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type of laughter that would lead horror-movie audiences to laugh at someone’s head being chopped off. 177 American Psycho is a complex and multifaceted work of literature, capable of leading to a wide array of meanings and interpretations. For example, a Marxist-Feminist critical approach to the novel would highlight the constant and cruel oppression by the economically-privileged white male of women and social ‘others,’ as well as denouncing the excesses of individuality within a capitalistic society. A feminist reading might be particularly drawn to the complicity between sex and violence, and how this combination metaphorically represents the exerted authority of modern patriarchal society over women. At another level, the novel’s main protagonist is a perfect text-book case for psychoanalytic study. The blurred lines between conscious reality and unconscious projections of sexual violence are an accurate illustration of a continuous internal discourse between the expressed and the repressed. In one of the numerous passages where Bateman describes his work-out routine at the gym, for instance, the internal monologue abruptly jumps-cuts to his thoughts about masturbating while watching a scene where a woman is tortured to death in a movie before going out on a date: Finally, for the triceps I do three sets and twenty reps of cable pushdowns and close-grip bench presses. After more stretching exercises to cool down I take a quick hot shower and then head to the video store where I return the tapes I rented on Monday, She- Male Reformatory and Body Double, but I rerent Body Double because I want to watch it again tonight even though I know I won’t have enough time to masturbate over the scene where the woman is getting drilled to death by a power drill since I have a date with Courtney at seven-thirty at Café Luxembourg. (69) Bateman’s socially accepted but fake expressions of conformity are repeatedly juxtaposed against his unacceptable but real desires, a juxtaposition that becomes
epresentative of thought vs. instinct, culture vs. nature, and humanity vs. animality. On one occasion, while having dinner with some acquaintances, he thinks about how he would have brutally murdered two of them if they had insisted on his ordering a specific entrée: Scott and Anne insisted that we all order some kind of blackened medium-rare redfish … if they nevertheless insisted on my ordering it, the odds were pretty good that after dinner tonight I would have broken into Scott and Anne’s studio at around two this morning—after Late Night with David Letterman—and with an ax chopped them to pieces, first making Anne watch Scott bleed to death from gaping Chest wounds … (95) The novel’s satire is also intrusive, for its perspective is that there is no “culture” or “humanity” which would set boundaries or define Bateman’s actions as evil; what he does is so free of censure that it is not seen, not heard, and in a sense, does not happen at all. A careful reading of the novel would highlight how the absence of a superego, the total lack of “consciousness”—affectivity and introspection—and the unreliability of the narrator put in doubt Bateman’s actual commission of all these gruesome acts of senseless violence. In the text, the reader (along with the narrator) is forced to consider this possibility when Carnes, Bateman’s lawyer, tells Bateman that he could not possibly have murdered Paul Owen because Carnes just recently had dinner with him (388), though this too is compromised because the reader does not know whether Carnes in fact had dinner with Bateman thinking he was Owen! * * * 178 In discussing the satire of Ellis’ novel it is interesting to consider Mary Harron’s film adaptation of American Psycho, in which the violent excesses of the text were drastically reduced in order to highlight its social critique. In contrast to the scandalous
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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
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123 The distinction between Radclif
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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 174 and 175: males 25 . Such interrogations only
Page 176 and 177: liberal capitalism, two trends that
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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