Untitled - Sexey's School Moodle

Chapter 4
PORNOGRAPHY AND VIOLENCE: THE DIALECTICS OF TRANSGRESSION IN BRET
EASTON ELLIS’ AMERICAN PSYCHO
144
THIS IS NOT AN EXIT.
Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho
It is known that civilized man is characterized
by an often inexplicable acuity of horror.
Georges Bataille, “Eye”
While the previous case study of The Monk offered a historical perspective on the
processes of reception and evaluation of a transgressive text, this chapter takes a look at
the discursive interconnections between transgression and canon-formation in the
contemporary United States by considering the case of Bret Easton Ellis’ American
Psycho. Two centuries separate the publication dates of The Monk and American Psycho.
Amidst important geo-political changes, shifting ideologies, and the succession of various
literary movements, these two works share a number of similarities 17 , the most notable of
which is that both works were received by an uproar of controversy for broadly the same
reasons. Contingents of readers and reviewers were appalled by their content—the rather
explicit depictions of sex and violence and the apparent lack of moral framework—and
concerned that these texts would affect their respective audiences. In addition, each work
suffered gross misprisions, stemming predominantly from their detractors’ ideologies and
a facile conflation of author and protagonist.
17 For a complete comparison of American Psycho with the Gothic tradition, see Ruth Helyer’s “Parodied
to Death: The Postmodern Gothic of American Psycho” in Modern Fiction Studies 46.3 (2000) 725-746.