Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho satirizes the American Dream
(no login) Posted Apr 22, 2008 10:29 PM
Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho satirizes the American Dream
My paper will focus on the novel, American Psycho, and how author Bret Easton Ellis satirizes the American Dream through this work of fiction. Throughout this course, American Psycho was the one novel that sent chills up my spine, often forced upon me, awkward facial expressions, and made it uneasy at times to digest Ellis's next words. American Psycho remains such an extremely powerful novel due to its unfailing ability to connect to the reader through witty and real examples of the society in which we live today (assuming an American audience). I found the concept of the American Dream to be prevalent in this novel, where Bret Easton Ellis satirizes this concept, through: money, power, control, status, capitalism, materialism, and violence.
In beginning my quest for research of the American Dream, I first wanted to define what exactly the American Dream is. And who better to define this concept than the 2006 attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, of the United States, "The American dream is about living and prospering in a secure, lawful, hopeful, and safe society, and it is a dream that for many years has been protected in large part by the actions and the activities of men and women just like you�we are the stewards of the American Dream."
I will explore the idea of money and power, and how money translates into power, creating control of the superior being. I will discuss the elements of materialism in Bateman's life, as well as his colleagues, and how he refers to individuals based on material objects instead of their physical body characteristics and personality.