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males 25 . Such interrogations only underline the many cultural biases and the excesses of political correctness that are now prevalent in American culture amidst all the programs of social revision and reform. What is ironic, however, is that these critics and advocate groups succeeded in doing exactly the opposite of what they had set out to achieve. As in any contemporary case of boycott and censorship, the protests and scandal only contributed to creating more interest in the novel. Nevertheless the damage to the book’s status and respectability had been done, and while some may still perceive Ellis’ novel as indisputably vile and despicable, a worthless piece of sub-literary ‘junk’ (Murphet 69), others considered it to be a satirical, postmodern masterpiece. 173 For instance, Alberto Manguel contemptuously argues that American Psycho is not a novel of literary claims. His view is partly based on the fact that even if the text had been meant to be read as a social satire, Ellis’ minimalist prose style and the novel’s grotesqueness pre-empt the possibility of its being seriously considered as such. In addition, he aligns himself with other critics in arguing that what is alarming about American Psycho is that “Ellis’s prose does nothing except copy the model it is supposed to denounce” (101), though it could be argued that this is precisely the style of much postmodern pastiche. He also draws a parallel with Radcliffe’s distinction between Horror and Terror as explained in the previous chapter, and argues that the novel is one of “pornographic horror” (102), claiming that it literally made him feel sick (99). In other words, according to Manguel, American Psycho does not offer any form of distancing from its subject, a distance that would allow for a type of intellectual reflection 25 For example, why has Nathan McCall’s Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America, an autobiography which relates real, actual accounts of both racial and sexual violence, not been received with equal indignation as Ellis’ novel?
and contrary to other transgressive works of the previous centuries, the novel eludes theoretical implications because it lacks a discernible framework to do so. While he may be correct in assessing that Ellis’ novel contains passages of “pornographic horror” that are capable of producing a strong visceral response, many of Manguel’s conclusions, however, are either misconstrued or seriously flawed. It seems bewildering that Manguel claims American Psycho cannot be read as a social satire, for it rather faithfully corresponds to Bakhtin’s description of Menippean satire: The familiarizing role of laughter is here considerably more powerful, sharper, and coarser. The liberty to crudely degrade, to turn inside out the lofty aspects of the world and world views, might sometimes seem shocking. But to this exclusive and comic familiarity must be added an intense spirit of inquiry and a utopian fantasy … the entire world and everything sacred in it is offered to us without any distancing at all, in a zone of crude contact … In Menippean satire the unfettered and fantastic plots and situations all serve one goal—to put to the test and to expose ideas and ideologues. (The Dialogic Imagination 26) Ellis’ novel appropriately belongs to this category of satire. As explained in detail, Ellis’ text is gruesomely crude and at times extremely shocking—a point with which Manguel does not disagree—because the various literary strategies deployed in the book reduce the distance between reader and narrator, creating that “zone of crude contact” of which Bakhtin speaks. In addition, American Psycho shares the same purpose of the Menippean satire, which is, as Bakhtin points out, “to put to the test and to expose ideas and ideologues.” In American Psycho, it is the perverse and violent ideologies and ideologues of consumer capitalism that are put to the test. 174 In contrast to Manguel’s reading, David Price aptly argues that in the nature of Bakhtin’s “carnivalesque” American Psycho is a gross parody of mass consumerism and
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ABSTRACT This thesis examines the r
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments 4
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INTRODUCTION If one looks at the mo
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…Achilles slit open his liver, th
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following centuries due to the chan
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favorably by its contemporaries on
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REVIEW OF SECONDARY SOURCES This in
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Whereas these historical accounts a
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a framework under which transgressi
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Chapter 1 CANON-FORMATION, TRANSGRE
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amongst so-called “minorities”
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elonged to—these works were at on
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that person “is driven over the g
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the third century. At Yavneh the sc
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especially at the dawn of the twent
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theater-goers (Stallybras et al. 84
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emergence of new genres in literatu
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have been produced to please the ma
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Literature remained a favored means
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poet lies in his powerful and beaut
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specifically, it rebelled against t
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according to Johnson, “discolored
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while at the same time, establishin
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There is no reason to assume that t
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isolated case in the reception of l
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During the period of revision of th
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Henry Louis Gates Jr. It is only by
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that remain canonical throughout th
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academia, and thus participate acti
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Chapter 2 SHOCK, SCANDAL, AND SUBVE
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As is the case with canonical disco
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Although in this excerpt Foucault
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eplaces language, where language be
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that one distinguishable characteri
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Enlightenment period. In the case o
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transgressive artworks and their re
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sport of them. Nevertheless, it mai
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a practice or belief, or a set ther
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epressed instinctual drives stored
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Within the perspective enunciated a
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and high culture as did the Marquis
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“interrogators,” those who subv
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(sometimes, of the state itself),
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taking action. In other words, by b
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consequently, loses its transgressi
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Chapter 3 WORLDS COLLIDE: CULTURAL
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sub-genre of literature that was co
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case of the late eighteenth century
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As a reaction to this “democratiz
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To a certain extent, the Gothic is
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101 To understand the controversy s
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historical value was intensively sc
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“dialogue,” rather a unilateral
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egarding cultural and political ide
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Watt argues that the latter conside
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and the name of its author was reve
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contextualization of their work and
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critical acclaim by following the p
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Radcliffe’s novels (245), a trans
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efficiency of the legal system. As
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controversy is finally dispelled, t
Page 124 and 125: 123 The distinction between Radclif
Page 126 and 127: 125 Even though The Monk was immens
Page 128 and 129: ejection of inherited dogma. This i
Page 130 and 131: that with regard to such material a
Page 132 and 133: they represented wanted to diffuse
Page 134 and 135: different generations of readers th
Page 136 and 137: elements—and its Preface, where t
Page 138 and 139: the unfavorable conditions under wh
Page 140 and 141: addition, following Michelle A. Mas
Page 142 and 143: suppress his passionate nature resu
Page 144 and 145: its tenure as a work of transgressi
Page 146 and 147: 145 In recent history, no book has
Page 148 and 149: 147 Bret Easton Ellis’ American P
Page 150 and 151: depend on the individual, on his or
Page 152 and 153: transgressions. Ironically, even th
Page 154 and 155: While this episode can be perceived
Page 156 and 157: which he/she participates as well.
Page 158 and 159: In American Psycho, Ellis makes sim
Page 160 and 161: are responsible for provoking the m
Page 162 and 163: 161 Even so, as outlined earlier, t
Page 164 and 165: ecome inescapably appealing. The st
Page 166 and 167: overwhelming, or, in more extreme c
Page 168 and 169: Although Murphet’s appraisal of t
Page 170 and 171: argued above, the latter produces q
Page 172 and 173: “civilized” man is indeed no st
Page 176 and 177: liberal capitalism, two trends that
Page 178 and 179: type of laughter that would lead ho
Page 180 and 181: outburst that characterized the rel
Page 182 and 183: she chooses to be atypical by censu
Page 184 and 185: consumption, no matter how perverte
Page 186 and 187: asic material satisfaction but for
Page 188 and 189: to be “committed.” The question
Page 190 and 191: “serious” literature as prescri
Page 192 and 193: 191 As a satire, American Psycho do
Page 194 and 195: Batailles, Georges. Le Bleu du ciel
Page 196 and 197: Fortier, Frances. “L’esthétiqu
Page 198 and 199: Johnson, Samuel. “From Lives of t
Page 200 and 201: Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Philosophy
Page 202 and 203: Thoré. Théophile. “New Tendenci
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