American Psycho Essay

In David Fincher’s The Social Network and J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, a story of two young men, Holden Caulfield and Mark Zuckerberg face many difficulties and ultimately are very vulnerable souls. The dilemmas that Holden and Mark face are alienation, betrayal and identity. Fincher and Salinger both use many techniques in order to highlight these dilemmas, including setting, the theme of friendship/loyalty and symbolism.

In the book Holden succeeds in making us think that the world is crazy. Shortly after Holden leaves Pencey Prep, he checks in to the Edmont Hotel in Manhattan which was "full of perverts and morons. There were screwballs all over the place." His situation only worsens from this point on as the more he looks around this world, the more depressing life seems.

It is quiet tragic for Holden, for he has to act composed and “cool” despite his somber resulting from the destruction of his symbol of childhood memories, which essentially contribute to his real identity.

Lacking sureness in his own sexuality, Holden’s redundant use of the word “pervert” displays his anxiety over how well he can handle intimacy. Staying in the Edmont Hotel for a night, Holden spots a crossdressing man and “…a man and a

Finally, Holden’s overly judgmental and critical. When he sees someone he automatically judges the person because they aren’t in his perfect fantasy. In the bar he points out the “flits” (gay people) and, he thinks that his old roommate Dick Slagle has a inferiority complex just because he didn’t put his suitcases on out to show when Holden did. Holden thinks of Mr. Haas (his “phony” headmaster) as someone "[shakes] hands with them and [gives] them a phony smile (14)." Holden thinks of Ernie the piano player as someone who has been affected by “phoniness” in order to attain fame.

Although Holden “hardly even know[s]” James, he sees him as someone who is real and not phony, admiring his resistance to lie (Salinger 171. The deaths of Allie and James cause Holden to contemplate suicide in order to escape the world of phoniness he lives in. Consequently, Holden’s constant thoughts about suicide lead to his own loss of innocence and advancement toward adulthood.

suited to film. It is no accident that he was the composer for some of

Instead of acknowledging that adulthood scares and mystifies him, Holden invents a fantasy that adulthood is a world of superficiality and hypocrisy (“phoniness”), while childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity, and honesty. Nothing reveals his image of these two worlds better than his fantasy about the catcher in the rye: he imagines childhood as an idyllic field of rye in which children romp and play; adulthood, for the children of this world, is equivalent to death—a fatal fall over the edge of a cliff. His created understandings of childhood and adulthood allow Holden to cut himself off from the world by covering himself with a protective armor of cynicism. But as the book progresses, Holden’s experiences, particularly his encounters with Mr. Antolini and Phoebe, reveal the shallowness of his conceptions.

Hitchcock's Psycho Psycho first hit our screens in 1960 directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It faced major controversy, as it was different. Horror films before this were more unrealistic and gruesome. Psycho was a groundbreaking film of the horror genre. It was more realistic the events could happen in reality.

There are many theories about what shapes an individual’s personality and when following these approaches, sense can be made of a certain person’s behavior. Charles Manson is a well-known serial killer whose personality is reflective of two specific personality theorists’ views. Sigmund Freud, whose psychosexual stages of development could explain some of the traits held by Manson. Karen Horney was another theorist whose views on childhood love and nurturing, or lack of it, could explain Charles Manson’s personality. Gathered information on

As Holden enters the Museum of National History, his fears change into difficulty. He likes everything easily understandable. He is afraid to admit fear but only admits it in a few instances such as “Sex is something I just don’t understand. I swear to God I don’t.” Instead of facing adulthood, he traps himself in his own little childhood world thinking about his dream job, catching little kids that are about to fall off a rye cliff.

“I don’t like any shows very much, if you want to know the truth. They’re not as bad as movies, but they’re certainly nothing to rave about. In the first place, I hate actors. They never act like people. They just think they do. Some of the good ones do, in a very slight way, but not in a way that’s fun to watch. And if any actor’s good, you can always tell he knows he’s good, and that spoils it…If an actor acts it out, I hardly listen. I keep worrying about whether he’s going to do something phony every minute.” He finds the theater phony because instead of demonstrating reality as it is, the emphasis is placed on polishing it theatrically. Holden feels anger towards his brother because “he’s out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute.” He considered that D.B. was selling himself to Hollywood, which is why he called D.B. a prostitute. He considers the movies phony and hates them so much that “… I don’t think I could ever do it with somebody that sits in a stupid movie all day long” when Sunny the prostitute was in his room. When he dances with Bernice Crabs/Krebs, he considers her a moron partially because she was on the lookout for actors at the bar because she had seen an actor the previous night. Also, it depressed him that they were planning on waking up early the next day to see the first show at Radio City Music Hall. Holden’s criticism towards the phony things in society is the most important part of his personality because it shows that

Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho Psycho, by Alfred Hitchcock, was shocking for its time. Made in the 1960's when film censorship was very tight to today's standards, Hitchcock pushed the limits of what could be shown and did with psycho things that had never been done before. The cinematic art, symbolism and sub-conscious images in this film were brilliant for the time and still are now. Realised for this, psycho has been copied in many ways and the things that made it great have become very clichéd.

Though Holden focuses on his depression, he represents a large part of the United States’ population. On several occasions, he describes his desolation. Mentally lost and lonely in New York City, Holden finds himself with a headache and the inability to sleep, saying, “I think I was more depressed than I ever was in my whole life” (Salinger 214). Relatively, the highest rate of depression occurs from ages 12-17 (Pratt)

In Nemesis, Philip Roth constructs a dynamic between disease and a reinvention of the self through Bucky Cantor’s attempts at heroism. Set in the 1944 polio epidemic of Newark, New Jersey during World War II, the novel tells the story of a young man, Bucky, whose town lives in a state of fear of the disease. Bucky’s futile attempts to overcome the fear of this deadly pestilence and become a hero ultimately bring him to his downfall. Through Bucky’s endeavors, the disease consumes him, both literally and metaphorically, which leads to his failure to achieve the manhood and heroism he craves. Though these themes are presented in several points in the novel, a scene where Bucky becomes spends time with his girlfriend, Marcia, serves to highlight his childish naivety and fear of the situation that is brought about by his strong fixation on the polio epidemic. It becomes apparent that these factors block his path toward manhood, making him vulnerable to the evils of disease, and preventing him from becoming the man he expects himself to be.