has any redeeming features. The
accurateness of Weldon’s critical appraisal of the real root of the whole affair may be
corroborated by a contemporary statement issued by a Californian bookseller explaining
their refusal to distribute the novel: “We don’t wish to represent that part of our culture”
(O’Brien). This statement may be interpreted as an admission that the content of
American Psycho reflects a certain segment of our culture (the pronoun our being the
operative word), but due to its unpleasantness it is preferable to bury our heads in the
sand.
Defenders of the novel at the time of its publication had been few, though (Brien
8), before a turning point in the opinion on the book came almost ten years later with
the release of a film adaptation directed by Mary Harron in 2000. Analysing the impact
of the film version of American Psycho on the perception of the novel, David Eldridge

7 Quite amusingly, Ellis responded to these ludicrous allegations by saying: “There seems to be a notion
that when you are writing about someone killing and torturing people, especially women, you have to do
it in a very earnest and politically correct way” (Cohen).
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