Bergische Universität Wuppertal
Seminar: Issues in American Society – Literary Negotiations
Studiengang: Lehramt GYM Englisch / Sozialwissenschaften

Parallelism of character and concept in
American Psycho and Cosmopolis

by

Timm Gehrmann

Fachsemester: 6. Semester (SS 06)

Content Page

I Introduction I

I The character of Patrick Bateman I

II The character of Eric Packer I

V Comparison of the two characters

V Bibliography

I Introduction

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis and Cosmpolis by Don De Lillo both are stories that depict the decadence of their time, hinting at social, moral and political issues that are of importance in their respective times.

In both books New York as the world centre of capitalism serves as a stage for two main characters who are shapen by the enormous amounts of money they have at their disposal. The characters and their interaction with society are the central points in both books. While Don De Lillo′s Cosmopolis deals at a time no clearly defined, which is probably supposed to be the post modern world of the early 2000s, Bret Easton Ellis′ book is set in the booming New York of the 80s where people who work on Wall Street are treated like pop stars and many of them well known as heroes of capitalism (e.g. Warren Buffet and Donald Trump). The book by Bret Easton Ellis takes us into this decadent cocain addicted world, that basically revolves the hunger for parties and sex.

The book by Don De Lillo presents a totally different atmosphere. The atmosphere is rather shapen by fear of those that have come too short in the capitalist world and the security needs of those who work on wall street who have by now become anonymous figures, that may only be identified by their stretch limousines. The world of Cosmopolis has become darker and more dangerous; wild parties are no longer celebrated, just as get togethers of business people don′t seem to happen in public, mainly for security reasons. The pace of the world has also changed as computers and video transmit news from all over the world into cars that have become indistinguishable from offices.

Yet both books have a lot in common in terms of the topics they deal with and the kinds of characters they portrait. While Cosmopolis only draws a kind of gloomy atmosphere, American Psycho is also one of the funniest books I have ever read and has been turned into a fantastic movie, with which I have compared some of the scenes.

II The Character of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho

American Psycho is set in the stock-market fueled economy, cocaine addicted investment banking world of mid to late 80s New York. AIDS is an issue in the book, but only a minor one, since those that are white, male and rich cannot get the disease since it it according to van Patten, one of the investment banking yuppies dealing with mergers and acquisitions who is in Patrick Bateman’s peer group, states that there is only a zero-zero-zero point zero-one percentage of getting the virus. 

The story is accompanied by the “hip to be square” attitude of everybody that surrounds Patrick – everybody is rich, everybody is good looking and everybody has a great body¹. This leads to a certain uniformity of all high class wall street people that all share the same interests, the same clothes, vacation spots etc. and that are thus easily mistaken for each other, leading to an unability to make out the individual. In this world everything is valued according to its price (haircuts, apartments)², its rarity (e.g. the Dorsia’s restaurant where it is almost impossible to get a reservation) or the fame of people (e.g. the Pizza place with bad pizza that suddenly becomes a lot better in the light of having been chosen as number one pizzeria by Donald Trump,)³. In Patrick’s world a Pizza can cost 90 $ or a couple of cups of coffee can amount to 300 $, but nobody cares⁴. Everything is concentrated on superficial things such as these prices – and only in the light of this superficiality the character of Patrick Bateman makes any sense.

The main character and narrator, Patrick Bateman, is a young and succesful investment banker who works for the reknown investment broker Pierce & Pierce. It remains unknown to the reader of the book and to the audience of the movie how Patrick managed to get his job at Pierce & Pierce and we never really see Patrick working seriously in his office (e.g. in one scene he is visited by a private detective and after his remark “I know how busy you guys can get” he cleans his table of Sports Illustrated magazines and the ever present Walk-Man)⁵, but even even though this is the case he still claims in conversation with Merelyn, one of the girls he sees and has sex with, that he cannot take the time off, when she asks him to marry her⁶.

[....]

1 Easton Ellis, p. 22

2 Easton Ellis, p. 20

3 Easton Ellis, p. 106

4 Easton Ellis, p. 346

5 Easton Ellis, p. 258

6 American Psycho, 0:09:23