Patrick's Analysis 4

"My life is a living hell, and there are many more people I want to...well, I guess murder. (pg.141)" Patrick 'says' this to his dinner guest, Christian Armstrong, but Armstrong I guess doesn't hear him because he has no reaction whatsoever. This line gave us a little more insight into why Patrick does what he does. By saying his life was a living hell, when being a good-looking successful business man living on Wall Street clearly is not hell, he lets us know that despite all the good in his life, he has an unexplainable desire for violence that he needs to fill. He considers his life hell because no matter where he goes or what he does, he feels this large gaping hole that he can not get away from. He doesn't know why, but killing and violence seems to fill this hole momentarily, which is why he feels the need to commit these acts to humans and animals so frequently. These acts are due to the fact that he's constantly unhappy and dissatisfied with the way his life is going. He lives in his own personal living hell, and though he doesn't realize it, falls deeper and deeper into it with every killing that he commits. By trying to escape the pain by pushing it onto others, he's inadvertently pushing it onto himself. It's the never ending cycle of despair that serial killers live with. Just a few chapter's later, titled 'A Glimpse of a Thursday Afternoon,' depicts him stumbling around the streets of a New York in an anxiety induced, drug enhanced daze. This extremely sweaty and delusional Patrick Bateman has no control over his actions and suffers from huge lapses in memory, and can't seem to control anything at all. His mental health is declining, and it's bringing his body with it. All of the stimulants and adrenaline rushes he seeks by taking drugs and committing murders, only worsened by his obvious mental illness, is starting to take a real toll on his body that he notices but does not seem to worry about. The fact that he brushes these events off like they never even happen only make him worse, and he seems to be on a fast track to committing serious self-inflicted harm and maybe even suicide.