Characters

‘American Psycho’ by Bret Easton Ellis features many characters with varying personalities and histories and mashes everyone into a decadence-governed society where materialism and consumerism reside. At the heart of the characters featured in the novel lies many doubts, fears, and irregularities. However, everyone keeps it within, except Patrick Bateman, the criminal protagonist of the story.

Patrick Bateman

Patrick Bateman is the primary character of ‘American Psycho.’ He is a victim of society’s maniacal materialism worship. He becomes the antagonist in his story. Patrick is a 27-year-old investment banker who works at Pierce & Pierce in New York. He graduated from Havard University. He idolizes Donald Trump and the Patty Winters Show.

He loves music and takes his time to critique the works of Whitney Houston, Huey Lewis, and Phil Collins. Patrick is everything a person hopes for, rich, good-looking, and incredibly meticulous. He prides himself in his rigorous morning routine.

However, beneath the seemingly perfect man is a vain psychopath who has raped and murdered people. Though to the outside world, he acts concerned for the poor and suggests many alternatives to save the world, within, he has the crudest fantasies about torturing and killing the homeless. He later gives in to psychosis as the drive for stimulation becomes too much.

Timothy Price

Timothy is Patrick’s colleague and best friend. He is homophobic and constantly seeks validation from others like Patrick. Though he has a terrible personality, Patrick notes that Timothy is livelier than him as he realizes he and his fiance Evelyn, are having an affair.

David Van Patten

David Van Patten is a Wall Street Banker in Patrick’s social circle. He has a girlfriend whom he regularly cheats on and brags about. Like his friends, David is a vain man who hates poor people.

Craig McDermott

Craig is the fourth member of Patrick’s social circle. He works at Wall Street and has many connections; this gives him the upper hand in getting reservations at exclusive restaurants. Like his friends, Craig sees women as objects that should get used and dumped. 

Evelyn Richards

Evelyn is an executive at a financial services company and Patrick’s fiance. Like her boyfriend, she is vain and materialistic, often wanting the finest gifts and best clothes. Though she and Patrick are together, they despise each other but still maintain their relationship for appearances. Evelyn values money over intimacy and indulges in an affair with Timothy Price, Patrick’s best friend.

Courtney Lawrence

Courtney is Evelyn’s best friend in an unfulfilling relationship with Luis Carruthers. Court travels out of town with Patrick and his friends and starts having an affair with Patrick. Addicted to mostly anti-depressants, Courtney appears spaced out many times but still; has her physical strength.

Luis Carruthers

Luis is a closeted homosexual and Courtney’s fiance. Though he has no interest whatsoever in Courtney, he falls for Patrick, who attempts to kill him. With time, Luis becomes obsessed with Patrick and confesses his love for him. However, Patrick makes it known to him that he is not gay.

Jean

Jean is Patrick’s secretary at Pierce & Pierce. She is kind-hearted and loves Patrick. Unlike the women in his life, Jean is a genuinely lovely woman who cares about Patrick. Her sense of fashion is terrible, and she desperately tries to change when Patrick tells her to dress more femininely. After sharing a kiss with him at a restaurant, Patrick and Jean’s relationship ends.

Paul Owen

Paul Owen is an investment banker at Pierce & Pierce. He manages the Fisher Account, to Patrick’s dismay. Jealous of Paul, Bateman invites him for dinner and gets him drunk, then brutally murders him with an ax in his apartment. However, Patrick learns from his lawyer Harold Carnes that Owen is in London with him, making his death one of Bateman’s hallucinations.

Bethany

Bethany was Patrick’s girlfriend at Havard. After meeting him again, she agrees to have dinner with Bateman. However, she becomes one of his murder victims as he brutally tortures and kills her.

Christie

Christie is a prostitute Patrick meets on the streets. He names her Christie because he did not know her name. After coercing another woman, Sabrina, into his apartment, Patrick sleeps with them and tortures them. He convinces Christie to come over again and brings another woman, Elizabeth. He then brutally murders them.

Jeanette

Jeanette is a woman Patrick Bateman sleeps with.

Donald Kimball

Donald is a police detective who visits Patrick after Paul Owen’s murder. He asks Bateman questions about Owen’s disappearance, forcing him to admit they had dinner. Donald may not have existed, as Patrick learns he never killed Paul.

Vanden

Vanden is Evelyn’s friend and a student of Camden. She is Stash’s girlfriend, a man who tested positive for HIV.

Al

Al is a homeless man who Patrick attacks and disfigures. He gets blinded by the attack.

Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise is an actor living in the same apartment complex as Patrick. During a conversation with the investment banker, Tom tells Bateman he is bleeding from the nose.

Scott and Anne Smiley

Scott and Anne are a couple and Courtney Lawrence’s friends. They meet her and Patrick for dinner.

Other characters include Sean Bateman, Daisy, Patricia Worell, Scott Montgomery, Todd Hamlin, Marcus Halberstam, and Patty Winters.

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