Untitled - Sexey's School Moodle

liberal capitalism, two trends that were not only true during the Reagan Era but remain
prevalent today in Western society. Bakhtin’s concepts of heteroglossia and the
“carnivalesque” 26 refer to a novel’s multiple use of borrowed discourses—rather than a
single, unified voice—and its overt emphasis on the “grotesque body” by focusing on
“sexual intercourse [and] death throes (in their comic presentation—hanging tongue,
expressionless popping eyes, suffocation, death rattle)…” (Rabelais 353). In Ellis, the
former feature manifests itself in the interweaving of multiple discourses; from the inner
projections of the main character to the extensive descriptions of consumer goods as
quotations from instruction manuals and magazines. The characteristic of the “grotesque
body” figures predominantly in the explicit depictions of sex and violence spread
throughout the novel and at another level, Bateman’s body is also grotesque in an
especially modern way; so fetishized (“transformed” or “modeled” by body-building,
grooming, and label-wearing) as to become grotesque (Ellis 24-30). In fact, the strength
and veracity of American Psycho’s social critique lie specifically in the descriptive scenes
and cleverly structured series of fictional events. The novel relentlessly ridicules and
criticizes everything it addresses, from brand names and label fetishes, “I count … one
Versace silk-satin woven tie … one silk Kenzo … The fragrances of Xeryus and Tuscany
and Armani and Obsession and Polo and Grey Flannel and even Antaeus mingle…”
(Ellis 110), to image-conscious status-driven social politics (199). While the novel
criticizes consumer society and liberal capitalism at large, it addresses several aspects in
particular. For one, it denounces the fetishization of material goods, as well as the
overwhelming importance conferred upon monetary wealth and physical appearance as
26 A term he coined in his analysis of Rabelais’ Gargantua et Pantagruel
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