What drives Patrick Bateman to kill (or to fantasize about killing)? What does he get out of it? In the last 30-50 pages of the novel, most or all of the explicit violence ends. How do these pages help to explain the reasons for Bateman’s violent acts (or fantasies)?
12 thoughts on “American Psycho 2”
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I agree with Meg…the reader is left trying to figure out whether Bateman actually killed those people or if it’s “all in his head.” Although it’s been a while since I’ve watched the movie, I remember wondering the same thing. I think it could go either (but not limited to, and perhaps more nuanced) way: 1) that he actually kills those people, but is protected by his privilege (rich, attractive white male) and/or his peers are too self-absorbed in their shallow, materialistic lives to even notice Bateman’s wrongdoings OR 2) that these killings are imagined as an attempt to “escape” and fill the void in his empty life.
One passage that stood out to me was (not sure what page, as I’ve been reading the novel electronically) was this conversation he had with Daisy over dinner:
“I’m into, oh, murders and executions mostly. It depends.” I shrug.
“Do you like it?” she asks, unfazed.
“Um… It depends. Why?” I take a bite of sorbet.
“Well, most guys I know who work in mergers and acquisitions don’t really like it,” she
says.
“That’s not what I said,” I say, adding a forced smile, finishing my J&B. “Oh, forget it.”
This dialogue can be interpreted in many ways: either Daisy actually recognizes when Bateman says “murders and executions,” but it flies over her head as she seems to believe it was a mistake/doesn’t look at him Bateman/thinks he is joking/is too self-absorbed. I think it is also important to remember that they are not sober in this scene….
or rather this ambiguity emphasizes his emptiness bloody sheets
adrenaliine rush 349 forced smile 206
detective/..laundromat
(this could be wrong
(the random gibberish below are semi-notes, sorry..didn’t mean to post that)
I agree with all of the posts above and the connection they draw between Bateman’s motivation to kill and his search for masculinity and significance. The killing that I was most shocked by was his killing of the McCaffrey boy in the zoo. Bateman is at first satisfied with his actions, but shortly thereafter he is overwhelmed with despair, reflecting on how futile it is to take a child’s life because a child “has no real history, no worthwhile past, nothing is really lost” (288). In comparison, killing someone with a large network of friends, family, and colleagues would have a more profound and pervasive effect on many more lives. Bateman’s killing of McCaffrey, and his reaction to it, was unlike what we see with many of his other killings – not only was his victim a child, but he doesn’t mutilate or torture the body, and he commits his killing in a public place where his victim receives immediate attention. Furthermore, Bateman’s feelings of despair following the act are revealing about his motivations. As others have pointed out, in a world of monotony, killing allows him to assert some sort of power over others. He derives significance from exerting control over the history of his victims and by disrupting the lives of those connected to his victims.
As Jack briefly mentioned earlier, I was constantly taken by Bateman’s obsession with materialistic goods. Working in the industry he does, money is everything. Wall Street obviously thrives on money and wealth. But money can’t fill every void in one’s life. As the old adage goes, “more money, more problems.” You can’t buy things like happiness and love. Bateman clearly has this void in his life that he needs to fill, he’s just not sure how to do it so he acts out in irrational ways. The money is never enough, he needs something more. He has so much money he gets no thrill, no excitement out of it, so instead he chooses to achieve this adrenalin rush by graphically murdering people.
I accidentally submitted and I’m not sure how to edit, but continuing on with what I was saying…
In summary, it is hard not to argue that Bateman is simply a metaphor for modern consumer culture. Though he repeatedly admits to being a psychopath, no one believes him. Since he is quite literally the picture of the modern American dream (educated, rich white, etc.) no body wants to associate this craziness with his image. His metaphor goes to show just how crazy and misconstrued the image of the modern “American Dream” is.
I agree with Janka—it seems as though Patrick Bateman kills (or fantasizes about killing) women simply because he needs an excuse to be different and an excuse to continue existing: with nothing to define him, Patrick feels himself blending into the crowd, and the very last thing he wants to feel is that he is insignificant. There are several places in the novel where he comments on this; he is often depressed by what he perceives as others’ insignificance. And then towards the end of the novel, on page 362, he admits that he is an empty shell of a person with no real substance. He says, “There is an idea of Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me…maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I am simply not there.” I actually think that Patrick never killed anyone, and that the violence in the novel is the result of all the drugs he’s taking, combined with his obsessive desire to be someone real, even if “real” means being a killer.
I think Chloe has an interesting read in that it is possible that Bateman never kills anyone — I’m wondering if the movie might leave even more room for this interpretation, but I haven’t watched it for Thursday yet. I fall pretty firmly in the camp that Bateman does actually commit the murders because otherwise I think a lot of the satire of the book might be lost. I think this may be left purposefully ambiguous in the book, however. It’s not necessarily whether his violent actions are real or not that strikes us as readers — it’s the possibility that they totally 100% could be and we’d have no way of knowing. The book felt less about “did he do it or did he merely fantasize it?” and more about Bateman has a metaphor/critique of 80s NYC yuppie culture. Any single one of our fellow seniors heading off to Wall Street could be Patrick Bateman and you wouldn’t know! What does it say about our society if we are so self-absorbed and materialistic that we can’t notice the Patrick Batemans walking in our midst/in ourselves? What is it about living in a capitalist, patriarchal society that creates Patrick Batemans? And why is it that under capitalism so many of the Patrick Batemans are able to get away with it? $$ I like both Janka and Chloe’s thought that Bateman perhaps kills to feel “real” or substantive. I think this urge is definitely tied to his masculinity. Bateman has all the classic markers of a privileged masculinity — wealth, looks, etc. — but he still feels unhappy/empty. He is an amalgamation of other people’s tastes in an effort to appear cool. His response is to carry out the ultimate expression of masculine power in violence.
I agree with most of what has been said above. I agree with Meghan that Bateman actually commits the murders, but I can see how Chloe arrived at her conclusion. Based on the above points, would you say that Bateman stops killing at the end of the novel because he is able to come to terms with his insignificance? As you say above, he is often turned off by the idea of insignificance and is constantly trying to prove he is not. However, there are times when he is drawn to insignificance. I’m reminded specifically of the moment (maybe a hundred pages into the novel) after he first arrives at the dry cleaner and encounters the woman from his building. On his way out, he spots the Columbia student and is originally drawn to her because she is homeless and insignificant. (In response to the last question, the moment where he drops the dollar in her coffee was a moment I laughed.) This contrasts with what happens just before he leaves the dry cleaner, when he seems not interested the rich woman from his apartment building who is clearly more interested in him. In this moment, he is more excited by the “insignificant” person than the “significant” person. The way he responds seems totally instinctive and as a response to the world around him. Is his departure from violence a sign that he has given up this want to feel significant/has he come to terms with it?
Something I found interesting about American Psycho and these past posts was that because of the extreme detail into the violence and the (sometimes) unbelievable scenarios in which it happens, as I reader my focus shifted to whether or not it was real or in Bateman’s imagination – rather than why he would be led to these actions/fantasies. However, regardless of if these killings were ‘real’ I agree with Meghan that his motivations are certainly tied up with his masculinity. Rather than his personal identity and masculinity, I think Bateman is a result of a capitalist society imbued with masculinity. Bateman’s world relies on profits, and the Wall Street culture he embodies is tied to hyper-competitiveness, image and ultimately the degradation of others. As mentioned, I think that Bateman kills to both set himself apart and to feel a sense of accomplishment, as demonstrated by his desperation for Cranes to know that he was telling the truth (387).
Something else I found interesting was that towards the end of the novel Bateman is reading “Why it Works to Be a Jerk” (383). In another context the reader might find this in particularly bad-taste. However, in light of the mass-killing of the novel, as well as the general behavior of the Wall Street-ers, this side-note seems completely irrelevant as the reader has become completely desensitized and expects this kind of behavior. This got me thinking that another reason that Bateman decides to kill could be that Wall Street pushes the ethical boundaries in so many ways that can completely desensitize a man.
I struggle with the same debate over whether or not Patrick actually kills anyone – but I would argue that it doesn’t really matter. I think it is more important that Patrick believes he is a killer – regardless of whether or not he actually commits the murders. Either way, the novel’s scathing critique of American society still shines through. If the author had stated explicitly one way or the other, I think it would remove some of the meaning that the reader is able to gather from the text. If he actually commits all of these murders, then the fact that he gets away with it proves how corrupt and self-absorbed society is if they allow him to get away with actions so blatantly horrible (throughout the novel he even outwardly makes comments about his brutal murders in casual conversation). If he doesn’t commit them, one can explore the idea that society is so mundane and filled with pressures to fit shallow ideals that Batemen is forced into a fantasy. I would agree with the others that Batemen kills to feel “real” – whether this reality is actually reality or if it is just the reality of his mind doesn’t take away from that. In fact, I think it is better to have the option as a reader to interpret either way.
I agree with the previous posts. I feel that the repeated descriptions of people’s clothing, the food at restaurants in New York, and Bateman’s other materialistic observations served to disorient me throughout the novel. It was often difficult to distinguish what was actually occurring and who people truly were, and what was a misunderstanding or a fantasy of Bateman’s. I think this disorientation is at the core of Bateman’s identity and his desire to kill. As people have written, he is looking for something to ground him in reality. He wants to feel real and to be known. When he kills the homeless man after the party, he visits McDonald’s in his bloody suit because he believes that’s a venue that the man would actually go to. Feeling the high of killing, he attempts to live briefly in the man’s shoes. But even this period of feeling is too fleeting and insignificant for him, and he quickly grows bored. Whether it is public notoriety or something intrinsic, Bateman wants his existence to feel grounded in something, but he is repeatedly unable to achieve it.
Throughout the entire novel, there is a monotony of listing brands, where people went to school, and the different types of restaurants and clubs that people get into. This makes everyone’s worlds seem to blend together, especially those that work on Wall Street. The impersonality gets to the point where even Bateman’s name is constantly wrong and other people’s identifications are never correct. Therefore, this leads me to think that Bateman’s desire to kill is because it makes him feel something that not everyone else typically feels and that makes him stand out in such a monotonous world. The average Wall Street worker does not typically fantasize about killing other people and that sets Bateman apart. He cannot get reservations at Dorsia’s and his business card is not even top notch compared to his other friends. Therefore, if he cannot set himself apart within the social structure of the “yuppie” world then doing something that no one else does will cause him to stand out and be unique.