Patrick Bateman In American Psycho

I am going to analyse the character of Patrick Bateman originally from Brett Easton Ellis’ novel ‘American Psycho’, I will mostly refer to the motion picture adaption of this novel as they are very close, however I will also refer directly to the novel itself. I will be examining this character through psychoanalytical theory.

On an original viewing of the motion picture you are sucked into the colourful world of a very wealthy and successful man engaged in the finance sector. Through the course of the story we can see more and more the great disturbance of the novels main character Patrick Bateman. He gets increasingly agitated by the success of others around him, so much so that he goes as far as to brutally murder a boasting colleague. This obviously isn’t a normal reaction to jealously and as the story continues we can get a greater sense of the lengths he will go to be the most successful out of his peers. We can also see that the character can’t be satisfied sexually as in one scene he engages in sexual activity with two escorts and after its cessed he cannot be satisfied until he causes them some physical harm, presumably against their will. He tries to cover his tracks very carefully in the beginning and throughout the course of the story he gets careless and this results in a large scale man hunt for the killer, which Bateman manages to escape. Throughout his murderous rampage we can clearly see that through Freud’s interpretation of the human mind set, Bateman displays a minimalist ego and superego and possess a very lenient ‘id’ that ultimately allows him to carry out all of his inner fantasies. Towards the end of the film we get the impression that all of these instances might not have taken place in reality and may o...

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...needs to express his anger and displays an abnormal reaction for the situation. This also gives the id instant satisfaction even though it may not have happened in reality. Either way that this scene may be interpreted both would agree that the id is given a large amount of freedom and isn’t strictly governed by the superego or ego.

We get a view into the rigorous early morning routine of Bateman, he exercises every morning and is quite proud of his physical appearance. He goes to great lengths to stay looking young and putting on a good appearance, he is very particular about each product he uses from its branding, its content and its effectiveness. He is very precise in the order he applies them and is obsessed with his daily morning routine. While he is removing his facial mask we get a soliloquy from Bateman, he states “There is no real me only an entity”, “I