TWIST Analysis of American Psycho by Bret Easton Analysis
Tone- The tone of the book is very dark. For the most part the book deals with Patrick Bateman's lifestyle centered primarily around, working, having sex with girls and prostitutes, snorting cocaine in the bathrooms of clubs, and murdering various people throughout the book, all while having a fetish and getting sexually aroused from sadism and murdering his victims.
Word Choice- As the story is centered around Manhattan in New York, all the diction and word choices for the novel are very formal, proper and gentleman like as the main characters are all business men and women. When Bateman talks with his friends, they often talk about mens fashion and how to wear suits and with what to wear suits. Ellis also is not afraid to use offensive terms like the N-word when referring to black people.
Imagery- The book is extremely graphical, especially during the murdering and murdering-sex scenes. Ellis takes no shame in expressing every detail that goes in to killing someone, even a dog. Many scenes can be found describing stabbing a homeless man and shoving a knife into his eyes and watching them pool with blood or using a nail gun to pin a girl to the ground and then torturing and raping her until she dies. Obviously Ellis is not afraid to get his fictional hands dirty when it comes to Bateman.
Style- Bret Easton Ellis offers a new literary style to the scene that ended up being so controvertial in topic many countries placed bans on the book for minors. Some bookstores even had to sell the book in shrink wrap as to how violent and graphic it is. The style of the book is very homophobic, sexist towards women and racist.
Theme- The overall theme of the novel is about portraying Yuppie (Young Urban Professional) culture from the 1960s-1980s. After some research I discovered that Ellis based his novel off Yuppie culture and based the main character as the ultimate Yuppie. He portrays Bateman as an intelligent, rich, and healthy-fit man living big in the big city and living large.
Another theme that may be centered around is Bateman's Psychosis. Although it is never directly implied that Bateman has psychosis, during the final chapter of the book, Bateman's Lawyer tells him that he had lunch with Paul Owen, one of Bateman's Victims. This leaves Bateman very confused adn searching for answers. It is plausible that while Patrick did kill some of his victims, maybe he didn't kill all of them. Many scenes involve Bateman killing people in broad daylight or killing large amounts of people in a short amount of time and getting away with it. These could all just be tricks that Bateman's mind is playing on him as Psychosis is characterized with hallucinations and delusions.
Tone- The tone of the book is very dark. For the most part the book deals with Patrick Bateman's lifestyle centered primarily around, working, having sex with girls and prostitutes, snorting cocaine in the bathrooms of clubs, and murdering various people throughout the book, all while having a fetish and getting sexually aroused from sadism and murdering his victims.
Word Choice- As the story is centered around Manhattan in New York, all the diction and word choices for the novel are very formal, proper and gentleman like as the main characters are all business men and women. When Bateman talks with his friends, they often talk about mens fashion and how to wear suits and with what to wear suits. Ellis also is not afraid to use offensive terms like the N-word when referring to black people.
Imagery- The book is extremely graphical, especially during the murdering and murdering-sex scenes. Ellis takes no shame in expressing every detail that goes in to killing someone, even a dog. Many scenes can be found describing stabbing a homeless man and shoving a knife into his eyes and watching them pool with blood or using a nail gun to pin a girl to the ground and then torturing and raping her until she dies. Obviously Ellis is not afraid to get his fictional hands dirty when it comes to Bateman.
Style- Bret Easton Ellis offers a new literary style to the scene that ended up being so controvertial in topic many countries placed bans on the book for minors. Some bookstores even had to sell the book in shrink wrap as to how violent and graphic it is. The style of the book is very homophobic, sexist towards women and racist.
Theme- The overall theme of the novel is about portraying Yuppie (Young Urban Professional) culture from the 1960s-1980s. After some research I discovered that Ellis based his novel off Yuppie culture and based the main character as the ultimate Yuppie. He portrays Bateman as an intelligent, rich, and healthy-fit man living big in the big city and living large.
Another theme that may be centered around is Bateman's Psychosis. Although it is never directly implied that Bateman has psychosis, during the final chapter of the book, Bateman's Lawyer tells him that he had lunch with Paul Owen, one of Bateman's Victims. This leaves Bateman very confused adn searching for answers. It is plausible that while Patrick did kill some of his victims, maybe he didn't kill all of them. Many scenes involve Bateman killing people in broad daylight or killing large amounts of people in a short amount of time and getting away with it. These could all just be tricks that Bateman's mind is playing on him as Psychosis is characterized with hallucinations and delusions.