The Talented Mr Ripley Essay

Patricia Highsmith’s novel “The Talented Mr. Ripley” presents to the reader a sexually complex character, Tom Ripley. Tom Ripley, who plays both the protagonist and antagonist in the novel, possesses the gift of imitation, forgery and impersonation. He uses these gifts to his advantage whenever possible throughout the novel. The other two main characters of this book are Marge and Richard “Dickie” Greenleaf. Sexuality is a sensitive topic for Mr. Ripley, even when he was a young child. He does not see himself as homosexual even though many others do; however, he uses his gifts in the novel to later create a life in which other do not see him as homosexual. Two major crimes occur in this novel and they are done by Mr. Ripley and are both related to his sexuality. Throughout this novel, Mr. Ripley possesses a fragile grip on his sexuality and he becomes frantic when this grip is lost; additionally, he uses his gifts to obtain more control over how his sexuality is …show more content…
He began to dress, speak and act like Dickie to the extent that he said he was Dickie and people recognized him as such. This was an escape for him because now he was able to be a person in which nobody would question his sexuality. However, to spit Marge, on several occasions he wrote to her as Dickie about the happiness between him and Mr. Ripley. Moreover, in pretending to be Dickie he gave her the refrigerator that once represented Dickie’s refusal to move to Paris or Rome with Mr.Ripley as they once conversed about (p.90). His giving her the refrigerator represented Dickie’s choice to stay with Mr.RIpley as well as the unlikelihood of Dickie returning back to his former town and returning back to Marge. Mr.Ripley’s next murder came as a result of an attempt to strip him of his Dickie impersonation as well as a judgement of his