Tom Ripley

People are not born evil. It is my opinion that as a child, we are always molded and influenced by the important people that touch our lives daily. Basically it begins with our caregiver’s weather it is our parents, grandparents, family members or babysitter. The mother and father plays a major role on their child’s personality. Therefore if somebody experience any type of abuse during their childhood whether it is physical or mental, most times they are awkward socially and they view society differently. All of our lives we are thought what is right and what is wrong based on the norm of society. Society tells us what is normal and abnormal. Many babies and children are brought up but they are never shown love and affection by their parents …show more content…
Tom worked as an attendant in the opera house bathroom and he also played the piano for his friend’s girlfriend, he borrowed his friend college jacket who attended Princeton University, and that is how he met Dickie parents one day by chance. Tom was paid one thousand dollars to bring back the rich shipbuilder son from Italy. Tom was envious and greedy and seized the opportunity to make friends with Dickie. After a while he wants to assume the lifestyle of Dickie, the rich playboy and once he gets the opportunity he kills Dickie to do so. One of Dickie friends became suspicious of his impersonation of Dickie Greenleaf and he kills Freddie to cover up his crime. On one occasion, the movie shows Ripley sitting in his cabin and wondering to himself “ If I could just go back. If I could rub everything out. Starting with myself. Starting with borrowing a jacket”. (http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/mr-ripley_shooting.html) It is this very moment that you would have to wonder whether he knows what he did was wrong and if he was remorseful for killing Dickie and Freddie. Ultimately, even though Dickie’s family deemed his death a suicide and the forged will is found with Ripley inheriting everything, he still lives with the fear that he will be found out and they would send him to jail or face justice in some other form. It is my belief that Tom Ripley was born normal, but because of his determination to become someone who he was not, made him a psychopath because even though he is thinking that its circumstance that led him down the wrong path, his entire adult years he was a con artist trying to get money the dishonest way. His character flaws were as stated in the dictionary “lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, and failure to learn from experience”. Greed