The main character in American Psycho is
Patrick Bateman. He’s twenty six years old, rich, and handsome. He’s
very shallow and doesn’t see people for their personality, but for the
clothes they wear and items they own. His favourite show is The Patty Winters Show and
his hero is Donald Trump. He is extremely vain. He likes to brag but
when someone owns something nicer or more expensive than him, he panics
and becomes very jealous. He becomes very angry or emotional easily,
often over things such as not being able to get reservations. Patrick
describes his daily routines with painstaking detail which is pretty
boring and strange but at the same time, the fact that these are the
routines of a murderer make it somewhat interesting.
All
of his friends are just as shallow as he is. They are very cruel to
people of a lower social class than them. An example of their cruelty is
when one of Bateman’s friends, Van Patten, “waves a crisp one dollar
bill in front of the homeless bum’s face, which momentarily lights up,
then Van Patten pockets it as we’re whisked into the club.” (page 50).
His friends seem to all pretty much look the same because they often get
mistaken for other people. Patrick’s best friend is Timothy Price.
Patrick is dating a woman named Evelyn Richards but is having an affair
with Courtney Lawrence who is Luis Carruther’s girlfriend. At the
beginning of the novel he suspects Evelyn and Timothy to be having an
affair. Bateman always describes his secretary as “Jean, my secretary
who is in love with me. ” I’m not sure if she is actually in love with
him because he seems to think that a lot of women are either in love
with him or flirting with him.
