American Psycho

At first glance, it might seem that Bateman’s acts of violence are indiscriminate. That is, while there may be reasons why he acts violently in general, his choice of victims and his specific motivations for attacking them are arbitrary or circumstantial. However, closer inspection reveals that this is not the case. His choice of victims is variegated in specific ways, as are his motivations. Bateman attacks homeless people because he hates those he considers beneath him socially. They are also easy targets. His disgust betrays a pathological obsession with order and cleanliness and a way of dealing with, by externalisation, a sense of guilt that their plight provokes.

In contrast, his abuse of women centers on control. The reader sees this in his interactions with Christie, the sex worker he picks up. He gives her precise instructions on what to do and how to wash, reflecting that “her head is within my reach, is mine to crush” (163). He wants to make her an object, something that he owns. Abuse and performing acts against her wishes affirm her role as property, as something he can dispose of. This idea is reflected in his dreams and interactions with other women: “I had dreams that were lit like pornography and in them I f****d girls made of cardboard” (192). He wants women to be like the images in pornography. Namely, empty and manipulable, forms that are vessels for his desires. While having sex with the model, Daisy, “lying beneath me she is only a shape” (205). Sex workers and models are Bateman’s ideal female victims. They are paid to dress and act exactly as he, or other men, wish. It is also why Bateman is frustrated when the other woman he orders has only “brownish blond” and not “real blond” hair (164).

His hatred of gay men has a slightly different root. Bateman’s says that he wants to kill Luis so that Courtney would perhaps “spend more time with me” (151). Yet his interest in Courtney is lukewarm at best. He abandons her to look for drugs and sex workers. More essential are his fear and disgust, but also fascination, with gay men. Bateman’s conflicted feelings are seen in his description of Luis’s handshake. He describes it as “overly firm, yet horribly sensuous” (213). Given Bateman’s love of the male form, seen in his obsession with his own physique, Luis represents a troubling possibility of emotional and sexual intimacy. Bateman deals with the anxiety provoked by his emotions by violently attacking Luis. He hopes to destroy the root of his anxiety and demonstrate his distance from it. When this fails, he kills another gay man viciously.

In the case of Paul Owen, things are more complex. Paul falls into none of the categories discussed above. In fact, he seems to occupy a slightly higher social position than Bateman. He doesn’t offer the opportunities for control, sexual gratification, or repression of desire. So why does Bateman kill him? On a superficial reading, his motive might be frustration. Drunk, Owen does not help Bateman with the “Fisher account,” the ostensible reason for their meeting. At the same time his drunkenness makes him easy prey. Perhaps it is just opportunism? That and a lingering annoyance with Owen for perpetually confusing him with another man, Marcus.

However, there may be a deeper and nonarbitrary motive. Owen resembles Bateman. Bateman sees this similarity when he deletes Owen’s answering machine message and replaces it with his own. As he says, “my voice sounds similar to Owen’s and to someone hearing it over the phone probably identical” (209). In this way, Bateman’s murder of Owen can be seen as a symbolic expression of his own self-hatred and desire for death. The reader sees this when Bateman starts talking about fighting “the urge to start slapping myself in the face” (157). His narcissism often flips into its opposite, self-hatred. The murder of Owens, a high-status individual, represents Bateman’s subconscious desire to be caught and perhaps destroyed.