Section 4

American Psycho

Bret Easton Ellis

Pages 300-399

Plot Summary/Characters

• This section starts with Patrick bringing 2 more prostitutes, Tiffany and Torri, to his apartment and torturing them to death.
• One chapter consists of a phone conversation between Patrick, McDermott, and a guy named Hamlin as they try to make dinner plans. It goes on for a while, and they end up not even going.
• Patrick brings an unnamed girl that he met at a party over and tortures her to death.
• Patrick goes to dinner with Evelyn where he breaks up with her.
• Patrick has killed another girl and he dismembers her body, eats part of it, and then tries to cook it. While doing this, he breaks down and begins crying, then says "I just want to be loved."
• While walking through the city, Patrick shoots a man playing a saxophone. He doesn't realize that a cop car is right behind him. Patrick is chased through the city. He kills several people, including a cap driver, a cop, and several men who work in a building he hides in. He hides in an office and calls his lawyer, Harold Carnes. Carnes doesn't answer so Patrick leaves him a message and confesses everything.
• Patrick talks for an entire chapter about Huey Lewis and the News.
• Patrick describes several events without going into great detail. These include going to Courtney's, visiting his mother in the hospital, and having dinner with a girl named Jeannette that he has been seeing.
• Patrick goes to Paul's apartment, where he killed Christie and Elizabeth. No bodies were found, but the apartment is for sale. The real estate agent tells Patrick that Paul does not own the apartment, and asks him to leave.
• Patrick goes on a date with Jean. She confesses her love for him, saying how sweet, kind, and mysterious he is. During this, Patrick describes a land he is imagining (a never-ending desert landscape), and describes an epiphany he has had.
• Before going to Aspen for vacation, Patrick drops Jeannette off at her apartment. He has convinced her to have an abortion.
• At a party a few months later, Patrick sees Harold Carnes. Carnes says his phone call was hilarious, thinking it was a joke. Carnes says that it couldn't have been true because Patrick Bateman is too much of a goody-goody (he thinks Patrick is someone else), and he just had lunch with Paul Owen ten days ago.
• A cab driver recognizes Patrick as the man who killed Solly, who is apparently the cab driver that Patrick killed. He doesn't report Patrick but takes all of his money and valuables.
• The final scene has Patrick at dinner with his coworkers.

Personal Reaction

The book gets confusing. I figured it would happen this way, because of the movie, but it ends up being left open to interpretation as to whether or not Patrick actually killed anyone. At first it seems like he is simply delusional, since Paul's apartment is being sold and no bodies were reported. But then he meets the cab driver who recognizes Patrick as a murderer. And he confesses his crimes to his lawyer, but he dismisses it as a joke.

Personally, I think Patrick really did commit the crimes. That makes everything easier to explain. As for the apartment, well the whole book has cases of mistaken identity. Maybe Patrick showed up at the wrong apartment. The cab driver seems to offer proof that Patrick really did do these things. Mistaken identity also easily excuses the lawyer situation. When the lawyer says that he just had lunch with Paul Owen, it isn't hard to believe that he had lunch with someone that he thought was Paul Owen. That happens a lot in the book- Paul believed for the entire book that Patrick was someone else, a guy named Marcus Halberstam.

One thing worth mentioning is that during the police chase scene, Patrick begins referring to himself in the third person. It only happens for a few paragraphs, from when Patrick steals a cab to when he calls the lawyer. I'm not sure why the author chose to do this.

Additional Thoughts

What ideas or happenings in this novel relate to your life?

Honestly, there really aren't any. Except for maybe mistaking someone for someone else. I think everyone has done that though.

Which character is most like you? Why?

I would say Jean. Obviously that sounds odd since she's a woman, but her personality and actions are more like mine. She's the only person in the book that isn't constantly getting high, drinking, or killing people. She genuinely cares about people, and I'm like that with my friends. She also is hard working and diligent, and I think for the most part I'm like that, atleast with school.

What major events helped to resolve the plot?

There isn't really a resolution. We don't find out if Patrick is crazy in that he kills people, or crazy in that he imagined it all. He doesn't stop killing people, since he describes several murders right up until the end of the book.

But major events towards the end are Patrick killing the saxophone player. If it weren't open to interpretation, that would have certainly helped to resolve the plot. In that case, it would have led to Patrick almost being caught, then confessing, and then probably being arrested.

What message did you get from this novel? How was it conveyed?

I think the message was that everything is not how it seems. In the book, people are mistaken for others constantly. And people that seem one way are actually completely different. Patrick seems normal, but he isn't. Jean seems sort of timid and obedient, until she confesses her love for Patrick and becomes more forceful. And the biggest example is the whole story- you spend the entire book thinking that everything you are reading is happening, but it may not be.

Why would or would you not recommend this book to others?

If you are easily offended or grossed out, this is not the book for you. There is constant profanity. And the murder scenes are hard to read. I don't usually find movies or books to be that gross, but these were especially sick. If you don't want to read about torture with nailguns, Mace, body dismembering, etc., this is not the book for you.

But it was very well written and has an interesting story and I would recommend it for that. But it definitely is not for everyone.

Section 3

American Psycho

Bret Easton Ellis

Pages 199-300

Plot Summary/Characters

• Patrick has a model named Daisy over to his apartment. After a while, he asks her to leave because he thinks that he might hurt her. No reason is given for why he doesn't kill her.
• Patrick goes to dinner with Paul Owen. Paul gets drunk, and then Patrick invites him over to his apartment. When Paul has his back turned, Patrick sneaks up and axes him repeatedly. Then he goes to Paul's apartment, packs a suitcase, and creates a voicemail message saying that Paul is out of the country.
• Patrick's brother, Sean, comes for a visit and they go out to dinner for his birthday. Patrick is jealous that Sean was able to get reservations for Dorsia, a popular restaurant.
• Next, Patrick goes on a lunch date with an ex-girlfriend, Bethany. He becomes very jealous when she tells him that her boyfriend owns Dorsia. He invites her to his apartment, and she reluctantly accepts. There, Patrick attacks her and tortures her by nailing her hands to a board with a nailgun and repeatedly spraying Mace in her face. He then rapes her as she dies. She finally dies when Patrick saws off her arm and beats her in the face with it.
• An entire chapter is spent talking about Whitney Houston, who Patrick likes.
• Patrick invites his secretary Jean to go to dinner. She has a great time since she has a huge crush on Patrick.
• Evelyn and Patrick go to the Hamptons for the summer. They spend their time playing tennis, riding bikes, etc. Patrick says that he genuinely tried to make things work with her during this time, but he also talks about how he feels something emotionally that he just can't describe.
• Christie, the prostitute, comes over again. This time, Patrick convinces her and Elizabeth, an old friend, to have sex. Then he attacks them, stabbing Elizabeth with a butcher knife and torturing Christie with matches before finally killing her.
• Luis Carruthers approaches Patrick in a store. He repeatedly confesses his love for Patrick, and Patrick repeatedly tells him to leave. Patrick threatens to kill Luis, but that doesn't stop him. Patrick eventually leaves the store.
• Patrick goes for a walk and ends up in the zoo. Just for the heck of it, he stabs a little boy in the neck with a knife, killing him. He then says that he didn't like it, and that he prefers to kill adults because they have more opportunities and it will hurt more people if they die.
• Patrick also meets Donald Kimball, a private investigator who was hired to investigate Paul Owen's disappearance. Donald doesn't suspect a thing.

Personal Reaction

This is the first book that has actually made me feel sick reading it. The murder of Bethany was completely disgusting. With movies, I usually only feel bad for the characters when they are well-developed and then get killed. But Bethany was a very minor character and not even particularly likable. But her murder was so graphic and so descriptive that I was really uncomfortable reading it.

The murders of Elizabeth and Christie were also gross, though not as bad as Bethany's. This sounds odd, but I was disappointed that Christie's death scene from the movie was not kept in the book. In the movie, Patrick tries to eat Elizabeth alive and Christie escapes from the apartment. Patrick runs after her, naked by the way, with a chainsaw and kills her by dropping the chainsaw over a balcony when she runs beneath it. It was the most memorable scene for me and was actually really scary.

The murder of Paul Owen was also nasty. Patrick describes how his brain begins to run out of his skull after being struck with the axe. I really could have done without reading that. I wasn't expecting that death to be so graphic in the book because in the movie it isn't and is mostly offscreen. Actually, I think all of the deaths in the movie are offscreen. I can understand why, though. These deaths are way too explicit to be shown in a movie.

And the murder of the little boy was so sad. I don't like kids dying in books or movies, so it was really effective. And what made it worse was that Patrick didn't even care.

Other than the deaths, this wasn't an especially interesting section. The only other memorable scene was when, after killing Paul, Patrick is talking to a couple he knows in a store. The couple has a baby, and Patrick begins telling the baby all about his murders. He tells her this talking in "baby-talk." That was a really odd and disturbing scene.

Oh, and I want to talk about Jean, Patrick's secretary. For some reason I really like her as a character. She seems like such a sweet person, and is the only person even remotely like that in the book. I think it also has to do with her in the movie. The actress who played her was very good, and made a very likable character even though she wasn't in it much.

Additional Thoughts

Patrick Bateman

Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho (2000)

Appearance:

Patrick is attractive. He has flawless skin according to Helga, a masseuse. He is also very muscular from working out for hours each day. He is apparently so muscular that when he flexes his arm his shirt sleeve will rip slightly. Other than that he never describes himself physically.

Actions:

Patrick works out for hours on end each day. He is constantly going to new and fancy restaurants with his friends. He enjoys drinking, especially J&B on the rocks. He also does cocaine on a regular basis.

As for his more sinister actions, Patrick is very violent and enjoys dragging out his victims' deaths. He also goes to the video store often to rent horror movies because he enjoys scenes where women are killed or tortured.

Ideas/Thoughts:

Patrick gets jealous easily, and feels resentment towards those that he is jealous of. He is highly materialistic as well. At one point, he decides to purchase a tanning bed for his apartment (despite admitting that he doesn't have room for it) just because he learned that a colleague had his own tanning bed. He will describe in great detail what someone is wearing and judges the person based on that.

He often interjects murderous thoughts into his regular thoughts, and doesn't think twice about it.

He also tends to be very random. When he is disinterested in a conversation, his mind will begin to wander. He can go from what the person is talking about, to something he read in a magazine, to a murderous thought, to The Patty Winters Show (which he watches everyday), to practically any other possibility.

Patrick also often thinks about himself. He repeatedly says that despite physically being a person, he was no emotional qualities to make him human. Despite claiming to have no emotions, he still feels jealousy, rage, and confusion.

Reactions to Other Characters:

Patrick feels resentment towards most characters. He doesn't like Evelyn, even though they are engaged. He seems to like Courtney more, although this could be because he claims that she has a perfect body.

He is jealous of Paul Owen because Paul is handling the Fisher account at work. This is probably why he kills Paul.

Patrick despises Luis Carruthers. In fact, Patrick is very homophobic and mentions this quite often. He is also very racist. He also hates the homeless, and tempts them with money which he then keeps, or calls them rude names.

The only character he isn't completely hateful to is Jean, although he is still rude to her.

Why he is important:

Well, he's the main character. He is the American Psycho. I'm not sure what else to say about this, except for without him there would be no story. The other characters would just lead normal lives and none of them would be in danger.

Why I like or dislike him:

This is a complicated one. On one hand, you can't like him. He is rude, hateful, homophobic, racist, and crazy. He has no emotions other than rage and jealousy. Normally it would be insane to like someone that tortures people to death for no reason.

But Bret Easton Ellis has created a psychopath that isn't completely unlikable. Well, it isn't that he's likable, but you just can't hate him. He is so rude and mean that it's almost funny. A lot of his personality is funny, like he can't meet someone without describing what they're wearing. Or how he is obsessed with The Patty Winters Show. I don't know if this is a real show or not, but it sounds like a talk show along the lines of Oprah. It just doesn't seem like a show he would watch, but he watches it every day and even tapes the episodes so he can watch them later.

So on one hand I can't like him because of what he does, but other elements of his personality are pretty funny.

Section 2

American Psycho
Bret Easton Ellis
Pages 105-199

Plot Summary/Characters

• Jean, Patrick's secretary is introduced. She is a very good secretary, but everytime Patrick mentions her, he refers to her as "Jean, my secretary who's in love with me."
• Patrick continues to go out with McDermott, Price, and Van Patten. McDermott is angry with him because Patrick criticised the pizza at Pastel's, a restaurant.
• At the video store, Patrick rents the film Body Double for the 37th time because he likes the scene where a woman is drilled to death.
• Patrick goes to dinner with Evelyn, who is upset because her neighbor was murdered. Patrick reveals to the reader that he decapitated the woman with a chainsaw, but he doesn't say why. While on this date, Evelyn discusses marriage but Patrick doesn't want to marry her.
• Patrick commits his first murder that isn't part of a flashback or a memory. He stabs a homeless man in the eyes and stomach with a knife, then stomps his dog to death.
• For one chapter, all Patrick does is discuss the band Genesis.
• When he goes to a U2 concert, Patrick apparently has a hallucination of Bono sending him a psychic message, saying they are similar.
• One chapter consists of Patrick wandering around the city, with no memory of where he is or what's going on. It is never revealed what happened, but I assume he was high.
• Patrick attempts to kill Luis Carruthers, Courtney's boyfriend, in a restaurant. He doesn't because Luis tries to come on to him.
• Patrick kills another man and his dog. This time he stabs the dog to death, then stabs and shoots the man.
• Two prostitutes, Christie and Sabrina, come to Patrick's apartment. After they have sex, Patrick brings out a coat hanger and butter knife. The two girls leave bruised and bloody, but it is never revealed exactly what he did to them.
• On the way to Evelyn's Christmas party, Patrick kills a young Chinese food deliveryman. At the party, he talks to Paul Owen for the first time in the novel. They make plans to have drinks together.
• Patrick convinces Evelyn to leave, and they steal Paul's limo and go to a club. Patrick gets cocaine, but then he and Evelyn get in a fight. She leaves, but he stays to hit on girls.

Personal Reaction

The book has definitely gotten more interesting. Much more happens in this section compared to the first, and I liked reading more about his daily life than reading repeatedly about his dinners with coworkers. McDermott, Price, and Van Patten were featured less in this section. I think that was a good thing, since they all have more or less the same personalities and didn't do anything for the plot.

Evelyn becomes a more prominent character in this section. She seemed to be in a better mood, despite her neighbor being decapitated. I realized that she does like Patrick, and it's him that doesn't really care about their relationship.

The murders described in this section were pretty graphic and nasty, particularly the murder of the homeless man. Patrick describes stabbing him in the eye with a knife, and it made me hurt reading it. Very effective.

Additional Thoughts

The style of the book is very straightforward and easy to understand. The only time it ever gets wordy is when Patrick goes into detail about what people are wearing. Other than that, it's an easy read. I don't think it compares to anything we have read in class. As I Lay Dying was harder to understand, since so little of it was explicitly stated. I guess American Psycho would be more similar to Things Fall Apart. I thought that book was easier to understand, other than the names.

I think the theme of the book is things aren't always as they seem. Patrick appears perfectly normal, and no one seems to suspect that he is crazy. But also, Patrick and his coworkers are always mistaking people for other people, since they all look alike. Patrick's descriptions of the guys he works with all seem the same: suits, slicked back hair, etc. Paul Owen repeatedly refers to Patrick as Marcus Halberstam, and has no idea he is wrong. So Patrick's personality is not what it seems, but the people themselves are not who others think they are.

Jean is one of the new characters. She seems to be the only genuine person, and is sweet to Patrick no matter what. I would say her purpose is to have someone the reader can relate to, since most of the readers are not ridiculously wealthy, snobby, druggies, or psychotic.

Paul Owen, who was mentioned in the first film, has conversations with Patrick. He causes Patrick to show his jealous side, since Paul gets to handle the Fisher account that Patrick wanted.

The only other new characters that are worth mentioning as Sabrina and Christie, the two prostitutes. They don't have much of a purpose yet, but in the movie Patrick murdered them. While it is not guaranteed, I think they will end up dead soon.

Section 1

American Psycho
Bret Easton Ellis
Pages 3-105

Plot Summary/Characters

• Patrick Bateman, the narrator, is 26 years old, works on Wall Street, and is ridiculously rich. He is obsessed with fashion and goes on for pages about what himself and people around him are wearing. He is also a psychotic murderer, although no one knows this.
• Most of this section is about him going out with his three friends/coworkers Tim Price, David Van Patten, and Craig McDermott.
• They spend their time going to fancy restaurants, talking about fashion, using cocaine, and going to clubs such as Tunnel. At one point Patrick is given what he thinks is cocaine, but it's actually just Sweet n Low. Their dinners are almost all the same: arguing with each other, checking out the "hardbody" waitresses (as Patrick calls them), drinking, and then going to a club afterwards.
• Evelyn is Patrick's fiance, although he continuously goes out with other women. Courtney Lawrence is his other woman. He goes on one date with her to a restaurant with a couple she knows.
• Not much happens, other than when Patrick is out with friends. Other situations that occur include Patrick meeting Tom Cruise in his apartment building, and Patrick arguing with the dry cleaners that can't get blood out of his clothes and sheets.

Personal Reaction

I really like this book. There isn't much of a plot as of now, but I know it's coming. It's kept me hooked, and hearing Patrick ramble on about fashion or how much he hates the people he's around is really entertaining.

There hasn't been any violence yet, except for a few things Patrick mentions that he would like to do to various people. For instance, when a bartender tells him that it is a cash-only bar, he casually mentions that he wants to stab her repeatedly and play with her blood. She doesn't hear him though, since the music in the club is so loud. Paul Owen, another coworker of Patrick's, has been mentioned several times and if the book is like the movie he will end up being axed to death in Patrick's apartment.

The book is written as stream-of-consciousness. It is told from Patrick point of view, and he goes on rants quite a bit. For pages at a time, he describes his clothes, his exercise routines, etc. Very meticulous. Also, when someone is talking to him and he isn't interested, he will ramble on about his own thoughts, which range from him wanting to stab the person to wanting a tanning bed for his apartment.

One thing worth mentioning is how explicit this book is. The few times he mentions violence are very graphic. There have also been some sex scenes, and I won't go into detail but it's very descriptive and very explicit.

Hopefully the book stays interesting. It's an easy read, too, which is always good. But I have a feeling as it goes on it will get more confusing, because that's how the movie was.

Additional Thoughts

I chose this book because I saw and loved the movie. I always like to read the books for the movies I see, or vice versa.

Patrick Bateman is telling the story. I do not trust him, because having seen the movie and just from things he has said, I know he can snap at any point and brutally murder just about anyone. I can't say he's unlikeable though, as he does have several funny moments and his arrogancy is so over the top, it's entertaining. The best way to describe him is as an anti-hero.

The setting is New York. He doesn't go into detail about the city itself, but the places he goes to are very nice. His apartment is nice, and he has the best of everything: paintings, furniture, TVs. Restaurants, such as Dorsia, are frequented and are very nice and VERY expensive. I think the least expensive bill was still over $300. The city itself sounds less appealing however, as it sounds like it's full of drug addicts and homeless people. The book takes place at the end of the 1980s.

The main character so far is Patrick Bateman. His problems include homicidal tendencies and jealousy (in one scene he becomes enraged because his friends have nice business cards).

As for the other characters, I really don't know much about them. Courtney, Patrick's other woman, is drugged out most of the time. Evelyn, his fiance, is only in a couple of scenes and it appears they don't even get along. Price, McDermott, and Van Patten (Patrick always refers to them by last name) are in more scenes but aren't developed enough.

I predict, based on the movie, that Paul Owen is going to get axed to death. I also suspect that it will be left up to interpretation as to whether or not the murders, or anything that happens for that matter, really happened or if Patrick is even crazier than we think and just imagined it all.

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