Academic literature on the topic 'American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis'

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico<br>Patrick Bateman, o protagonista narrador do romance American Psycho (1991), de Bret Easton Ellis, confunde por ser rico, bonito e educado e, ao mesmo tempo, torturador, assassino e canibal. Mas esta personalidade antagônica não o torna singular. O que o particulariza são as quatro faces que ele apresenta ao longo de sua narrativa: (1) ele consome mercadorias e humanos, (2) compete para ter reconhecimento, (3) provoca horror por suas ações, e (4) não é um narrador confiável. Sendo um yuppie (termo popular usado nos Estados Unidos na década de 1980 para denominar jovens e bem sucedidos profissionais urbanos), Bateman é materialista e hedonista. Ele está imerso em uma sociedade de consumo, fato que o impossibilita de perceber diferenças entre produtos e pessoas. Sendo um narcisista, ele se torna um competidor em busca de admiração. No entanto, Bateman também é um serial killer e suas descrições detalhadas de torturas e assassinatos horrorizam. Por fim, nós leitores duvidamos de sua narrativa ao notarmos inconsistências e ambiguidades. Zygmunt Bauman (2009) afirma que uma sociedade extremamente capitalista transforma tudo que nela existe em algo consumível. Christopher Lasch (1991) afirma que o lendário Narciso deu lugar a um novo, controverso, dependente e menos confiante. A maioria das vítimas de Bateman são membros de grupos socialmente marginalizados, como mendigos, homossexuais, imigrantes e prostitutas, o que o torna uma identidade predatória, segundo Arjun Appadurai (2006). A voz autodiegética e a narrativa incongruente do protagonista, contudo, impedem que confiemos em suas palavras. Estas são as quatro faces que pretendo apresentar deste serial killer<br>The autodiegetic protagonist Patrick Bateman, in Bret Easton Elliss American Psycho (1991), is a troubling character, for he is highly-educated, wealthy and handsome as well as a torturer, a killer and a cannibal. This antagonistic behavior, nonetheless, does not make him a singular character. The four sides he presents throughout the novel are singular, though: (1) he consumes humans and commodities equally; (2) he competes for recognition and admiration; (3) his acts are horrific; and (4) his narration is unreliable. As a yuppie (a popular term from the 1980s used to define young urban U.S. professionals), Bateman is materialistic and hedonistic. As he lives off the excesses of a consumer society, he is incapable of distinguishing people from products. As a self-absorbed, narcissistic protagonist, he becomes a competitor struggling to get approval from his peers. Nevertheless, Bateman is a serial killer, and his detailed descriptions of tortures and murders are horrifying. Finally, we readers cannot rely on his narrative once we notice ambiguities and divergences. Zygmunt Bauman (2009) posits that an extremely capitalist society forces people to be commodified. Christopher Lasch (1991) asseverates that the old legendary Narcissus gave birth to a new one, paradoxical, dependent and less confident. Most of Batemans victims are socially-marginalized characters, members of minority groups, such as homeless people, homosexuals, immigrants, and prostitutes. As a matter of fact, Bateman may be regarded as having a predatory identity, as defined by Arjun Appadurai (2006). However, this autodiegetic narrator, together with his inconsistent narrative, cannot be entirely trusted. These are the points I want to debate regarding this fourfold serial killer

The novel American Psycho was first published in 1991. It recieved harsh criticism and was viewed as a work of heterosexism, misogyny and pointless violence. Despite the criticism, the protagonist, a wealthy serial killer yuppie namned Patrick Bateman, fascinated the readers. He hides his monstrosity behind a façade of heteronormativity, but this essay shows that the norms in American Psycho are fragile. Batemans relationships are shallow, his identity is constructed out of traditional masculinitynorms and even though he’s homophobic there’s a homoerotic undertone in the text, as well as gothic patterns that give the novel a fair amount of queerness too. This analysis shows that the fear of AIDS, imprinted in the text, works as a representation for Bateman’s discrepancy concerning his sexuality. It brings to light that Bateman’s feelings towards two of his collegues are charachterized by homoerotic yearnings, and that shallow readings, where the text is not interpreted, allows the brutal violence to divert attention from the novel’s queer meaning.<br>Romanen American Psycho publicerades 1991. Den fick hård kritik och sågs som ett heterosexistiskt, misogynt verk fullt av meningslöst våld. Trots kritiken fascinerade protagonisten, den förmögna seriemördaryuppien Patrick Bateman, läsarna. Bateman döljer sin monstrositet bakom en heteronormativ fasad men den här uppsatsen visar att textens heteronorm är bräcklig. Batemans relationer är ytliga, identiteten är konstruerad från traditionella maskulinitetsnormer, han är homofobisk, även då gotiska, homoerotiska undertoner präglar texten. Analysen visar att AIDS-skräcken som präglar boken är synonym med Batemans sexualitetsdiskrepans, att hans känslor för två av hans kollegor är av homoerotisk karaktär, samt att i ytliga läsningar av romanen, där texten inte tolkas, gör det explicita våldet att läsarens uppmärksamhet avleds från romanens queera innebörd.

Notions of love and sex are rewritten by every era but this essay concerns itself with the period of 1980s and 90s neoliberalism, as seen through the texts that make up the early oeuvre of Bret Easton Ellis, namely 'Less Than Zero', 'The Rules of Attraction', 'The Informers', 'American Psycho' and their film adaptations. I began my research by examining various notions of love, from Plato all the way to the 90s pop culture classic 'Clueless' (dir. Amy Heckerling, 1995), and eventually narrowed my focus to three distinct and opposing theories, which I will describe as romantic love, love as use of erotic capital and sex as liberation, which I found in Alain Badiou's 'In Praise of Love', Catherine Hakim's 'Honey Money' and Wilhelm Reich's 'The Sexual Revolution'. These frameworks were chosen in accordance with my decision to examine love under the specific conditions of neoliberalism, following the study of such theorists as the already mentioned Slavoj Žižek, as well as David Harvey, Renata Salecl and others. It is from this juncture that I began to write a novel that explores love and sex through a layered approach, where meaning is accumulated through structural and stylistic choices as well as plot and character development. It soon became apparent that a writer who examines love in the throes of disintegration as a result of the assault of neoliberalism and whose emphatic use of style to critique this system I drew on most closely was Bret Easton Ellis.