Video: Reflection and Movie/Book Comparison

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htvMJ0l6WF4&feature=youtu.be

(link to video to video is right above this, just hover mouse over it)

Chapter Summaries 9: Chase Manhattan, 4 chapters,The Best City for Business, End of the 1980s, Aspen, New Club, Taxi Driver, At Harry's

These are the chapters that take us to the end of the novel, and me, probably just like you, feel like it ends very abruptly and without much closure. In Chase Manhattan, the arguable climax of the novel, Bateman is in the most panicked and sadistic frenzy he's ever been in, and runs around the city killing about 10 people and blowing up a cop car. Some of the people he kills includes many police, a janitor, a taxi driver, a man playing a saxophone for money, a lobby attendant, and a security guard. While a police helicopter shines a spotlight at the building he just fled from, he calls his lawyer and admits all of crimes and murders onto his answering machine. Why, I'm not exactly sure, but he probably wants some sort of relief from admitting all of this, like a burden lifted off his shoulders, but he receives nothing. I didn't include the names of the next four chapters because they are all around a page long and nothing of real significance occurs in them. He included them I'm guessing in order to give the reader a little time to digest what had just happened. Afterwards, in the next chapter, he revisits Paul Owen's apartment, a place he has not been since he tortured and murder a pair of prostitutes, and is shocked to see it is for sale. A real estate lady meets him, and soon after realizing he doesn't have an appointment to tour the apartment, ushers him away. Next, he has dinner with Jean where she admits she loves him. He reacts to this kind of oddly, not returning the same feeling, but saying that for some reason he can finally accept it. He wonders if Jean can see the darkness lifting from his eyes, and he feels the coldness that he's always felt leave him, but his numbness to the world doesn't. In random spurts of a stream of consciousness, he admits once again how nothing matters, no emotions, no talent or skill, or anything that lies below someone's surface. In Aspen, he finds out Jeanette is pregnant, but he tells her to get an abortion and never wants to see her again. In New Club, he confronts his lawyer about his frantic voice mail, which Harold thinks is a complete joke. The only flaw, he says, is that Bateman is a "spineless, ass-kisser, brown-nosed goody goody." (He thinks Patrick is someone named Davis." This is where the strangest part of the entire novel occurs. Bateman then says that he is Patrick and that he killed Owen and liked it, and Harold says that that's impossible because he "had dinner with him in London twice just 10 days ago." This would be extremely impossible because Bateman swung an ax through his head, but since Bateman has been the narrator this entire time, who knows if he's been telling the truth. For all we know, every single murder might have actually never occurred. This is a very abstract thought, and the fact that the entire novel I just read might be a lie is concerning to me, almost annoying. Anyways, in the next chapter he gets into a cab where the driver recognizes him as the guy who killed "Solly." (Solly must have been the taxi driver he shot in his frenzy a few days earlier.) The man pulls over and robs Bateman. The significance is that this is the first time in the entire novel that he's actually been caught for one of his crimes, which is really outstanding if you think about it. Too be able to kill that many people in so many different ways and never get caught once is an insane thing, and the fact that this man was able to pull that off is quite frankly amazing. Horrible and senseless, but nonetheless amazing. In the last chapter of the book, Patrick is sitting at Harry's with a few friends, where conversation is as mindless as ever. His final comment explains how everything he has done is what being Patrick means to him (whatever that means). All in all,slightly disappointing with the ending, but it fits perfectly for this book. It was a very good book, but one that I'm not sure I could read again simply because of its grotesque amount of detail.

Image Study 4: The Confession

Patrick Bateman has just gone on a killing frenzy, and in a panicked and uncontrolled fashion, he calls his lawyer, Harold Carnes, and admits every single one of his crimes. Every murder, and all the details he can spare. He says the total death count could be up to one hundred people.

Theme Study 1 (cont.)

During his break up with Evelyn, she begins to yell at him and bombard him with questions, none of which he pays attention to. Instead, he's thinking of many things, some important, others senseless. One of them was "raping one of my maids at age fourteen," and one other was simply "surface, surface, surface" (pg. 342). The fact that Ellis blatantly tells us that all Patrick thinks about is "surface surface surface" directly correlates to theme of  the shallow and sadistic aspects of capitalism. This theme has remained constant throughout the entire novel.A huge businessman on Wall Street, who is a capitalist and surrounds himself with other capitalists, thinks about only whats on the cover, not the contents of anything. Maybe it's his mental illness, or maybe it's just the way most wealthy businessmen act, but nothing besides physical appearance and monetary value matter to him at all. He gets so little enjoyment out of everything that he resorts to something as drastic as homicide to fulfill this hole.

Chapter Summaries 8: Detective, Summer, Girls, Confronted by a Faggot, Killing Child at Zoo, Girls, Rat, Another Night, At Another New Restaurant

A detective comes to Patrick's office to question him about the disappearance of Paul Owen, and he plays it very cool and is able to evade all suspicion concerning him. He's very good at not getting caught, I'll give him that. In the next chapter, Summer, he says that he feels as if he's loosing control and simply needs to get away from the city, so he and Evelyn venture to the Hamptons for the summer. This was good for him, as he only committed a few homicidal acts the whole time he was there. Later, after he has returned, he once again has sex with two prostitutes named Elizabeth and Christie. Afterwards, he tortures them very badly and finally kills them the next morning. In Confronted by a Faggot, exactly that happens. Luis approaches him at a store by coincidence,  and pleads with him to give him a chance. When Patrick gives him nothing in return, he tells him that he's moving because of Bateman. In the following chapter, he shows signs that he's truly loosing control of his bloodlust, or more essentially, himself. In a drug enduced daze, he ends up at the zoo in Manhatten, where he patiently looks f\or his target. He decided on a little boy, and using sleight of hand he stabs him in the neck and then fades into the crowd, getting away completely unscathed. Afterwards, he orders too more prostitutes (Torri and Jamie) and and has sex with them, but then tortures them worse than he's tortured anybody else. The details of which are extremely grotesque, and really not for the faint of heart. In Rat, he finds a large rat in his apartment which he finally traps and saves to torture his next victim with, who ended up being another prostitute. Later, he gets on a threeway call with McDermott and Van Patten and they make four different reservations at 4 different restaurants. They get very confused about which they've cancelled and remade and sent their girlfriends to, and Evelyn and Jeanette (girl that Patrick is having sex with) end up at the same place engaging in extremely awkward conversation. In the very next chapter, Evelyn and Patrick go out to dinner where Patrick gets a urinal cover smeered with chocolate and wrapped in a bow sent to Evelyn, where she eats it with disgust. For some reason, he didn't get as much pleasure watching her eat it as he thought he would, which gives him the idea to break up with Evelyn. He then actually dumps her, and Evelyn, first not able to comprehend whats happening but slowly gets the gist of it, is furious. Patrick has decided that he's going to let Evelyn have all of their friends and start living a life of more solidarity, as well as start to see a psychologist.

Patrick's Analysis 7

I'm nearing the end of the book, and Patrick has now reached a different type of understanding of himself. He seems to understand exactly what he is, but is only now having trouble with it, health wise. He's not afraid to let people know he's crazy either. Earlier in the book, he was introduced to a baby, and in a playful, baby-ish voice, he says something like "Oh yes hi, how are you little baby? Yes how are you? you like me? Yes, I'm a crazy fucking psychopath, yes I am, I like to watch people die, yes I do." And later in the story, Evelyn jokingly accuses Patrick of being a lunatic, and in response he says "Dammit Evelyn, what do you mean 'being,' I fucking am one!" (pg. 333). So he has come to full terms with who and what he is, which isn't shocking, but what is a little shocking is that he might be starting to realize that he needs help. He had to take an entire summer away from Manhattan because he felt he wouldn't be able to contain his blood lust if he stayed the entire summer. That shows a different side of Bateman, one that doesn't come out much, but one that gives me hope that maybe before this book ends Bateman will have turned everything around and maybe do something worthwhile with his life.

Rhetoric Study 1

The phrase ‘stream of consciousness’ refers to an uninterrupted and unhindered collection and occurrence of thoughts and ideas in the conscious mind. In literature, the phrase refers to the flow of these thoughts, with reference to a particular character’s thinking process. As I've stated before, this is the rhetoric device that Ellis uses throughout this entire novel, and many of his other novels as well. Another device he uses often is called Amplification, which is where the writer embellishes the sentence by adding more information to it in order to increase its worth and understandability. "But she's not listening, because some English guy wearing a three-button wool houndstooth suit, a tattered wool vest, a spread-collar cotton oxford shirt, suede shoes and a silk tie, all by Garrick Anderson, whom Evelyn pointed out once after we'd had a fight at Au Bar and called 'gorgeous,' and whom I had called 'a dwarf,' walks over to our table, openly flirting with her, and it pisses me off to think that she feels I'm jealous about this guy but i eventually get the last laugh when he asks if she still has the job at 'that art gallery on First Avenue' and Evelyn, clearly stressed, her face falling, answers no, corrects him, and after a few awkward nods he moves on." (pg. 331) This is a great example of both of those rhetoric devices, all used in one prolonged sentence. 

Image Study 3: The Mask of Sanity

"I felt lethal, on the verge of a frenzy. My nightly bloodlust overflowed into my days and I had to leave the city. My mask of sanity was a victim of impending slippage." (pg. 279)

Chapter Summaries 7: Paul Smith, Birthday Brothers, Lunch with Bethany, Thursdsay, Dinner with Secretary

These chapter summaries begin with Luis coming onto Patrick again, but this time, before escaping Carruthers in a cab, he flashes a knife at him while hissing. This takes Luis of guard, and he backs off, leaving Patrick somewhat victorious. In the next chapter, birthday Brothers, Patrick has dinner with his brother, Sean, at Dorsia, a place Sean effortlessly made reservations at while Bateman has been attempting for months. I didn't think we'd be introduced to a character that was more influential and known as Patrick, but sure enough, we met Sean. They only seemed to just compete with each other the entire time, subtly trying to one-up the other's remarks, Patrick with lies, Sean probably not.  In the following chapter, Patrick has lunch with an old girlfriend of his at Harvard, where he is for some reason extremely nervous. He acts strangely, writes her a terrible poem, and says some very off-kilter stuff. But even after all that, Bethany agrees to come up to his apartment where he proceeds to torture and rape her. She finally dies the next morning. The grotesque detail at which this is described is analyzed more closely in my post titled "Random Thought 4." In Thursday, he talks about many different types of water at length in a cab ride with McDermott and Courtney, and later goes home and beats Bethany's dead body with her own severed arm. And finally, in Dinner with Secretary, Patrick cancels a reservation with friends when he discovers Luis will be joining them, and instead asks his secretary, Jean, to join him. He lies about having reservations at Dorsia, they get kicked out, and have dinner somewhere else instead. When the evening ends, she invites Bateman up to her room but he refuses, but she hugs and kisses him anyways, which leaves him feeling a real sense of warmth towards her. He later thinks about him and her holding hands and laughing and buying balloons. This leads me to believe that he might have some type of intimate feelings for her, and I feel that if he does end up with her, she could do him some real good.

Random Thought 4

This is almost unbearable. The extreme way in which Patrick's grotesque murdering and raping is describe is almost too much for me. Bret Easton Ellis is a genius for writing this book, but a sick one. The length at which he describes every detail of every murder is sickening, and it's not surprising that you must be 18 to buy it in some places of the world. The book was first rejected when Ellis sent it to be publicized, but after much discussion and pressing from Ellis, it was accepted with a limited publication. you really can do nothing but marvel at the expertise in writing this novel, but if you have a weak stomach or don't prefer to read entire chapters about sex and murder, then this is not the novel for you. Fair warning.

Patrick's Analysis 6

Page 226, lines 7-20 talk about something interesting. Bateman is staring at a crack in a wall, and says that if he somehow disappeared into that crack that nobody would even notice his absence. He says that nobody would even care, and that the theory that all people are interconnected is false and that the truth is some people just aren't needed. The world would be better off without them, he says. This could be the sign of an entirely new disease I hadn't even guessed Patrick would be suffering from: depression. Which totally makes sense. He's depressed, so he doesn't get any real thrill or satisfaction out of daily life, so what does he do? Turns to a life of murdering and violence to add some edge to life. Slowly but surely I'm starting to piece together the mystery that is Patrick Bateman.

Chapter Summaries 6: Killing Dog, Shopping, Christmas Party, Nell's, Paul Owen

Bateman's senseless need for violence continues when he travels to the park on a cold and windy night. He has a suitcase with two knives and a gun inside, and fully intends to use them, he just doesn't know who will be on the recieving end. He finally decides on an old man and his dog. After he slices and shoots them, we learn that the only time Bateman feels any real thrill or passion is when he's killing, which is another reason why he does it so much. In the next chapter, he goes shopping and has a severe panic attack at the mall, which seem to be occurring more frequently than before. Maybe his mental condition is worsening? In Christmas Party, he attends Evelyn's party reluctantly but ends up forcing her to leave so he can do drugs. I'm suprised Evelyn doesn't notice how much Patrick despises her. Or maybe she just doesn't care. Either way it's very strange. In Nell's, Patrick has dinner at Nell's with a few friends and a few models, one of whom he takes back to his apartment to have sex with. Nothing new, essentially. But then Patrick did something he's never done before. He told the model she should leave before he ended up hurting her. He actually gave one of his potential victims a warning! He said he would hurt her because he says "I think I'm loosing control." This tells us two things. One is that he does have the mental capacity to stop. Two is that he recognizes that he has a problem, which is a lot more than most other insane people. In the final chapter of these summaries, he attends a not-so high end restaurant with Paul Owen, where Owen gets beligerantly drunk and doesn't answer any of Bateman's questions about the Fisher account. They go back to his apartment where he slices his head open with an ax and puts the dead body in his room in an abandon building uptown. He had paper laid out on the floor so Owen wouldn't stain it with his blood, which shows that he intended to kill Owen before the dinner even started. Why he killed the a man I thought he admired, I don't know. But I'm assuming this will be followed by much more killing shortly after.

Image Study 2: The Food of New York

An extremely large portion of the book describes Bateman at some of New York's finest restaurants, where he orders a different dish every time, each one more extravagant than the last. Because of this tasting of a plethora of foods and the restaurant's prominent role in the book, I thought it just to include a small collage of different types of food you would find in New York.