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 a Sunday afternoon and Bateman is shopping at Barney’s. He spots Luis Carruthers, hiding behind a pole and watching him closely. Luis pretends to notice Bateman unexpectedly, and begins following him around the store, begging him to please talk to him. Bateman feels sick and tries to shake off Luis, but he is relentless. Luis tells Bateman that he’s sick over him, and Bateman replies that he simply has a demented obsession. “I know you feel the same way I do,” Luis tells Bateman. This continues for quite some time until, ultimately, Luis has collapsed to the floor, sobbing and begging Bateman to be with him.
Luis Carruthers is back and as pitiful as ever, once again stalking Bateman around a luxury clothing store and professing his love for him. Bateman’s response is the same as it always has been: disgusted rejection. At the same time, the way that Luis keeps appearing suddenly raises the possibility that Luis is actually a hallucination, a kind of projection of Bateman’s own fragile and insecure sense of himself and his masculinity.
Themes
The scene is out of control: Luis is sobbing, racks are being knocked over, and Bateman is trying to convince those around them that there’s nothing to see. Luis is inconsolable, and tells Bateman that he’d rather just be killed than go on like this. Bateman grabs him by the collar and menacingly tells him that he will kill him, that he’s done it before and would delight in doing it again, before throwing him back to the ground. Eventually, Luis is able to compose himself and Bateman leaves him behind in the store. As Bateman leaves, Luis tells him that he loves him.
Bateman’s insecurities are in full relief in this scene, as he runs from Luis out of fear that people will get the idea that Bateman might also be gay. Such a prospect would be catastrophic for Bateman and his fragile masculinity. Just as terrifying might be the prospect of love – gay or straight. Above all, Bateman wants to control his own image, to look powerful, and anything that threatens that – being seen as guy, being seen as emotionally open – is something he can’t bear.
Themes
