Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in American Psycho, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Materialism and Consumption
Identity and Isolation
Monotony and Desensitization
Vice and Violence
The Truth
Summary
Analysis
It’s now November, and Bateman is feeling horrible; his body hurts in a way that no drugs, food, or liquor can help, and he’s been taking sleeping pills constantly. Wafting into his bedroom is the fresh smell of blood cooking. A girl’s breasts are sitting prepared on china plates, while other parts of her body are strewn around the apartment and smeared on the walls. Bateman describes how he pulls a long string of her intestines out and begins shoving it into his mouth.
Bateman’s new reliance on drugs and alcohol has had an extreme effect on his life. In this chapter, we see Bateman meticulously preparing a woman’s flesh for consumption. A juxtaposition to his earlier scene preparing breakfast, Bateman has descended so far into his madness that his capitalist and materialistic consumption has morphed into a cannibalistic consumption that is overtaking his life.
Themes
Bateman is meanwhile watching “The Patty Winters Show,” and the topic is “Human Diaries.” Later in the day, he attempts to make meat loaf with the girl, but becomes frustrated and just ends up smearing the meat all over his walls and chewing on a piece of skin he’s ripped from the corpse. He goes on trying to cook as if he were a gourmet chef, humming the theme song to a show from his childhood, before giving up and sobbing to himself “I just want to be loved,” while maggots begin to crawl across the human flesh on his kitchen counter.
Unfortunately, Bateman no longer has the self-control and ability to properly prepare a meal, and ends up smearing his walls with flesh like a maniac. He is clearly distraught. As in previous moments, however, we can look to the day’s topic on “The Patty Winters Show” to gauge Bateman’s level of clarity. Today’s topic, “Human Diaries,” doesn’t make much sense at all, signifying that his narration in this chapter may not be the most reliable.
Themes
