Psychopathy In American Psycho

Psychopathy; the trait that truly distinguishes humans from ¨machines¨, emotionful to emotionless. Within the novel American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, one may logically assume that the protagonist, Patrick Bateman is indeed implied to be a psycho as the title suggests. However upon further analyzation, Bateman is revealed to be an unreliable narrator, he does not captivate the reader with all of his emotions verbally, for they are revealed through his actions. Bateman certainly does murder people, however, clinically murder doesn´t rule somebody to be a psychopath. Bateman feels no visible remorse for the victims he kills, because Bateman lives in an artificial hyperbole of a yuppie world where no love is shown, all relationships superficial.

Bateman seems like a complete psychopath until he posits ¨I´m weeping for myself, unable to find solace in this crying out sobbing I just want to be loved” (345) where some emotion and possible catharsis for his actions is discovered. When Patrick decides to kill Luis Carruthers, his co-worker who is mocked by his peers for his tacky taste, he is confronted by Luis in a way that is laced with comedy. ¨ I tense the muscles in my arms, preparing myself for a struggle...instead he looks down at my wrist and...kisses my left wrist¨[158-159]. It makes no sense how Bateman can kill multiple people for the sake of envy over a business card or dinner reservation, yet he cannot bring himself to kill Luis Carruthers because it is revealed that Carruthers has a crush on Bateman. Patrick also inexplicably never kills Jean, his secretary, who again, is revealed to have a crush on Bateman. Bateman seemingly carelessly kills just to see if it will invoke any attention, which it doesn’t, up until the shootout scene. Bateman murders his ex-girlfriend, Bethany and also claims that ¨[he] used to write her poems, long dark ones, quite often when [they] were at Harvard¨. Bateman then finds out that Bethany is going out with the head-chief of Dorsia, a restaurant that he could never obtain reservations at, Robert Hall, explaining his envy. Bateman never talks of writing his fiance, Evelyn any poems, or

Bateman has no interest in the music he listens to, and even goes on page long monologues discussing the discography of Whitney Houston or Genesis, all of which sound as if they were taken straight from a review out of a New York Times article. Bateman constantly talks of how he loves the popular commercial music, how he obtains reservations at luxurious restaurants, how he has hundreds of Armani suits, and ironically enough delivers a liberal speech stressing how equal rights for women and minorities should be implemented into society, a quite funny contradiction. Bateman masks himself as a typical yuppie in a successful attempt to fit into society, though it is redundant. Bateman does not even need to fabricate his taste, he blatantly talks of “dissecting girls” “Stabbing you (a woman) to death then playing around with [her] blood” and needing to commit many other murderous