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Similarities Between American Psycho And Perfume

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Both American Psycho and Perfume: The story of a murderer would, at first glance, appear to have evil and unsympathetic main characters – with Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, a wealthy, young banker in Manhattan who kills and mutilates prostitutes and homeless people for fun; meanwhile in Perfume the main character is Jean-Baptiste Grenouille – who kills twenty-five young girls in order to make 'the perfect scent'. However, is it possible that these characters can be sympathised with? Can individuals ordained by society to be murderers possibly be sympathised with, or possibly even pitied?

American Psycho is set in Manhattan during the Wall Street boom of the late 1980s. The main character is Patrick Bateman – an attractive, wealthy banker; …show more content…

Hunter). This is shown highly through the use of Patrick Bateman, due to him being extreme concern over his superficial looks and the amount of material wealth he possesses (an example being when Bateman spends around 5 pages discussing his morning beauty routine – focusing on how the beauty product is the finest there is – and meanwhile also discusses his apartment, and about how expensive and tasteful all of his furniture is). Bateman is also used as a way to show how consumerism makes people a commodity - “everything is a commodity, including people”. This is especially apparent in his clear sexism – he constantly objectifies women, and never sees them as more than sexual exploits waiting to happen. Bateman tries to rationalise his behaviour of using people as commodities by saying “though it does sporadically penetrate how unacceptable some of what I'm doing actually is, I just remind myself that this thing, this girl, this meat, is

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