EPIPHANY
WAITING FOR GODOT AND AMERICAN PSYCHO TELL THE SAME STORY. Both texts revolve around the monotony and banality of everyday life, along with the shallowness of the societies in which they were written/set!! Of course, each text portrays the frustration with this reality in very different ways: American Psycho with thick description of intense violence, and Waiting for Godot with circular, meaningless dialogue.
Dwelling on whether Patrick Bateman of American Psycho is really a psychotic murderer is entirely missing the point. It is a satire of modern American society: Bateman, like everyone else in his world, lives life on the surface. The only thing of value to him is image (which he fully acknowledges toward the end). Even his brutal murders of everyone from homeless men to prostitutes to business partners are conducted in ways that are visually pleasing to him. His shallowness prevents him from forming real, emotional, interpersonal bonds. To him, other people are just objects, like game pieces in “Monopoly.” He cannot feel empathy because he cannot connect on a human level.
But is Bateman really a villain? Is he really all that shallow in relation to those around him? How do we know that Paul Owen or Evelyn or any of the other minor characters aren’t also psychopathic murderers? They, too, seemed wrapped up in their own worlds, so directed by their own egos, that they cannot connect on any deeper of a level than Patrick Bateman. And that is Ellis’s point: when a society is built upon nothing but image and surface appeal, the result is universal dehumanization. Bateman does not feel remorse for his killings (whether real or imagined; it is irrelevant because they at least are real in his own mind), and we as readers are not really meant to empathise with his victims. They might as well not be human.
This brings me into the issues of monotony and banality. Honestly, American Psycho (the book, not the film) is kind of boring. Other than the first few murder scenes, which of course are meant to shock and horrify and entertain, the text itself is monotonous. Bateman drones on and on and on and on about clothing, music, business cards, furniture. It gets repetitive and irritating, which Ellis did intentionally. Bateman lives, like everyone else, on perpetual repeat. Even Bateman and his colleagues are indistinguishable; he cannot tell one from the other, and they misidentify him constantly. In a world where everyone is obsessed with image, with self, everyone is also the same. There is no individuality, also noted by Bateman toward the end of the book. Even the murder scenes begin to get boring after awhile; they start out shocking, but gradually they become repetitive and monotonous, just like the rest of the book. But as they become monotonous to us, the readers, they become monotonous to Patrick Bateman. What was once his escape from banal reality becomes his banal reality.
Waiting for Godot also expresses frustration with such banality, albeit much differently. In Samuel Beckett’s famous play, two old men, Vladimir and Estragon, stand around on a dirt road for two acts “waiting for Godot.” The play is filled with circular conversations, absurdities, and vaudeville-esque humor, and on the surface, it seems to all be meaningless.
But that’s just it: it is all meaningless. Waiting for Godot is nothing more than a reflection of reality, of humanity. We, as humans, are constantly waiting — for the weekend, for true love, for life’s meaning and purpose. We wait and wait and wait for something, anything, everything, searching for meaning. Like Vladimir and Estragon, whose days run together and all look the same, whose conversations are on endless repeat, we live lives of monotony and ritual. We never know who — or what — Godot is. He never comes.
Vladimir and Estragon and Patrick Bateman are all the same: human beings waiting — for Godot, for a sense of humanity, for purpose, for an end to the monotony. We are all waiting for Godot. We all "have to return some videotapes."
"THIS IS NOT AN EXIT."
