I just finished American Psycho (I read it with the intention of analyzing it when I was done) and boy do I have some thoughts. I have two majors points; my overall theory of the story and a brief analysis of the ending.

1. Looking at all the evidence I saw in the book, I don’t think any of it was real, as in I think Patrick Bateman made all the events of the story up. I don’t doubt that Patrick certainly works in mergers and acquisitions at Pierce and Pierce or that he’s attended many dinners at fancy places with his coworkers or even that many women seem to fancy him.

I do, however, doubt that he actually commited any murders. It’s my theory that Patrick Bateman simply sits in his office, working as he should, and fantasizes about committing gruesome murders. I truly believe Bateman only fantasizes about giving into his more violent urges, hence why some murders are discussed in detail while others are brushed over.

I wouldn’t doubt that he has killed animals or hurt some of the escorts he’s hired, but I believe Bateman is simply an unreliable narrator whose conveying to us his inner desires of causing violence instead of actually following through on them.

Also, some of the logistics just don’t make sense for these things to have actually happened, like how he do easily killed the child at the zoo in a crowd of people or how nothing was said about the missing escorts that he had murdered, as well as the open house at Paul Owen’s apartment. One of the biggest nails in the coffin for me for this theory was when Patrick’s lawyer said he had lunch with Paul after Patrick was supposed to have murdered him. Now this could be a case of mistaken identity as Patrick’s lawyer calls him Davis, but since Paul is portrayed to be a ‘cooler’ guy than Patrick, I highly doubt that the lawyer confused someone else for Paul.

I also call forth just the flat out absurd things that Patrick says out loud to people that warrant zero reaction whatsoever. Patrick routinely says things like how he’s like to hurt people or that he’s committed these heinous acts and no one bats an eye, either not acknowledging it or laughing it off. I believe Patrick is either imagining a scenario where he could say these things without consequence or is saying them in his head during real interactions.

All these factors lead me to believe that all of American Psycho results from Patrick’s fantasies of diverging from his current life to commit these gruesome murders but never actually following through.

2. The ending of the book, the “this is not an exit” sign. To me, this could have two possible meanings. I think it can either stand for there being no escape from the life that Patrick is currently living, or that no one has an escape from the capitalist world that he and others like him have built and have and will continue to benefit from.

Arguing for the sign meaning that Patrick cannot escape, we see that Patrick is bored with his current life, he’s reaching for more both within his job (the fisher account) and outside of it (the women and restaurants and murders alike), so then the “this is not an exit” sign poses to him that he is stuck in what he is and what he has now. He will never get the fisher account, he will have to settle for Jean, he will never be ‘in’ enough to secure a reservation at Dorsia on the fly, and he will never have the guts to go through with his innermost violent urges, that what he is now is all he will ever be and that he can’t escape that.

Arguing for the sign meaning that we cannot escape, I think that with the overarching themes in the book, that the “this is not an exit” sign could very well be pointed at us, the readers. If we were to operate under the notion that Patrick did actually commit these murders, then we have just seen him escape all his actions with no consequences at the end of the story, despite the fact that his crimes warrant severe legal punishment. He is a member of the financial elite, even if he is a loser among his peers. His wealth and status leave him virtually untouchable by these consequences while a normal person caught doing half of the things Patrick did would likely be looking at a life sentence.

Capitalism, at least in the way 1980’s America had it, allowed people like Patrick Bateman to do essentially whatever they wanted with barely a slap on the wrist. At least right now, we don’t have a good way to punish Patrick because there is so much working to keep him in a safe zone. Even though we saw all the atrocities commited by Bateman, this will not serve as a good enough wake up call to change our system, this is not an exit.

-a horror book enthusiast with a lot of time on his hands

Please let me know what you think! I’d love to have discussions about this book, about my specific theory or just about the book, because a lot of my friends haven’t/won’t read it

Edit: I now understand that Ellis did confirm that the murders did happen but this is just how I like to interpret what I read.