When Bret Easton Ellis published his third novel, American Psycho, he was extremely criticized for the graphic content of the book. It was violent, obscene and gory. It was later banned in some places, attacked by the liberal journals and he received various death threats. As a young and smart writer he decided not to speak out about the real reasons why he wrote the novel. He was not even able to read it again until the summer of 2001. After some time, his book that was commonly misread was eventually understood and acknowledged by the public. When the adaptation of the movie, which was directed by a woman, came out it helped to clarify the meaning of the book, showing that this novel was more than just another superficial bestseller, and was in fact a satire of society. In an interview for The Guardian he explained the following: “I think audiences read my books and feel that there are messages from the home front or whatever, when in reality they´re reflections of how I was feeling during the years I wrote the books” (McInnes).
Easton Ellis wrote American Psycho when he was 26 (the same age as Patrick Bateman, the protagonist) and was living in New York as a successful young writer.
In his novel he makes a critique to the shallow and materialist society that he had to face as a member of the X generation. With his detailed descriptions and his clear language he is able to capture through Patrick Bateman´s point of view the way in which human beings can become so self absorbed to the point were they are not able to notice a killer living among them. At the same time this novel illustrates the way in which a person can lose all of its humanity due to the environment they live in until they cannot distinguish between right and ...
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Works Cited
"American Psycho: 15 Years Later." American Psycho: 15 Years Later. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
American Psycho. Dir. Mary Harron. Perf. Christian Bale. Lions Gate Film, 2000. Film.
"Biography for Patrck Bateman." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
"Bret on Bateman." YouTube. YouTube, 24 June 2010. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
Conner, Shawn. "AMERICAN PSYCHO – 20 YEARS LATER." The Snipe News. The Snipe, 6 Feb. 2011. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
Ellis, Bret Easton. American Psycho: A Novel. New York: Vintage, 1991. Print.
MacInnes, Paul, Andy Gallagher, and Alice Salfield. "'I Really Wasn't That Concerned about Morality in My Fiction'" Theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media, 19 July 2010. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
"Quotes from American Psycho - American Psycho." American Psycho. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
"Yuppie." Urban Dictionary. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
Rebello, Stephen. Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. New York: Red Dembner Enterprises Corporation, 1990.
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John Moss, Sexuality and Violence in the Canadian Novel. p. 103 Robertson Davies. The Fifth Business. p. 217.
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