A Character Study Of Patrick Bateman Essay

This constitution study focuses on is Patrick Bateman, the anti-hero protagonist of Ameri toilette Psycho, an often be amiss satire of the velocity furcate American supportstyle by Bret Easton Ellis. The set aside is set in New York in the 1980s, and let the reader give ear through the eyes of the protagonist himself by using first narrative. indeed when reading the novel it feels as if unmatchable is reading a diary, although at that place atomic number 18 no strict time intervals between each chapter. The plot line is very simple. The novel depicts the every daytime life of Patrick Bateman with every minute detail.We be put right into a typical scene of Batemans life straightaway at the start when we see him and his friends at a posh dinner party. Immediately we get the idea that he is very cryptic and lives his life in style. The foods at the dinner party are st array and Bateman couldnt help keep showing off his platinum American Express Card. Like his friends, h e loves to mock unsettled people and those less fortunate than him. One of his favourite tricks is to pretend handing a buck note to a beggar and then taking it away in the last second whilst taking pleasure from the disappointment of his victim.He a similar possesses some good qualities. For example, he is extremely intelligent and shows disgust in discrimination of any kind, provided that those people are on the same level as him. He even ridiculed a colleague for his anti-Semitic comments. thus far these good qualities are actually a fai ade, hiding his true personality. contrary to what appears, he is strongly homophobic, racist, anti-Semitic and unfair to women. This can be demonstrate by his opinion of rap music, describing it as too niggerish. His views on women were they are still there to help men carry on the humane race.Patrick Bateman is also very health conscious. Except for an occasional cigar, he does not smoke and loathes others who do. He also imposes a str ict bouncing foods regime on himself. His regime is somewhat similar to a vegans. He eats nighly fruit and almost never meat, with a fussy emphasis on exotic foods. His favourites include kiwi fruit library paste and Japanese apple-pears, costing him an inordinate amount for each. To complement his dietary regime, Bateman much utilizes his exclusive, private health centre named Xclusive.Furthermore, he uses a wide range of health care products and medicines. These are actually Ellis exaggeration of what happens in solid life, where the social elites desperately try and keep themselves healthy, with any means possible. During the day Bateman can be seen as a normal upper class person, and during the night social occasions are completely different. When asked about what he does during the night, he replies I commence to return some video tapes. This has become the euphemism of his night-time activities. At night, he indulges himself in murdering innocents and raping unfortuna te individuals.Sometimes the shock of doing these things gets to him, and he starts to deal panic attacks. Its during these panic attacks we see really how weak he is. He often confesses his crimes to total strangers. However they always ignore him and pretend its a joke. This, combined with how characters in the daybook often mistakes one person for another, is Ellis way of representing how in the modern world we dont really care about who we are talking to. One thing that cannot be ignored about the novel is how explicit it is.Rapes, murders and grotesque actions are described with nothing left hand out. For example, in one of the scenes Patrick Bateman drinks his protest water and in another scene, he cuts out the eyes of a homeless person. To give you an idea of what the language is like, heres an extract from the book I push the serrated blade into its a dogs stomach and promptly slice open its hairless belly in a child of brown blood, its legs kicking and clawing at me , then blue and red intestines go forth out and I drop the dog onto the sidewalk.He the owner barely stare in horror saying oh my god oh my god as the sharpei drags itself around in a circle, its tail wagging, squealing, and it starts licking and sniffing the pile of its own intestines, spilled out in a mound on the sidewalk, some unflurried connected to its stomach. From this you can see how graphical the book is. Unfortunately this is only a small piece of the whole story and this extract is the most weak in terms of disgust in the book. This simply enforces the idea of how demented and psychotic Patrick Bateman is.The irony of the novel is that Bateman does completely opposite things whilst imperativeness what he does is always right. For example, he often mocks his colleagues for making discriminatory comments, but he is secretly just as discriminatory. While he outlandishly keeps himself fit and healthy, he abuses cocaine and anti-depressants. This is the core of Ellis sati re, where he makes fun of the upper class, which insists on their perfection but actually is ignorant on how delicate they are. Also in the novel Bateman dedicates a single chapter plus some parts of other chapters detailing his material wealth.Also he indefatigably compares his belongings to those of someone else. Indeed in one scene he discovered that another persons business card was of a better quality and design than his and thus started to have intense jealousy for that person. This can be interpreted as Ellis satire directed at the greed of humans and our desperate struggle to have the best of everything. later on he commits his final murder, Bateman does not feel good and high as he described it. Instead, he feels nothing. Not even killing can satisfy him now.It is astounding how he was never suspected of any of the many murders he committed. At the end we discover that he may have imagined all his acts of atrocity. This deliberate ambiguity is the only mercy Ellis has for this truly unworthy character. Despite this, I pity Patrick Bateman, for he tried to find pleasure, like we all do but in other ways, and failing to do so. In the end, he is left hollow with no emotion left whatsoever. Its pitiful how one can become mentally derange on ones quest for personal gain.