Christopher Lasch (1991) asseverates that the old legendary Narcissus gave birth to a new one, paradoxical, dependent and less confident. Zygmunt Bauman (2009) posits that an extremely capitalist society forces people to be commodified. Finally, we readers cannot rely on his narrative once we notice ambiguities and divergences. Nevertheless, Bateman is a serial killer, and his detailed descriptions of tortures and murders are horrifying. As a self-absorbed, narcissistic protagonist, he becomes a competitor struggling to get approval from his peers. As he lives off the excesses of a consumer society, he is incapable of distinguishing people from products. professionals), Bateman is materialistic and hedonistic.

As a yuppie (a popular term from the 1980s used to define young urban U.S. The four sides he presents throughout the novel are singular, though: (1) he consumes humans and commodities equally (2) he competes for recognition and admiration (3) his acts are horrific and (4) his narration is unreliable.

This antagonistic behavior, nonetheless, does not make him a singular character. I'm sure I missed some snarky commentary of the times or something, but I couldn't concentrate well enough on finding hidden meaning because I was sinking in the quicksand of over description and designer clothes, and restaurant reservations, and whether video tapes were returned or not, 'm done.The autodiegetic protagonist Patrick Bateman, in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho (1991), is a troubling character, for he is highly-educated, wealthy and handsome as well as a torturer, a killer and a cannibal. The sex and murder scenes were interesting, and well thought out, maybe a little too well thought out, and borderline over the top, and I say borderline since that stuff interests me, a novice to field would probably be sick to their stomachs.īut seriously, what the hell did I just read? Picking this book up after putting it down for a time was like going back to sleep after a nightmare and restarting the nightmare where it left off. But full chapters on the narrators thoughts on certain musicians of the time? Read the first, completely skipped the next few. God it was tedious! Names and faces blended together, although I think that was intentional since everyone was mistaken for someone else during the course of the book. What!? Like seriously, what the hell? What is this book?!! I guess there was some underlying satire and hidden meaning that I missed while slogging through descriptions of morning routines and what everyone was wearing.

American psycho book pages