American Psycho, Election 2016, and the Entropy of the American Dream
The ‘80’s described in the book were a time of excess, immorality, and sloth. They were also significantly a time when the American Dream, as originally described was one of hard work and charismatic patriotism, changed to one of excess and moral competition. In this, the human persona became more animalistic; so begins this discourse with a genius line from the main character of American Psycho, Patrick Bateman, “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 depersonalisation was so intense, had gone so deep, that the normal ability …show more content…
The culture of the 80’s is prevalent in the novel. For example, before he kills Paul Allen, Bateman goes off on a tangent about the band Genesis, and Phil Collins, in particular. He lists each album and how he feels about the album, whether there was not enough guitar or vocals in each song and whether Phil Collins should have left the band before he did. Spoiler: he should have; Bateman says that Invisible Touch is a work of art and that Phil Collins didn’t need the rest of the band. And Bateman says this all while laying a tarp on the ground so that he doesn’t get blood on the floor, and while grabbing a nail gun to shoot Allen in the head with. Another motif in the novel is Bateman’s insistence that he “needs to return some videotapes.” Bateman says this anytime he is in a difficult situation or when he just doesn’t want to go anywhere. The metaphor in this motif shows that Bateman believes he is in a movie. As he says in the novel, “I am so used to imagining everything happening the way it occurs in movies, visualizing things falling somehow into the shape of events on a screen, that I almost hear the swelling of an orchestra, can almost hallucinate the camera panning low around us, fireworks bursting in slow motion overhead, the seventy-millimeter image of her lips parting and the subsequent murmur of ‘I want you’ in Dolby sound,” this depersonalization that Bateman has and most …show more content…
He could self finance, because he is rich. He could rail against Wall Street, because, while he works there, he also hates everyone else that works on Wall Street. Bateman would also be a good pick for conservatives, because Bateman is very conservative and sides with those like Glenn Beck on most social issues, like gay marriage. He, like Trump and Clinton, wants America to have a strong military; he believes that “We have to ensure that America is a respected world power.” However, Bateman could also bring in votes from the left, because he is a strong proponent of ending the AIDs epidemic and he wants to protect the environment, He says that “protecting the ozone layer is a really cool idea.” He also wants to end the homeless problem. Of course, he only wants to end this problem, because he hates the homeless and did kill a homeless man in the novel. Patrick Bateman is not a good person. Nevertheless, while he inherently is authoritarian, he doesn’t believe government should be, as evidenced in his rant about Phil Collins: “Take the lyrics to Land of Confusion. In this song, Phil Collins addresses the problems of abusive political authority.” Bateman, in this sense, is more of a libertarian. He also is a non interventionist; he wants to end military intervention in the Middle East, like Trump, which is one of the reasons that Trump has become so popular. Bateman would definitely be able to latch on to the
The ‘80’s described in the book were a time of excess, immorality, and sloth. They were also significantly a time when the American Dream, as originally described was one of hard work and charismatic patriotism, changed to one of excess and moral competition. In this, the human persona became more animalistic; so begins this discourse with a genius line from the main character of American Psycho, Patrick Bateman, “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 depersonalisation was so intense, had gone so deep, that the normal ability …show more content…
The culture of the 80’s is prevalent in the novel. For example, before he kills Paul Allen, Bateman goes off on a tangent about the band Genesis, and Phil Collins, in particular. He lists each album and how he feels about the album, whether there was not enough guitar or vocals in each song and whether Phil Collins should have left the band before he did. Spoiler: he should have; Bateman says that Invisible Touch is a work of art and that Phil Collins didn’t need the rest of the band. And Bateman says this all while laying a tarp on the ground so that he doesn’t get blood on the floor, and while grabbing a nail gun to shoot Allen in the head with. Another motif in the novel is Bateman’s insistence that he “needs to return some videotapes.” Bateman says this anytime he is in a difficult situation or when he just doesn’t want to go anywhere. The metaphor in this motif shows that Bateman believes he is in a movie. As he says in the novel, “I am so used to imagining everything happening the way it occurs in movies, visualizing things falling somehow into the shape of events on a screen, that I almost hear the swelling of an orchestra, can almost hallucinate the camera panning low around us, fireworks bursting in slow motion overhead, the seventy-millimeter image of her lips parting and the subsequent murmur of ‘I want you’ in Dolby sound,” this depersonalization that Bateman has and most …show more content…
He could self finance, because he is rich. He could rail against Wall Street, because, while he works there, he also hates everyone else that works on Wall Street. Bateman would also be a good pick for conservatives, because Bateman is very conservative and sides with those like Glenn Beck on most social issues, like gay marriage. He, like Trump and Clinton, wants America to have a strong military; he believes that “We have to ensure that America is a respected world power.” However, Bateman could also bring in votes from the left, because he is a strong proponent of ending the AIDs epidemic and he wants to protect the environment, He says that “protecting the ozone layer is a really cool idea.” He also wants to end the homeless problem. Of course, he only wants to end this problem, because he hates the homeless and did kill a homeless man in the novel. Patrick Bateman is not a good person. Nevertheless, while he inherently is authoritarian, he doesn’t believe government should be, as evidenced in his rant about Phil Collins: “Take the lyrics to Land of Confusion. In this song, Phil Collins addresses the problems of abusive political authority.” Bateman, in this sense, is more of a libertarian. He also is a non interventionist; he wants to end military intervention in the Middle East, like Trump, which is one of the reasons that Trump has become so popular. Bateman would definitely be able to latch on to the