Daniel Cojocaru paper COV&R 2007

Confessions of an American Psycho: James Hoggs and Bret Easton Ellis Anti-Heroes Journey from Vulnerability to Violence

My vitals have all been torn, and every faculty of and feeling of my soul racked, and tormented into callous insensibility. [] I could perceive no bottom, and thennot till then, did I repeat the tremendous prayer!I was instantly at liberty; and what I now am, the Almighty knows! Amen.

My conscience, my pity, my hopes disappeared a long time ago (probably at Harvard) if they ever did exist. [] My pain is constant and sharp []. But even after admitting this[] and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself. [] This confession has meant nothing.

167 years lie between the publication of James Hoggs The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (henceforth: Confessions) and Bret Easton Ellis American Psycho. Yet one cannot but be amazed at the striking similarities of the main protagonists insights at the end of the respective novels. Although connections between works of Gothic Romanticism and postmodern narratives have been duly noted, possible reasons for analogies remain largely unexplored.[1] It will be argued that both novels are representations of worlds immersed in what René Girard has termed deviated transcendency in Deceit, Desire and the Novel (henceforth: Deceit), resulting in similar stages of narrative progression, which in turn can be analyzed in terms of Girards mimetic cycle of violence.

At a first glance the two pieces seem to be concerned with themes which to a secularized age must appear most disparate. But as Girard has noted: The very idea of mediation encourages literary comparisons at a level which is no longer that of genre criticism or thematic criticism []. It may illuminate the works through each other. (Deceit 23). Hoggs narrative deals with the problem of antinomianism and the resulting spiritual pride. The anti-hero of the narrative, Robert Wringhim, relies on his belief that he is one of the elect and cannot fall from grace and consequently is convinced by his elusive friend Gil-Martin to become a murderer without having to fear punishment. American Psycho on the other hand is concerned with the consequences of the crass materialism of the US-American yuppie generation, culminating at the end of the 1980s, as experienced by the serial-killing first person narrator Patrick Bateman. However, one could argue that on the very first pages American Psycho presents the reader with a secularized version of antinomianism. Michael Steig has fleetingly noted that the egocentric doctrines of antinomianism psychologically resemble the Im alright tenets of yuppie-pseudo psychology (196). Timothy Price, one of Batemans working colleagues on Wall Street expresses this in the following words: In essence what Im saying is that society cannot afford to lose me. Im an asset. (Ellis 3). Translated into antinomian terms one could say that he is one of the elect, one of the privileged enjoying capitalist heaven on earth and by saying that society cannot afford to lose him, he, in the same way as Wringhim believes that he cannot fall from grace or at least he tries to believe it.

I was well aware that the devilish powers of his mother would finally prevail; and either the dread of this, or the inward consciousness of having wronged him, certainly unnerved my arm. (Hogg 77). If, in the preceding passage of a quarrel with a fellow pupil at school, Robert gives himself away of doubting his own words through the rhetorical device of correctio, so does Timothy by the choice of his words. It is exactly because he is an asset that society can afford to lose him. By being literally transformed into a commodity, society can discard him and in the novel indeed does so. It is one of the many ironies of the narrative that Price disappears soon after the above statement and only reappears on the final pages with rumours having him returned from rehab (Ellis 397). So yuppies like Price are under the constant threat of losing their privileged position in society. It is worth noting that in the film adaptation by director Mary Harron, Bateman, the personified Everyyuppie (Kooijman &Lane 49), narrates his first murder after the following incident:

I decide to even up the score a little bit by showing everyone my new business card. I pull it out of my gazelleskin wallet (Barneys $850) and slap it on the table, waiting for reactions. [] New card. I try to act casual about it but Im smiling proudly. [] Thats bone, I point out. And the lettering is something called Silian Rail. [] Its very cool, Bateman, Van Patten says guardedly, [] but thats nothing. He pulls out his wallet and slaps a card next to an ashtray. Look at this. [] Im looking at Van Pattens card and then at mine and cannot believe that Price actually likes Van Pattens better.

The above passage offers a first hint at Batemans overly mimetic being. It is not that he himself thinks that Van Pattens card is better than his or that there even be an inherent quality in Van Pattens card that makes it better. It is Prices judgment that convinces Bateman that his card is of an inferior quality: The object has disappeared completely. (Deceit 87). I want to fit in, Bateman states, when asked by his ex-girlfriend Bethany , why he does not quit his job, if he is so uptight with it (Ellis 241). His desire to fit in is so strong that he imitates the very ideal of the Everyyuppie. Yet his mimesis is indirect. He imitates the very scripts that form the banal hollow of popular culture at the height of the Reagan-era. (Blazer par. 2). In his case semiosis becomes mimesis. (Mandel 14). Bateman becomes an expert in dressing in style, in securing reservations at new and expensive restaurants and staying in great physical shape in short an expert in adapting to the Baudrillardian hyperreality world of pure signification (Blazer 2). His striving is mirrored in the narrative itself, which is largely a collage of restaurant and music-album reviews, remarks about what was on The Patty Winters Show (comparable to The Oprah Winfrey Show), exasperating descriptions of en vogue brand products and detailed descriptions of his murders, which can be understood as a parody of the slasher genre (Price 328). It is the very structure of superficiality of the novel that R.Z. Shephard has criticized: writing superficially about superficiality equals complacency (qtd. in Jacobsen par. 6). Ellis novel thus not only functions as critique of consumerism but is paradoxically brought forth by and is part of its emptiness. Batemans very perception of people (and for that matter, as he narrates the story, the readers) operates almost exclusively along the categories of empty commodities: Luis is wearing a wool-crepe suit, a cotton broadcloth shirt and a silk tie, all by Ralph Lauren. Like me, like Charles, he wears his hair slicked back and hes wearing Oliver Peoples redwood-framed glasses. Mine, at least, are non-prescription. (222). Since everybody imitates the same yuppie-ideal script, it becomes increasingly difficult to be truly different from others, as Patrick recognizes: But this couple looks like theyve strolled out of a Ralph Lauren ad, [] Jean and I do too (and so does the rest of the whole goddamn restaurant) []. (261).

The almost complete identification of persons according to how they are dressed leads to an increasing confusion of identities[2]: Owen has mistaken me for Marcus Halberstam [] but for some reason it really doesnt matter and it seems a logical faux pas since Marcus works at P&P also, in fact does the same exact thing I do, and he also has a penchant for Valentino suits and clear prescription glasses and we share the same barber at the same place, [] (89). Although Niklas Luhmann is right that the religious and stratifying functions of conflicts of imitation do not apply in a capitalist society, his claim that conflicts of imitation are due to the lack of purchasing power (145) is inadequate. In Batemans world no such lack exists. Since everyone can afford anything, conflictive mimesis is revealed to remain a spiritual problem and is even exacerbated. Although this rivalry is the source of considerable material benefits, it also leads to even more considerable spiritual sufferings, for nothing material can appease it. (Deceit 137). James R. Giles has observed that Bateman appears more liberal and compassionate than his friends (162). His understanding of the process of rivalry may, therefore, be more lucid: becoming an asset means the erasure of ones identity and the assuming of a hollow outside shell, dictated by the logic of consumerism. In Batemans case his vulnerability that allows that insight is erased by the process of depersonalization as he himself describes:

There wasnt a clear, identifiable emotion within me, except greed and possibly total disgust. I had all the characteristics of a human being flesh, blood, skin, hair, but my depersonalization was so intense, had gone so deep, that the normal ability to feel compassion had been eradicated, the victim of a slow, purposeful erasure. I was simply imitating reality, a rough resemblance of a human being, with only a dim corner of my mind functioning.

Double mediation gradually devours and digests ideas, beliefs, and values, but it respects the outer shell; it leaves a semblance of life. (Deceit 139). Or put in Batemans words: I feel like shit but look great. (Ellis 106). A very similar process of depersonalization can be observed with respect to Robert Wringhim in a remark from the editors narrative: But filled as his heart was with some portion of these bad feelings, to which all flesh is subject, he kept nevertheless, the fear of the Lord always before his eyes so far as never to omit any of the external duties of religion []. (Hogg 23). Just as Patrick follows the script of the yuppie-ideal, so Robert imitates a religious script. As Clark Hutton observes: Roberts understanding of his existence is neither inward nor subjective; rather it is based on the conflicting opinions of others. (38). Having been discarded by the Laird of Dalcastle, the husband of Roberts mother, Robert is raised by his supposed father, the predestinarian pastor Wringhim. In a perversion of the story of Jacobs fight with god from Genesis 32, Robert is assured by Wringhim of his belonging to the elect. As Robert is educated in the tenets of antinomianism, his vulnerable side is increasingly erased and replaced by antinomian pride: On the whole, I remember that I got into great confusion relating to my sins and repentances, and knew neither where to begin nor how to proceed, and often had great fears that I was wholly without Christ. (Hogg 74).

[Internal] mediation triumphs in a universe where the differences between men are gradually erased. (Deceit 14). It is not long after the assurance that Roberts internal mediator Gil-Martin enters his life and increasingly governs his actions. While Robert thinks him to be the Zar of Russia, everyone else is convinced that he is the devil incarnate. Whether that be so or not is not as important as the fact that Gil-Martin fuels Roberts spiritual pride and functions as a catalyst for Robert to confirm his position as one of the elect by murdering those that are not: How much more wise would it be, thought I, to begin and cut of sinners off with the sword! For till that is effected, the saints can never inherit the earth in peace. (Hogg 85)[3]. An obvious target is Roberts brother George, the Laird of Dalcastles legitimate son and heir of the Laird. Roberts apparently spiritual motif to kill his brother only inadequately disguises the obvious material benefits he reaps from Georges death, namely becoming the heir of the Laird.

In reverse Patrick Bateman is trying to convince himself and his readers that there are only material reasons concerned in his first murder in the film and the novel: You know how bad you smell? You reek of shit. Did you know that? Im sorry Al, its just that I dont have anything in common with you. (Harron 0:20:40). The hollow but probably well-perfumed outside shell of Patrick Bateman kills the beggar because of his bad smell. Thus he is able to disguise from himself the spiritual reasons for the murder namely that, after the lost card-contest, he is afraid of someone taking over his position as Everyyuppie. In the case of the beggar this is not possible, as the latter forms no direct threat to Patricks position. There are, however, repeated references in the novel that Patrick is viewed by his surrounding as the boy next door (18, 20, 37 etc.), thus not conforming to the yuppie-ideal. His vulnerability is ridiculed by society, so that Patrick tries even more to conform to the yuppie-ideal, by taking it to its final consequence eliminating his rivals. He really is the boy next door turned into an insecure and obsessional man [] (Blazer par. 18). Patricks double, Paul Owen (Paul Allen in the film), forms the primary threat to Batemans position. Owen handles the universally coveted Fisher account at Pierce & Pierce. To become the uncontested Everyyuppie Bateman has to surpass Owen, who forms the perfect obstacle. He is the internal mediator whose very being Patrick covets. (Deceit 53). Eventually Bateman kills Owen with an axe and then pretends to be Paul Owen while in company with prostitutes and escort girls in Owens flat: needless to say that his sexuality also follows a script, namely the script of hardcore porn films. To cover up the murder, Bateman leaves a message on Owens answering machine imitating his victims voice, informing any callers that he has left for London indefinitely. In the Confessions Robert too assumes the identity of his brother George Colwan, after murdering him. The murder of the rival is the result of the very definition of deviated transcendency: men have become gods to each other (Deceit 61). Fleeing from his crimes Robert goes by the name of Cowan but changes it to his brothers name: No: Cowan is my sirname, said I, But why not Colwan, there being so little difference in the sound? Interestingly, he is also mistaken for his brother: Is it not the young laird who was murdered whom you resemble so much? (Hogg 146).

[No] human hand shall ever henceforth be able to injure your life, or shed a drop of your precious blood[.] (Hogg 114). Gil-Martins condition for this assurance is that Robert remains on his demonic path. Although in the Confessions the reasons for Roberts preservation remain within the realm of the supernatural, there are hints at mimetic reasons. As a friend of George Colwan, Thomas Drummond, is on trial for the murder of the former, the editor captures the statements of the witnesses as follows: Not one of them could swear that it was Drummond who came to the door, and desired to speak with the deceased, but the general impression on the minds of them all, was to that effect. (Hogg 38). The effacement of clearly defined identities is as present as it is in American Psycho, and although the capacity to impersonate the likeness of people is reserved for Gil-Martin and his disciple Robert and remains in the realm of the supernatural, it is clearly what saves Robert from being recognized as Georges murderer. One of the witnesses explains: I saw [Drummond] going eastward. [] At the very same time, I saw two men[.] [] One of them was extremely like Drummond. (Hogg 51).

The confusion of identities is also what saves Patrick Bateman from suspicion. As a private detective, Donald Kimball, starts to investigate the disappearance of Paul Owen, Bateman has to explain his whereabouts on the night of the disappearance. Bateman had dinner with Owen who mistook him for Marcus Halberstram. Faced with the question, he pretends to be at a loss. At a second meeting Kimball answers the question for him. According to information from Owens secretary, Owen was supposed to have dinner with Halberstram. The latter however has an alibi. He was at Harrys with some working colleagues. Thus far there is nothing unusual for the reader to observe, as he is aware that Bateman pretended to be Halberstram. The detective, however, lets Bateman know that according to his investigation Patrick was at Harrys too he has a perfect alibi as well. It is not surprising that in a world with extremely shallow identities, where everybody starts to resemble one another, someone could have mistaken Bateman for someone else. What remains an enigmatic reality in the Confessions and thus makes it a more pleasurable novel can be clearly traced to the processes of deviated transcendency in American Psycho.

Due to the loss of differences, the respective societies in the novels cannot any longer with certainty identify the murderers who apparently threaten the social fabric. Thus the anti-heroes are allowed to continue to rage at will. Their murders continue because, although they have killed their rivals and taken their position, the promise of being, connected to the murders, has failed them. They have to recognize that there is no original. The mediator [] is a first copy. (Deceit 73). Patricks search for understanding his own and societys being continues through his atrocities against women. Because Patrick fails to differentiate himself from his colleagues he is afraid of beings who indeed are different from him and which he therefore suspects of having an identity which he lacks. Therefore women (and indeed homeless people) seem to him the ideal victims for this quest for identity: As usual, in an attempt to understand these girls, I am filming their deaths. (Ellis 304). Martin Weinreich observes: It appears that Patrick Bateman murders in order to discover something authentic, something remotely meaningful [] beyond the surface [] of images and signs. (72). That would however mean that he would have to take responsibility for his own violence. And it is exactly that which he evades by retreating to the world of surface: And though it does sporadically penetrate how unacceptable some of what Im doing actually is, I just remind myself that this thing, this girl, this meat is nothing, is shit. (Ellis 345). And as with anything else, murder and torture become a meaningless repetition for Patrick: [B]ut then Im used to the horror. It seems distilled. Even now it fails to upset or bother me. His own violence numbs him and his reality becomes increasingly blurred and devoid of conscious agency: Her breasts have been chopped off, though I dont remember doing this. (Ellis 344).

Robert Wringhim, like Patrick lacking an identity of his own, also directs his violence towards women: I brought myself to despise, if not to abhor the beauty of women: I gloried in my acquisition. (Hogg 78). In the course of the narrative he is suspected of having killed his mother and his mistress, although he disguises those facts from his conscience. There are only hints that this is the case: My mother found! said I. And, pray, where has she been all this while? Been sir! Been? Why, she has been where ye pat her, it seems, - lying buried in the sands o the linn. (Hogg 142). As to Patrick, the question of agency becomes increasingly blurred to him: It is impossible that I can have been doing a thing, and not doing it at the same time. I have a second self; or that there is some other being who appears in my likeness. (Hogg 122). As this state becomes increasingly unbearable, Roberts deviated transcendency reaches its culmination. He recognizes that he desires the very nothingness he consists of: My principal feeling, about this time, was an insatiable longing for something that I cannot describe or denominate properly, unless I say it was for utter oblivion that I longed. (Hogg 126).

Meanwhile, Patrick is still looking for a way to confirm his unique identity. Having failed to establish a unique identity as a yuppie since [e]verybodys rich, good looking and has a great body (Ellis 23) , he tries to be acknowledged by society as a serial killer. It is crucial to be very careful how this attempt at escaping nothingness is narrated. Bateman describes the world outside his reality as follows: Everything outside of it, is like a movie I once saw. (Ellis 345). When Bateman shoots an old lady on the street, a police car notices the act and a wild car chase ensues. It has been observed that the first person narrator Bateman switches to third person narrative (Giles 170; Helyer 741; Jacobsen par. 11). In addition to other possible reasons for this switch, it can be seen as an indication that he tries to create that outside reality. However, one of his stray bullets hits a police cars gas tank and Bateman gets away. Considering the above statement that everything outside Batemans reality is a movie he once saw, it is not surprising that the only means he has to construct that outside reality is in the film stereotype of a car chase scene. After escaping the police, he calls his lawyer Harold Carnes in an act of desperation and leaves a message on his answering machine, confessing all his crimes. The next time he sees him at Harrys his lawyers reaction is nothing but consistent with the progressing erasure of distinct identities throughout the novel and film. His Lawyer mistakes Bateman for Davis and although he has received his appalling confession, he laughs it away: Your joke was amusing. But [] you had one fatal flaw: Batemans such a bloody ass-kisser such a brown-nosing goody-goody, that I couldnt fully appreciate it. (Ellis 388). As Bateman insists on the truth of his confession, Carnes is annoyed and tells him that it cannot be true: BecauseIhad dinnerwith Paul Owentwicein London just ten days ago. (Ellis 388).

In an article on the film version of American Psycho, Jaap Kooijman and Tarja Laine argue that Paul Allen is indeed alive and that Bateman has only fantasized his murders (7). They try to corroborate their reading by pointing to a scene in which Bateman calls a barmaid a fucking ugly bitch. (Harron 0:04:11) They claim that the words are actually never uttered since the barmaid does not react to them and only exist within Batemans mirrored face behind the bar. There are, however many more instances, where Bateman actually does utter shocking words and does get a reaction. For example when he answers two models that he is into murders and executions they repeat his words as mergers and acquisitions. (Harron 0:59:13) A reading in which such words are never actually uttered, denies the very crisis of epistemology (Weinreich 77) due to the loss of differences. This crisis is also represented on the language level by the subtle irony that plays with the duplicity of language and allows for the misunderstandings that let Patrick get away with murder. That recalls Benvenistes neglect of the violent part of words, of which Girard reminds us in Violence and the Sacred (263). It is in these dialogues that the key to the apparent dissonance between the parodic discourses and the violent passages is found (Price 327). This echoes what Ian Campbell has noted about the Confessions: the ridicule of misapplied language is one of the primary means by which Hogg achieves his major fictive excellence [] (22).

It has been claimed that there is no difference if the murders happened or not. (Mandel 11). However, as soon as one denies one possibility, the undecidibility the text so beautifully displays is lost and identity is conferred to Bateman either as murderer or psychotic. But Batemans role remains ambiguous. The fact that Carnes mistakes Bateman for Davies is an indication that the reader can never be sure that it is indeed Allen who Carnes has had dinner with and forms another ambiguity that is deeply rooted in the mimetic structure of the novel and film. Finally, if Bateman simply suffers from a very severe psychotic disorder, it would absolve society from being responsible in his making. Such a reading misses the most poignant and disturbing irony in the novel and the film: a society of crass materialism of which Bateman is a product, is no longer interested in stopping people like Bateman, but is with eyes open encouraging him to continue his elimination of replaceable, hollow, identical human beings. The passage is the recognition of the connection between individual desire and collective structure (Deceit 226). What Bateman refuses to accept is that everybody shares equal responsibility, because everybody participates in the destruction of a cultural order. (Violence and the Sacred 71). Or as David W. Price puts it: We are all Batemans. (329). Negating that connection means to embrace Batemans words that his confession has meant nothing (Ellis 377) and be included into the texts irony.

The worst thing about our intellectual life nowadays is its implicit or explicit agreement with the famous Shakespearean phrase about the sound and the fury signifying nothing. (Foreword xiii). Ellis anticipates the reaction of his postmodern readers and bypasses any discussions about the reality of the narrated atrocities by quoting from Notes from Underground: Both the author of these Notes and the Notes themselves are, of course fictional. Nevertheless, such persons not only exist in our society, but indeed must exist, considering the circumstances under which our society has generally been formed. (Ellis no pagination). Thus Giles point that it is improbable that Bateman has three vaginas stored in his locker is irrelevant (168). The violence is relocated to the readers body (Mandel 11) and the readers society. The mimetic structure of the narrative directs the readers attention to deviated transcendency as the cause of these circumstances. It is the symptomatology of deviated transcendency that those who want a humanist resolution to the monstrosity of the world Ellis presents reject. (Price 333). But in Ellis there is no positive element to counterbalance the destructive force of the social critique he has launched. (Price 333). As Bateman himself recognizes: She is searching for a rational analysis of who I am, which is, of course, an impossibility: thereisnokey. (Ellis 264). The rationalist-humanist editor of the Confessions too has to recognize that he cannot understand Roberts confession: With regard to the work itself, I dare not venture a judgement, for I do not understand it. (Hogg 174). It may actually be due to the fact that both novels defy rational analysis that they have been largely ignored by their contemporary readership. It was not until the middle of the twentieth century that Hoggs novel was critically acclaimed, whereas for American Psycho Price remarks that The only true death that can be issued against a writer has been made good in the case of Ellis: his work is being ignored. (321).

One has to leave the rational level and recognize that the key is to acknowledge authentic transcendence, i.e. leave the level of internal mediation for external mediation. There is only one passage where this seems to be the case in the novel, when Patrick goes to a concert of the pop group U2, whose songs in the 1980s were revolving around the Gospel message and the external mediator Jesus Christ:

Suddenly I get this tremendous surge of feeling, this rush of knowledge and my own heart beats faster because of this and its not impossible to believe that an invisible cord attached to Bono has now encircled me and now the audience disappears and the music slows down, gets softer, and its just Bono onstage-the stadiums deserted, the band fades away. [] But suddenly everything stops []. Bono is on the other side of the stage now [] and everything, the feeling in my heart, the sensation combing my brain, vanishes and now more than ever I need to know about the Fisher account that Owen is handling and this information seems vital, more pertinent than the bond I feel I have with Bono, who is now dissolving and remote. I turn to Paul Owen.

One could argue that because Bono is involved in external mediation through transcendence in Christ, he is the only mediator that for one instant offers Patrick real being, echoing the words of Paul imitate me as I imitate Christ (1 Corinthians 4:16f) in a world otherwise devoid of being. The moment he turns away from Bono, he is plunged back into the world of deviated transcendency and turns to his rival Paul Owen. This marvellously echoes Girards insight: From the moment the mediators influence is felt, the sense of reality is lost and judgment paralyzed. (Deceit 4).

Before Robert Wringhim is totally absorbed by Gil-Martin he too has the possibility to exchange his deviated transcendency for true transcendence: I looked again up into the cloudy veil that covered us, and thought I beheld golden weapons of every description let down on it, but all with their points toward me. I kneeled and was going to stretch out my hand to take one, when my patron seized me [] and dragged me away. (Hogg 95). Like Bateman, Robert is drawn away from true transcendence that could reveal to him his wrongdoing, back into the nothingness of internal mediation. The prayer which Gil-Martin makes him pray seals his state of nothingness. The hero decides that death is the meaning of life. (Deceit 287). And although his suicide seems to absolve him from his hell, the exhumation of his corpse by the editor suggests something else: I hae often wondered how it was that this mans corpse has been miraculously preserved frae decay, a hunder times langer than ony other bodys. (Hogg 174). Although Wringhim kills himself, death flees him (Revelation 9:6) and his preserved body is evidence that he cannot fully serve as scapegoat for a society whose judicial systems fails due to the loss of differences through deviated transcendency. Robert remains in a state of nothingness: It was merely the appearance of flesh without the substance. (Hogg 172). Thus Hogg anticipates the sacrificial crisis of the modern (Violence and the Sacred 189), in which differences can no longer be restored to society through the expulsion of the single victim. Bateman, who would gladly offer himself as that victim in exchange for identity is repudiated by a society that has reached a stage of the sacrificial mechanism that echoes Pauls warning to the Galatians: But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another. (5:15) And that is all that is left for him to do:

There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane the vicious and the evil. All the Mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it, I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others.

Bateman experiences that pain, as if no one else was feeling the same, (Johnsen 35), whereas in the final scene at Harrys it is more than probable that everyone feels like Bateman: Everyone thinks that he alone is condemned to hell, and that is what makes it hell. (Deceit 57). Unlike the Stendhalian universe (Deceit 147), Ellis and Hoggs universe seems to have reached the point of complete absence of order a further stage of the gradual sacrificial crisis of the modern world. Both texts are set at the end of an era, a culture: the Confessions just prior to the Union of Parliaments that sealed the dependence of

Scotland

England

, whereas American Psycho implicitly deals with the Wall Street crash of 1987.[4] They both demonstrate that at the cause of the collapse of the respective cultures is deviated transcendency which results through the failing of the judicial system in unrestrained violence. Or as Gil Bailie puts it: Things can still perish through strife. Violence is losing its culture-founding and culture-rejuvenating power. (55).

In November 2006 13 adolescents repeatedly raped a 13-year-old girl in the Zurich area, filming part of their violence with their mobile phones. Media coverage was of course massive and the public sought reasons for how such horrid acts had been possible. Some of the adolescents under suspicion when asked, callously answered that they were surprised that what they had done should be rape . This in turn raised a discussion about the broadcasting of hardcore pornography on Swiss television, as it seemed obvious that the perpetrators had been inspired by these programs, which represent a distorted image of sexuality. In the aftermath of the media-hype, Star TV,

Switzerland

s largest privately owned TV-channel, decided to discontinue their hardcore porn programme Lovers TV due to the public pressure. With the internet as a ready, mostly unmonitored source for pornography available, it is questionable, however, if this will really prevent the creation of new Patrick Batemans. In this case tolerating hardcore pornography means the erasure of the vulnerability of our youth and perpetuates violence against women.

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[1] Cf. Stirling, Heyeler and Giles (168). Joel Faflak observes that the rise of the gothic coincides with the rise of capitalist market economy (108). It is thus not surprising that when capitalism has run its full course, that the Gothic should resurface.

[2] The film adaption by Mary Harron convincingly demonstrates that such a confusion is indeed possible.

[3] Leigh Brock argues that Bateman too thinks of his acts as being destined (7).

[4] In the film version of American Psycho the events take even place exclusively in 1987.