Did he actually kill and torture all those people or was it just in his imagination?

Did he actually kill and torture all those people or was it just in his imagination?

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Yes he did kill them.

The part where it's 'just in his imagination' is actually the real imagination. It's his way of coping with what he did.

The scene with the taxi driver suggests he did but one of the main themes of the book is mistaken identity. Bateman didn't recognise the driver so it's possible the driver thought Bateman was someone else

It doesn't matter.

It was in his imagination. I'd say that American Psycho among other things is commenting on how unfulfilling that American dream really was. Easton's own opinion is very clear if you've read less than zero. Not that it matters. The book is off the hook.

+1 for my fav cover, its perfect. Up there with The Forever war's original hourglass cover.

I love movies with twist endings! Like did he murder all those people or not? Haha! Crazy xD

deal eat

Ok so I reread this book recently and I have a theory.
I think that he really did everything, but the universe he lives in is repairing itself of the dissonance behind him.
He's gone clearly mad from the lack of stimulation in his world without challenges to overcome. He lives in pure indulgence and pleasure. To get off the steam this has building up in him, he murders and tortures people, secretly (and then not so secretly) hoping he gets caught so some conflict is forced into his life.
But, living the American dream, and being part of a society that caulks up the cracks in the image, reality actually heals up behind him as he commits these crimes to maintain the balance.
Though he starts off sadistic and bloodthirsty, by the end he's barely holding onto the reigns of his fuckin consciousness. He's a true lunatic.
So yes, I think he really did those crimes, but the universe won't let him sow discord, so it doesn't really matter what he does.

Correct answer

American Psycho is really good if you read it as a story about how nihilism can destroy society and people in general.

ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER

OP, the point is to show how a psychopathic mind feels like, that's all.

This is the correct answer.

>OP, the point is to show how a psychopathic mind feels like, that's all.

i prefer it to be more of: how a psychopathic mind deals with an even more psychopathic society

These are correct.

I refuse to even read this garbage. You, I can tell, are a huge faggot

dleet

it's just a book user of course he didn't kil anyone :)

HAHA%

I never ventured anywhere near that book but there is probably some allusion to the narrator's disattachment as the root of the plot's arch

besides, AMERICAN Psycho get a fucking clue lel as far as I'm familiar with the story it could be easily read as the allegory of the recent north american history, well recent centuries. I made a random google search which could, of course support any randomly generated theory solely based on numbers and years, but the novel was published in 1991, that's like 500 years from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1491:_New_Revelations_of_the_Americas_Before_Columbus

captcha tinhats unrustled

ah excellent but would you argue the novel is specifically un-american like the title does not suggest, or

What you all don't realize yet but you slowly will:

The point of the book is the virtualization of killing in the mind, and that whatever is happening in the written text is pure meta, and if you disregard the canon you're literally experiencing the deaths written in your imagination via the enactment of your OWN imagination, you're the main character, you're Patrick Baitman

what do you mean?

i don't think it's un american. it does however, use a hyperbolic representation of common american materialism/consumerism as the baseline for bateman's nihilism.

yes but if you're , as you put it"American Psycho is really good if you read it as a story about how nihilism can destroy society and people in general."

to which I reacted rhetorically "un-american like the title does not suggest" allow me to put it into greentext for easier comprehension

>how nihilism can destroy society and people in general

then

>un-american
>like the title does not suggest

HURR WAT U MEAN heheh well thank god you do not think it's un american

/thread

ok so everyone hating on this comment you realize your pathetically cynical

It's only un-American if you believe America is exceptional

it's less un-American or more of un-American culture if you know what i mean senpai

are you literally dense or trole
or
or
the title is American so it's about the locals, not exceptional science

but did he actually kill and torture all those people or was it just in his imagination? :)

it's a book it better be culture!!

I've rarely seen such an absurd hypothesis receive so much support. One long rant, coming up!
It's based (usually) on these few points:
1. Bateman is a mess in bed with his fiancée, but a stud other times. Therefore he's imagining the fun stuff.
So.. a man who's more enthused with hot nasty prostitutes than his anti-depressant-addled, disease-paranoid, almost-in-a-coma boring fiancée is a surprise? Even if we disregard that, Bateman always has the knowledge when with other women that the activities that really excite him- torture and mutilation- are potentially coming soon. He's a young man in perfect physical health taking steroids and having sex with hookers with the aid of various drugs: of course it reads like a porn movie.

2. The police and people around him don't react the way they should: nobody's terrified or cares.
That's the entire damn point of the book! It's not proof that Bateman isn't a killer: in fact, if he is imagining the killings, the behaviour of others loses all meaning entirely. Also, several people ARE interested/worried about the killings, from Bateman's fiancée after he's beheaded her neighbour, to Detective Kimball, Abdullah the cab driver, the lady realtor selling Paul Owen's condo, the bum Al that Bateman blinds and meets again later, etc., etc. Bateman's business colleagues are the only ones who really don't care about other people having died, and that's because they care about nothing but themselves.

con.
3. Every now and then Bateman (especially late in the book) says something impossible happened (a park bench follows me home, an automatic teller asks me to feed it a stray cat, etc). Therefore we can't trust anything he says at all.
Bateman himself often refers to his grasp on sanity slipping, but there's a difference between a narrator who is unreliable for a few lines and one who is lying throughout half the book.
Besides that, if we accept the idea that Bateman isn't killing anyone, we also have to decide that the encounters with the real estate agent (who makes it clear she suspects him of something and tells him not to come back), the taxi driver (who tells him his face is on a wanted poster for killing a cabbie, and robs him), and the detective investigating the death of Paul Owen, never happen. Any of them.
This approaches idiocy: suddenly we're defending a hypothesis that makes most of the novel into meaningless lies that just happen to be mostly cohesive.

4. (The dumbest of all) The car/police chase scene is too unrealistic, so it must have been imagined.
THIS IS A NOVEL. The cops can be as good or bad as Ellis wants. Just as the Enterprise moves "at the speed of plot," the story calls for Bateman to escape so he can leave that confession on his lawyer's answering machine. Incidentally, if the chase never happens, how has the lawyer heard that confession when Bateman confronts him later? Or is that yet another scene that's all in Bateman's head?

So, there we are. I've read this novel backwards and forwards a few times now, taking notes all the way, and I have no idea what the hell possesses anyone to argue that Bateman is imagining it all, except it must make them feel better about the events. It is tempting to see the persistence of this idea that Bateman is not a killer as a desperate attempt to avoid dealing with the acts: particularly ironic because it reflects the head-in-the-sand attitude of the other characters in the novel, and because it makes no particular difference whether a fictional character is murdering people in his dreams or not.

>Did he actually kill and torture all those people or was it just in his imagination?

The majority of it was real.

The fact that no one notices the murders is supposed to be a critique on the shallow nature of interpersonal relationships among 80's yuppies, where a guy you work with could die, and no one notices. Bateman thinks he's crazy because no one acknowledges that he's killing people.

Bad answer.

Read any Ellis interview about the book. No news outlet or review even considered the possibility that Patrick was fantasizing (they probably didn't read the book either)—and so Ellis has to put forward (every god damn time) that hey you know this books is autobiographical and there sure are a lotttt of clues(!) that Patrick is making this stuff up....

Why bother to hit on those points over and over? And admit there are clues?

Bullshit, sorry. I put my case forward in detail: refute it if you can. Patrick's not fantasizing.

I think it was his imagination. Patrick is just a boring yuppie like all his peers. He has a low self-esteem and adapting a psychopathic alter ego is the only way for him to feel adequate and interesting.

I've proven it was not his imagination. If you want to cling to your erroneous fantasy, refute my evidence.

Ok... No one notices or comments on the murders. His story contradicts his interactions.

the only non-retarded point you made is literally word-for-word spelt out in the intro to Lunar Park as a joke.

the smartest thing you said others considered a joke.

you're a fucking joke.

and this is the story of you.

Are you the kid who posted the 'he DID do it' meltdown?

Maybe reread the book when you're a bit older. %]

So basically you want it to be real because otherwise your interpretation of the book doesn't work out. Your points aren't invalid, but they are your interpretation. They could be explained in other ways leading to different conclusions. That makes this book so great.

Several people do, as I pointed out. Try again.

I know the book backwards and forwards, and I'm older than you. Try again.

Could they? My point is that any other explanation of those points requires Bateman making up half the damn book. If you believe Bateman imagined the murders, than all those other scenes must also have not happened even remotely as recounted. It's a dead-end analysis, and there's nothing to support it, which is why not a single person here has been able to muster any evidence to support that idea.

I'll just go through your points one by one and give you my take on them. You can try to 'disprove' them if that makes you happy.
>point 1
I agree with this point. I never thought it was weird that Patrick was lousy with his fiancee.
>point 2
This is where you mix your own interpretation with fact. Nobody caring can be explained in two ways: Everything Patrick did really happened but nobody cares OR All the murders are in Patrick's head which explains everyone's behavior.
Both make sense. You say that several people are worried about certain characters going missing. While this is true nothing proves that Patrick actually murdered these people. We only have his word for it. They could have gone missing for other reasons.
>point 3
The encounter with the real-estate agent doesn't prove anything. He was acting like a jackass, of course the agent would tell him to fuck off. As for the driver, he says he recognizes him from killing his buddy, yet he simply steals his watch and lets him go instead of notifying the police or taking an appropriate revenge (stealing chump change from a rich yuppie isn't a proper revenge for killing your friend). A theory is that Bateman was simply robbed.
>point 4
What makes the police chase so strange is that the police is right on his tail, but when he wakes up they are gone. He murdered several people and the police just lets him escape when they see him going into the building. It makes no sense. The only logical explanation would be a psychotic episode.

Consider that the book was purposely written to evoke both thoughts, to make the reader doubt what's real and what's not. There is no "correct" interpretation.

Excellent, someone who's read the book. Okay, we agree on point 1, so I'll skip that.
Point 2 & 3: Remember that my initial comments above are the claims I'm disputing.
My point is that people DO notice the killings, investigate them, and even recognize Bateman. Detective Kimball specifically comes to question Bateman, but (as happens so often in real life) walks away from the killer and doesn't investigate him further.
Abdullah the cab driver recognizes Bateman, but doesn't want to deal with the cops, and more importantly, is afraid of losing his livelihood. One of the great themes of the book is that all the people whose jobs are to serve the soulless yuppie scum in Manhattan can't afford to have morals or interfere with what their customers are doing: that's why Bateman's cleaning lady, dry cleaners, and video rental place are in such deep denial about the obvious. He settles for robbing him. The dead cabbie wasn't his best friend, and he doesn't want to go to jail himself, so he just takes the easiest practical revenge he can. I Bateman's world where everyone is turning into heartless selfish bastards, it makes sense.
Similarly, the lady realtor selling Paul Owen's condo doesn't tell him to fuck off, she gives him a false leading statement about an ad that doesn't exist, and then tries to quietly scare him off. Since the place isn't listed yet, any strange guy coming by and lying is likely to be the killer, and she just spent days cleaning up the crime herself (we see and smell the cleaning products) because by doing so she can sell the place and pocket all the cash. Turning Bateman in or calling the cops gets her nothing but headaches. The bum Al that Bateman blinds and meets again later recognizes his voice: they know each other, and is so scared he wets himself.
The chase scene isn't all that close: if one guy in a suit vanishes into one of many buildings, and the cops don't see which one, he's gone.

He did and people didn't give a shit.

Not with that opinion, you don't. And if you are older, this is hopelessly pathetic. I appreciate the trolling. Make lit great again!

This seems like an easy answer. Still might be right

you're getting warmer

I'm not sure why claiming that "Bateman is an unreliable narrator AND is presumably a serial killer" is less absurd than "Bateman is not an unreliable narrator and is definitely a serial killer"

It objectively doesn't matter if in reality Bateman is a murderer or Bateman is a fantasizing M&A bro because nothing he does makes any difference either way.

The crescendo of his exaggeration has him claiming to do thousands of ab crunches in his workout, an intense (videotape-inspired?) shoot-out with the police, and multiple contradictions whenever evidence of his murders is brought up. And in the end, nothing has changed.

Bateman as a psychokiller hiding behind a mask of Wall Street success is a critique by itself; Ellis having a character running around claiming to have this identity is another.

>Finally, I have become the American Psycho

jesus Raimi