Patrick Bateman in American Psycho - A Freudian Analysis

Character Description Patrick Bateman was a young, white, ivy leagued male who worked on Wall Street in the 1980s era of self indulgence and materialism. He was driven to be perfect and to be the best at everything he does no matter what the cost. Material things meant more to Patrick than life itself which was clearly stated in the movie. Patrick was vain and self absorbed person who treated his body like a temple. He spent his days and nights doing vigorous workouts, mergers and acquisitions on Wall Street, fine dining with beautiful ladies and satisfying an insatiable and uncontrollable lust for torture and murder in the big apple. Patrick Bateman was the ultimate serial killer who killed victims from all walks of life such as†¦show more content†¦According to Freud, this is one of the main indicators that a person can have as a result of a phallic fixation. Patricks conscience obviously did not play a role in his actions because he appeared to feel no remorse or concern afterwards - only contentment and a sense of impatience for the next time that he could kill again. Why Patrick lacked this conscience is anyones guess, but Freud might say that it could be traced back to the beginning stages of personality development, particularly at the Latency Stage when morals and values are developed. There seemed to be nothing in Patricks head that talked sense or reason into him to prevent his unconscious urges from rising to the surface possibly because he had not learned them during the Latency Stage of development. Freud might say that Patrick hit a roadblock during this stage of development due to his own self described depersonalization and failure to feel compassion or empathy for others (Harron, 2000). Patricks values and beliefs all seemed to orbit around materialism, perfection, wealth, power and greed which can be developed at this stage and can provide problems in adulthood if the values and morals are not developed at this time. The movie is based on a character from the 1980s when many people were thinking individualistically and were very materialistic in nature (Putman, 2000). Perhaps Patrick was simply a product of his environment or perhaps it was a combination of a