American Psycho Essay Questions

Do the murders depicted in the novel actually occur?

Ellis provides several indications that Patrick is an unreliable narrator who is imagining his violent exploits. Patrick admits during the "Lunch with Bethany" chapter that he is "actually dreaming all this." Patrick begins to refer to himself in the third person toward the end of the book, and narrates events as if he is a character in a movie, suggesting that he is imagining or "directing" his own fantasy. Characters fail to behave in realistic ways when Patrick seems to admit to his murders, such as Armstrong and Daisy. Patrick learns from Harold Carnes that Paul Owen is still alive, despite the fact that Patrick vividly remembers murdering him with an axe. All these details suggest that Patrick is immersed in a waking dream that reflects his inner fantasies and desires.

Why do the novel's characters seem to tolerate Patrick's criminal behavior?

Bret Easton Ellis sought to satirize the amoral, self-obsessed world of late-1980s Wall Street, and one way he does this is by showing how the people around Patrick share and seek to emulate his sociopathic and avaricious nature. The women and gay men around Patrick seem willing to forgive his loathsome personality due to his good looks and exorbitant wealth. Evelyn seems so superficially focused on marrying a wealthy, handsome man like Patrick at all costs that she is heartbroken when they break up, despite the fact that Patrick mistreats her. Ellis conveys how the privilege afforded to wealthy white men induces a kind of Stockholm syndrome in those around them, who cannot resist their appeal.

Why does Ellis include chapters that focus exclusively on Patrick's taste in music?

As the title of the book suggests, American Psycho is about a unique pathological mindset produced by mainstream American politics and culture. Rather than listen to outsider artists or underground music of the 1980s, Patrick is instead enamored with Top 40 radio hits by artists like Whitney Houston and Phil Collins. In this way, Patrick comes to represent the collective, consumerist tastes of everyday Americans, at the same time that he harbors ultra-violent fantasies that revolve around the exploitation and destruction of women, LGBTQ communities, people of color, and the poor. In this way, Ellis subversively suggests that Patrick's aberrant personality is ironically also an exceedingly common and ordinary product of American mass culture.

Why is American Psycho considered a postmodern novel?

American Psycho can be considered an example of literary postmodernism due to the way it discards the idea of reliable knowledge, and emphasizes the power of simulated fantasy. Patrick is a deeply unreliable narrator who constantly seems to lapse into dreamlike hallucinations, reinforced by his love of cinema and pornography. He also omits key details that might allow the reader to piece together the events of the novel in a definitive way. Although Ellis suggests by the novel's end that Patrick has imagined at least some of the murders he has committed, the reader finally has no authoritative way to discern what events transpired in Patrick's mind and what transpired in reality. Patrick's life thus begins to resemble a series of images that he might watch on a VHS cassette tape—nothing more than an illusory fantasy.

Why are the last lines of the book "THIS IS NOT AN EXIT"?

Despite his exorbitant wealth and elite status in society, Ellis portrays Patrick as a character who does not feel comfortable behaving outside of the norm imposed upon him by the conformist expectations of his job and social circle. Patrick seems blind to his many privileges, measuring himself only in terms of his own inadequacy, such as his inferior business card or his inability to reserve a table at Dorsia. Patrick imagines disappearing into the cracks he hallucinates in the walls around him, but is unable to do so. Thus, the "THIS IS NOT AN EXIT" sign represents Patrick's inability to escape the stultifying circumstances of his life, which have desensitized him and hollowed out his ability to feel anything other than rage and self-loathing.