This corresponds to how he approaches murdering a man to assume control over his character just to disassociate himself from his unique personality to get away from his homosexuality and in a way killing himself by killing Greenleaf. This is because killing Greenleaf meant taking over his individuality of privilege and escaping his original identity. Patricia Highsmith’s theory of sexual identity is extremely useful because it sheds light on the difficult problem of homosexuality identity. Highsmith does this very subtly by presenting insights of his sexuality and how he wants to locate another personality in view of the dread of suspicions about his sexuality. It flows smoothly with the rest of the story, as it shows how killing Greenleaf allowed him to escape the oppression he received during his time. Consequently, Greenleaf symbolized Ripley’s old life, and when he murdered him, he took over his new life as Greenleaf and discarded his old identity in exchange. It sets the base of why he feels ashamed of his actual identity and fears assumptions of his sexuality, while additionally clarifying what he is fleeing …show more content…
Ripley is a story about an imposter named Tom Ripley who feels the need to change his identity to someone completely different from him to escape and avoid his past. To do this, Ripley devises an arrangement to murder and take a man's personality to get away from his own. His past was extremely disgraceful, and having this new personality will enable him to escape it without an issue. As it were, shrewd sociopaths will do what it with no regret or blame to get what they need, to con and trick their casualties. They encounter lack of concern while going about in their lives, driving them to con artistry(Konnikova, 2017). Ripley represents a major psychopath because he was able to murder Greenleaf with no remorse or guilt and assume control simply and quick. Ripley also leads them to believe he is someone completely different from him. He truly had no remorse for taking his identity and making it his own. Intelligence is important in classifying Tom Ripley as a good con artist. The amount of intelligence needed to copy and imitate a person's day-to-day life, actions, voice, and even handwriting, shows the effort Ripley put into escaping his past self to become Greenleaf. This persistence and determination show his shame of his childhood. Why would he go to the point of murder in order to change his identity? In other words, Konnikova trusts stories assume a noteworthy part in cons. They envelop every one of the thoughts swindlers would like to conjure and take