Propriety and Pre-Meditated Murder: The Evolution of Violence in the American Novel of
Manners
Beth Gier
March 31, 2014
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Abstract
What happens when codes of manners exert too much pressure on an individual? What happens
when that individual can no longer stand the pressure of conformity? The answer is violence. For
the past two years, I have been enthralled by researching escalating displays of violence in the
American novel of manners—a genre that is an inherently violent form. I analyze four novels of
manners that depict an evolution of violence in the literary form: Daisy Miller (1878), The
Talented Mr. Ripley (1955), Revolutionary Road (1961), and American Psycho (1991). I argue,
using Freud’s concepts of civilization, that all of the violence in these novels is the explosive
result due to suppression at the hands of the rigid and restrictive upper-class. From the subtle
violence of Daisy Miller’s inadvertent death pr April Wheeler’s suicide in Revolutionary Road to
the explicit, pre-meditated and gruesome murders committed by Tom Ripley and the American
psycho himself, Patrick Bateman, the characters are reacting to the pressures of conformity. I
examine the post-war era that began the shift towards more explicit violence, while I conclude
with the idea that we are currently in the next shift in literary form of the novel of manners.
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It’s Hip to be a Homicidal Maniac
Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, is in many ways the culmination of the evolution of
violence in the American novel of manners…Ellis creates a text notorious for its bloodiness,
gruesome depictions of violence, and its extreme satire of consumerism. American Psycho is set
in the late 1980s amongst the wealthiest and amoral men of Wall Street. In the center of all of the
wealth and high finance, is Patrick Bateman, the poster boy for the 1980s yuppie. Bateman is
handsome with a great body, impeccable fashion taste, and a healthy trust fund and lucrative job;
he is also a homicidal maniac. Although he seems to have everything, Bateman goes on a murder
spree involving nail guns and large rats…American Psycho diverges from the traditional realism
that Edith Wharton and Richard Yates use. Ellis opts for a “hyperrealistic” approach that
inundates the reader with overly detailed mundane experiences, and then uses extremely graphic
depictions of violence to call into question the psychology and manners of the upper class…
In American Psycho, people are so concerned with extreme wealth and possessions that at
points they do not even refer to themselves as people, but as signifiers of wealth. Timothy Price,
a Wall Street man practically identical to Bateman, claims that “society cannot afford to lose me.
I’m an asset” (Ellis 3).1 Price’s declaration of his status as a permanent and important figure of
society—as a paragon of wealth and desirability—is tested throughout the novel and becomes
the greatest source of anxiety and violence for Bateman, who can also be seen as an “asset.”
Daniel Cojocaru explains why Price’s position as a human asset does not guarantee a permanent
place in society, but results in a constant struggle to remain relevant. As Price becomes known
1
Price’s eerie resemblance to Bateman serves several purposes in the novel. On one hand, his similar appearance,
job, and interests illustrate the need for men in the upper class to follow the same codes of manners, dress, and
lifestyle. On the other hand, a popular theory about the novel claims that Price is Bateman’s alter-ego, disappearing
and resurfacing at certain important moments. This paper does not examine the idea that Price and Bateman are
literally one and the same person, but the necessity for Bateman and Price to imitate their coworkers will be
discussed shortly.
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as a “commodity, society can discard him and…does so…So yuppies like Price are under the
constant threat of losing their privileged position in society” (Cojocaru 186-7).2 Society views
these men as easily disposable, items to simply be replaced when they go out of fashion. To
remain a fixture in the upper-class, Bateman and the other men of Wall Street must fight to
remain one of the privileged few, not in terms of money, but in terms of relevance and appeal.
The struggle these Wall Street hotshots experience occurs solely between members of the social
elite who are trying to find ways to avoid being discarded. Bateman’s desperate attempt to
remain a part of the social elite manifest itself through the complete suppression (and even
elimination) of his true personality through imitation, his entrenchment in a dangerous fantasy,
and culminates the evolution of manners when they become a part of the act of violence.
One of the most noticeable ways that Bateman asserts his relevance and power within the
upper class throughout the novel is his total dependence on buying brand names, eating at the
trendiest restaurants, and perfecting his appearance to not only match the other men of the upper
class, but to embarrass them with his superiority. Cojocaru explains:
His desire to fit in is so strong that he imitates the very ideal of the
‘Everyyuppie.’…Bateman becomes an expert in dressing in style, securing
reservations at new and expensive restaurants, and staying in great physical
shape—in short, he becomes an expert in adapting to the Baudrillardian
hyperreality world of pure signification. His striving is mirrored in the narrative
itself, which is largely a collage of restaurant and music-album reviews…
exasperating descriptions of in-vogue brand products, and detailed accounts of his
murders. (187)
2
In an interesting parallel between Daisy Miller and American Pyscho, Pahl writes that Daisy turns herself into a
“desirable commodity” through flirting in his article “’Going Down' with Henry James's Uptown Girl: Genteel
Anxiety and the Promiscuous World Of Daisy Miller."
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As Cojocaru points out, Bateman goes to great lengths to become the ideal representation of the
upper class world in which he lives, and Bateman’s preoccupation with brand names can often
become overwhelming and “exasperating.” A chapter in American Psycho titled “Morning”
begins with a paragraph that goes uninterrupted for four pages with the only topic of this megaparagraph being Bateman’s morning routine. The chapter contains almost nothing but a lot of
brand names of the products Bateman uses to beautify himself (e.g., his Kent bristle brush) and
his morning workout regimen...A chapter of non-stop lists of the finest items that Bateman’s
ungodly amount of money can buy is not enough to illustrate his willingness to adhere to the
ideal upper-class yuppie figure. In fact, Bateman’s preoccupation with “things” and brand names
becomes so overwhelming that a reader viscerally senses the stifling monotony of luxury.
But the reader does not even get a pause from consumerism in Bateman’s descriptions of
his murders because brand names begin to infiltrate the violence itself. At one point, Bateman
has lunch with his ex-girlfriend from Harvard, Bethany. Bethany causes several issues to
resurface for Bateman, including her decision to leave him for a man named Robert Hall. But the
biggest mistake that Bethany seems to make is incorrectly identifying the designer of Bateman’s
suit. After their meeting, Bateman tortures Bethany with a nail gun and Mace, and he cuts her
tongue out. Bateman decides to rectify Bethany’s mistakes while she is in her final death throes.
He yells, “‘And another thing…It’s not Garrick Anderson either. The suit is by Armani! Giorgio
Armani.’ I pause spitefully and, leaning into her, sneer, ‘And you thought it was Henry Stuart.
Jesus.’ I slap her hard across the face and hiss the words ‘Dumb bitch’…” (Ellis 247). Ellis uses
this scene to convey the dark humor that pervades the novel (the fact that a case of mistaken suit
identity upsets Bateman the most is meant to be comical), but it is crucial to note the infiltration
of consumerism into his acts of violence. His final words to his victim are name brands and
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insults for confusing those name brands. Patrick is so determined to define his upper-class status
by the clothes he wears that he is willing to be violent in order to correct any misconceptions
about his character. In this way, Bateman elevates Frank Wheeler’s intense desire to appear
masculine and presentable with a violent intensity. Bateman uses his appearance as a determinant
of his worth as a man, and he attempts to look and perform the act of the refined, cultured yet allAmerican, mannered stock broker of the 1980s, and he is willing to kill to preserve that image.
Bateman’s “striving” to remain a paragon of the social elite is not simply “mirrored” in
Ellis’ narrative decisions to compose the novel almost entirely of merchandise and restaurant
names, but it is literally mirrored in Bateman’s preoccupation with his appearance. Bateman
turns Frank Wheeler’s constant staring at a mirror into an unhealthy, paranoid obsession with
conformity. From the very beginning of the novel, Bateman’s appearance and self-monitoring
through his reflection become a constant presence. When Bateman goes to a sushi party within
the first 25 pages of the novel, he introduces himself and offers his “hand, noticing my reflection
in the mirror hung on the wall—and smiling at how good I look” (Ellis 11). Immediately, Ellis
establishes the importance of appearance and the sense pride that Bateman achieves from
looking his best. Much like the way that brand names remain a fixture throughout the novel and
become a part of the violence, Bateman’s obsession with his reflection eventually pervades the
violence. Once Bateman is done murdering Bethany, things almost return to normal as he goes
about his daily routine of pampering. Bateman explains that “earlier, there was so much of
Bethany’s blood pooled on the floor that I could make out my reflection in it while I reached for
one of my cordless phones, and I watched myself make a haircut appointment at Gio’s” (Ellis
252). Bateman’s preoccupation with his appearance extends into the grotesque aftermath of his
vicious killings. He sees himself, not just in a pool of his victim’s blood, but more importantly in
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a pool of Bethany’s blood, the woman who dared to think that he would wear a Garrick
Anderson suit. By not only killing Bethany for her critical error in fashion judgment, but also
using her blood as a mirror, Bateman’s intense desire to maintain relevance in the upper class
becomes a part of his violent solution to remain a part of the social elite.
One might wonder what the psychological reasoning behind why Bateman goes to such
extreme lengths to keep up appearances. Cojocaru makes the compelling argument that Bateman
desperately wants to fit in because of the constant threat to his status as a part of the upper class.
Reading American Psycho through a Freudian lens takes Bateman’s compulsion to conform a
step further. 3 As in several of the other texts already discussed, Bateman attempts to avoid
unhappiness and human suffering not by submerging himself in art or drink, but by following
“another and better path: that of becoming a member of the human community” (Freud 45). 4
This Freudian sentiment should sound familiar by now since it has made its way into several
sections of this paper already, but the reasoning behind using this passage from Freud still
stands.5 Just as Frank and Tom attempt to become members of the upper-class community by
conforming to its standards of propriety, Bateman morphs himself into the “everyyuppie” ideal
to remain a relevant part of the social elite. Though Bateman is not jumping over socioeconomic
barriers into a different class division, he still tries to avoid the suffering that results from being
an outcast by furiously grooming himself (even when his mirror is a puddle of blood) and
viciously protecting his reputation by murdering a girl. Bethany—before she makes the critical
error of not recognizing a Giorgio Armani suit—even asks Bateman, who reveals that his job and
pursuit of perfection stresses him out, why he does not just quit his job. Bateman offers a rather
3
I completely agree with Cojocaru’s argument, and my argument extends his to include a Freudian perspective.
Though Bateman does copious amounts of cocaine and makes a point to have his J&B on the rocks.
5
Again, it is important to note that becoming a part of the human community is not necessarily a noble or
sympathetic action, especially when it involves violence to oneself or other people—perhaps the most crucial
argument this paper makes.
4
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pained response and chokes out, “’Because,’ I say, staring directly at her,
‘I…want…to…fit…in’” (Ellis 237). One should note that by employing ellipses, Ellis
purposefully creates a sense of hesitation in Bateman’s dialogue, to convey a difficult reckoning
with the idea that practically all of his decisions are informed by his manic obsession to fit in.
The laborious nature of Bateman’s answer mirrors the painstaking lengths he is willing to go to
maintain appearances. After a night of cocaine binges and champagne, Bateman battles with a
hangover and the worrisome thought of what the excessiveness may have done to his
appearance. However, he avoids any of the normal pitfalls that a person not so concerned about
their appearance might experience. Bateman, though still troubled by the idea of looking less
than perfect, realizes that he might not be too bad off because he has “been drinking close to
twenty liters of Evian water a day and going to the tanning salon regularly and one night of
binging hasn’t affected my skin’s smoothness or color tone. My complexion is still excellent.
Three drops of Visine clear the eyes. An ice pack tightens the skin. All it comes down to is: I feel
like shit but look great” (Ellis 106). No matter how he feels—in this case, Bateman feels like
“shit”—Bateman must always look great. His performance of the perfect yuppie forces him to
drink obscene amounts of water and devote hours to tanning and home remedies. The second that
Bateman lets his guard down, shows any sign of vulnerability in his perfect façade, he faces
elimination for the upper echelon, and there is no way that he can ever let that happen.
However, Bateman’s total devotion to his performance as the ideal yuppie means that he
must sacrifice other important things: his sanity and humanity. While he is entrenched in his
maniacal shopping and killing sprees Bateman slowly loses his grip on his sanity, descending
deeper and deeper in his commitment to outward appearances. After a particularly intense
period of violence and consumerism, Bateman relays that his:
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Platinum American Express card had gone through so much abuse that it snapped
in half, self-destructed…Life remained a blank canvas, a cliché, a soap opera. I
felt lethal, on the verge of frenzy. My nightly bloodlust overflowed into my days
and I had to leave the city. My mask of sanity was a victim of impending
slippage. (Ellis 278-9)
His furious bouts of consumerism and murder send him into a frenetic spiral where he destroys
his credit card and seriously compromises his sanity, his thirst for murder and brand names
forcing him to leave the city before he ruins the image he so carefully constructs. But Bateman is
able to compose himself, at least temporarily. However, even though he masks his clearly
disintegrating sanity again, this does not change the fact that his grip on reality is in question or
the just as critical fact that Patrick Bateman is only an illusion. Bateman himself admits that
“there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an
entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and
feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I
simply am not there” (Ellis 376-7). Everything has a price, as Bateman should be familiar with,
and he becomes the ideal yuppie at the cost of his own personality. Bateman is a vacuous human
being who sacrifices his individuality and personality for the performance of perfection. He can
fool the people he interacts with because his physical presence in nice suits is all they care
about—the upper-class cares about only the physical presence as characterized by outward
appearances, not anything more “abstract” or personal. As he admits:
There wasn’t a clear, identifiable emotion within me, except for greed and
possibly, total disgust. I had all the characteristics of a human being—flesh,
blood, skin, hair—but my depersonalization was so intense, had gone so deep,
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that the normal ability to feel compassion had been eradicated, the victim of a
slow, purposeful erasure. I was simply imitating reality, a rough resemblance of a
human being, with only a dim corner of my mind functioning. (Ellis 282)
Just as Timothy Price refers to himself as an asset, something inhuman, Bateman does not—
cannot—acknowledge his own humanity. Bateman does not even refer to himself as a complete
human anymore, but has compartmentalized himself into parts of a human. And perhaps
Bateman is right to disassociate himself from humanity since his conscience and the very
emotions that distinguish humanity have been “eradicated, the victim of a slow, purposeful
erasure.” In his journey to perfection, Bateman does not just suppress his own emotions, but he
completely eliminates them. He even admits to his own devotion to imitation, and Bateman
brings up the possibility that his imitation of the yuppie ideal is as close to reality as Bateman
gets.
As Bateman’s sanity grows more suspect throughout the novel, it becomes a distinct
possibility that Bateman, though he imitates reality so scrupulously, is actually living in a fantasy
of his own creation. Not only can the construction of Bateman’s fantasy world be seen in the way
that he describes his murders as though they are straight from a horror movie or the way his
sexual exploits read like pornography, but it can be seen in his very own perception of himself as
the “everyyuppie.” Bateman, under the pressure of embodying the Wall Street ideal, resorts to
creating a fantasy where he is always the supreme yuppie to avoid the unhappiness of not being
able to reach perfection. Freud offers a way to interpret Bateman’s construction of a fantasy as a
way to circumvent unhappiness and the potential consequences of this construction when he
writes:
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One can try to re-create the world, to build up in its stead another world in which
its most unbearable features are eliminated and replaced by others that are in
conformity with one’s own wishes. But whoever, in desperate defiance, sets out
upon this path to happiness will as a rule attain nothing. Reality is too strong for
him. He becomes a madman, who for the most part finds no one to help in
carrying through his delusion” (50-1).
It is crucial to note in Freud’s assertion that one who attempts to achieve happiness through
means of an erasure of reality will “as a rule attain nothing.” Although Bateman obtains lots of
physical objects in his pursuit for happiness, he begins to embody nothing when he becomes the
“victim of a slow, purposeful erasure” (Ellis 282). When Bateman annihilates his personality and
ability to be compassionate, he becomes the opposite of what he aspires to be: a member of the
human community. Bateman becomes an asset, comprised of brand names, rather than feelings
or a conscious, excluding him from ever gaining total acceptance into human society—though he
does look the part. He attains none of the pleasure in his status as an elite human being because
he has lost all capacity to feel like a human being. Bateman’s plan to build a world in which he
owns a reputation for being the most relevant or appealing yuppie backfires because, as a rule, he
will never be able to achieve the kind of complete inclusion he desires.
Yet Bateman’s divorce from reality pushes him further and further into his fantasy world
as he continuously attempts to preserve the world he has created. There is much speculation
about whether the events in American Psycho actually take place, or if they are just figments of
Bateman’s imagination. Bateman, either creates a fantasy like Tom or actually acts out a fantasy
in which he is a murderer who destroys people who represent a threat to his superiority in the
upper-class (or if he cannot murder his opposition, will take out his aggression on someone else).
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Just as Tom finds that stealing Dickie’s identity has its roadblocks in people like Freddie Miles,
Bateman constantly faces opposition from his Wall Street colleagues and girlfriends, who either
do not listen to a word he says or become the victims of Bateman’s crimes themselves. Bateman
lashes out at his friend Craig McDermott when he and his buddies compare business cards at
dinenrs, and Bateman realizes his card is lackluster compared to the rest. When McDermott
pesters a crestfallen Bateman to order a pizza, Bateman is “still tranced out on Montgomery’s
card—the classy coloring, the thickness, the lettering, the print—and I suddenly raise a fist as if
to strike out at Craig and scream, my voice booming, ‘No one wants the fucking red snapper
pizza!’” (Ellis 46). Though Bateman does not react with physical violence against opposition to
his superiority quite yet, he does react in an explosive manner when his superiority is threatened
by the men who have fancier business cards. He is literally screaming about pizza, suddenly
snapping at a mundane moment that surely does not warrant the kind of ferocity with which
Bateman responds—a ferocity characteristic of a “madman.”
Bateman’s response to any doubt about his perfection that arises escalates from an
outburst about pizza to what else but a grotesque murder. Freud asserts that men are “creatures
whose instinctual endowment is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness,” and “as a
rule this cruel aggressiveness waits for some provocation or puts itself at the service of some
other purpose, whose goal might also have been reached by milder measures” (94; 95). Both of
Freud’s claims can be seen at work in American Psycho. Wall Street itself is famous for
aggressive stock brokers and hedge fund managers, where the aggressive risk-takers are
rewarded. But Bateman’s aggression is not just a symbol of his status on Wall Street; he also
uses his aggression as a way to meet an end, for example, when his superiority is challenged.
Bateman uses his instinctual aggression to protect his fantasy of perfection, resorting to great
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lengths such as murder to do so. The biggest threat to Bateman’s fantasized superiority is Paul
Owen, another Wall Street yuppie who is Bateman’s arch-nemesis. Bateman competes with
Owen on everything from clothing to apartment decor to the coveted Fisher account. During a
business meeting, Bateman stares at Owen “admiring the way he’s styled and slicked back his
hair, with a part so even and sharp it…devastates me” (Ellis 111). Owen’s hair at the business
meeting is just one of many perceived transgressions against Bateman’s chokehold over
perfection. The attacks on Bateman’s idealism build and build, until Bateman feels he has no
choice but to murder Owen with an axe. Cojocaru explains that Bateman feels “his vulnerability
is ridiculed by society, so he tries even harder to conform to the yuppie-ideal, by taking it to its
logical conclusion—eliminating his rivals” (190). Just as Tom must murder Freddie Miles to
protect his fantasy and newfound status, Bateman must kill Paul Owen to maintain his current
status and protect himself from humiliation. While Bateman could have found a way to surpass
Owen in his quest for total relevance that does not involve murder, Owen provokes Bateman’s
natural aggression by threatening his status, and Bateman permanently eliminates Owen as
competition.
However, Bateman does not simply murder to eliminate his rivals, although he certainly
does do that. Bateman also murders to act out the aggression that the upper class as a stratum of
society holds against the individual, and as he carries out the aggression of the upper class, the
manners he adheres to become a part of the violence. Much like the way Bateman’s obsession
with his appearance becomes a reason to kill and a part of the violence when he murders Bethany
for mistaking the designer of his suit and then watching himself make an appointment for a
haircut in her blood, Bateman’s rigid adherence to propriety makes its way into the violence.
When Bateman murders his rival Paul Owen with an ax, he notes that pulling the ax out of
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Owen’s face “is followed by a rude farting noise caused by a section of his brain, which due to
pressure forces itself out, pink and glistening, through the wounds in his face” (Ellis 217). Even
while Bateman tries end the status war that he conducts against Owen by murdering him,
Bateman cannot help but comment on the rudeness of the noises Owen’s mutilated face makes.
In a bout of irony and dark humor, Bateman disregards the fact that he murders a man in cold
blood, but he does comment on the rudeness of Owen’s postmortem behavior. The manners and
ways that the upper-class are expected to act seep into the act of murder as as Owen’s brain seeps
through the wounds in his face.
Upholding upper-class manners become so ingrained within Bateman that they become a
reason to kill. Freud writes that there exists “a caste or a stratum of the population or a racial
group—which, in its turn, behaves like a violent individual towards other, and perhaps more
numerous collections of people” (Freud 72). In the case of all of the novels that have been
analyzed in this paper including American Psycho, the violent caste of society is the upper-class.
While the other characters examined in the paper are often the victims of the violence of the
upper-class, Bateman is one of members of this stratum that exacts violence on individuals
outside of the upper echelon. Bateman makes a practice of counting the homeless people and
prostitutes he sees on the streets, showing just how much they outnumber the members of the
upper-class, and the violence he commits, when not against one his upper-class rivals, is against
a prostitute or bum. Much like how the Old World upper-class came together to behave as a
violent individual against the coquettish Daisy Miller, so Bateman enacts violence against, not
only the people he assumes to be threats to himself, but against people he views as threats to the
upper-class as a whole. At one point, Bateman brings home a prostitute named Christie to
murder. As he goes about his preparation to murder Christie, “she lies on the futon, tied to the
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legs of the bed, bound up with rope, her arms above her head, ripped pages from last month’s
Vanity Fair stuffed into her mouth” (Ellis 290). Not only does Bateman decide to murder
Christie because she is a lowly prostitute, he ultimately tries to teach her some manners in the
process. He shoves pages from Vanity Fair, a well-know magazine that targets the wealthy into
her mouth right before he kills her. But Ellis does not just choose to use Vanity Fair simply
because it is a famous magazine, but because it also shares its name with one of the most famous
novels of manners, William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Where April Wheeler’s “niceness” and
politeness only preface her death, Bateman’s devotion and adherence to manners lead up to and
exacerbate the violence itself.
Most importantly, Bateman murders people to release the pent up emotion and
aggression, which comes from restricting himself to his imitation of upper class propriety.
Although Bateman eventually succumbs to the “purposeful erasure” of his personality due to his
imitation, his murders function as a last grasp at individuality—a way to release the feelings he
stifles. During a dinner with his primary girlfriend, Evelyn, Bateman attempts to break-up with
her, finally admitting that they are incompatible because his “need to engage in…homicidal
behavior on a massive scale cannot be, um, corrected,’ I tell her, measuring each word carefully.
‘But I…have no other way to express my blocked…needs.’ I’m surprised at how emotional this
admission makes me, and it wears me down; I feel-light headed” (Ellis 338). Bateman calculates
his speech, trying to suppress his admission to committing violence even while he is speaking it.
Yet Bateman’s admission provides both a reason for his gruesome deeds and a release itself.
Bateman realizes that the aggression his “blocked needs” build within him eventually explode
into murder because violence is the only outlet extreme enough and cathartic enough to release
the pent-up emotions he suppresses. Even verbally owning his violent nature acts as an outlet for
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his suppression because he connects himself to an emotionally exhausting event that acts as a
release for Bateman. His homicidal urges represent a cycle of suppression and re-surfacing of
suppressed emotions. Bateman describes how he feels “aimless, things look cloudy, my
homicidal compulsion, which surfaces, disappears, surfaces, leaves again, lies barely dormant
during a quiet lunch at Alex Goes to Camp where I have the lamb sausage salad with lobster and
white beans sprayed with lime and foie gras vinegar” (Ellis 296). He may murder sporadically,
but Bateman’s desire to commit murder constantly hides just below his surface. Bateman
compares his homicidal tendency to a hibernating beast; his aggressive instincts might be
sleeping, but any slight provocation could reawaken them. When Bateman is at his most aimless,
most lost, most suppressed, his “homicidal compulsion” re-emerges to wreak havoc on an
unsuspecting prostitute or a Wall Street rival. As Freud asserts, “cruel aggressiveness waits for
some provocation or puts itself at the service of some other purpose, whose goal might also have
been reached by milder measures” (95). Perhaps if he had attempted to stop his murderous urges
sooner, Bateman could have gone to therapy to circumvent his violent reactions to his
suppression. But by the time the reader comes in contact with Bateman, his suppression is so
complete and synonymous with his “erasure” that no amount of therapy could prevent Bateman
from killing. For the all-American psycho, the only true outlet for his suppressed emotions is
murder.