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there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real
me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can
shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our
lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there.

Bret Easton Ellis, author of the controversial book American Psycho (1991) puts
forward the thought that mind and body are distinct. The quote I shall be discussing is
one of the protagonists (Patrick Batemans) key self-analysis, in which he believes that
even though he physically exists, he is nothing more than an illusion and an abstraction.
Batemans feelings of absence are reinforced by his numerous internal monologues,
this quote being one of them. I will use Rene Descartes meditations along with the
concept of the self in order to differentiate between mind and body, and to conclude
whether Bateman is really not there.
Firstly I will look at the concept of the self. Self-analysis is the first step to
understand who you are, and self-conceptualization is a cognitive component of
oneself. Once one is fully aware of oneself, that person then has a concept of
himself/herself. This concept is usually broken down into two parts: The Existential
Self and The Categorical Self.
The existential self is the sense we get of being different from those around us,
and the realization of the constancy of the self. The categorical self is when one realizes
that he or she is distinct as well as an object in this world, thus having properties that
may be experienced, just like any other object. Bateman is convinced that there only
exists an idea of himself but no real him, nonetheless what can we define an idea to

be?

Descartes defines an idea to be a mode of thought - a means in which an

instance of thought is established. Descartes meditations lead him to his view on the
self and defining oneself. We shall now look further into Descartes three doubts:
Sense Perception, Dream/Reality distinction and The Evil Deceiver.
Descartes states that everything he has accepted as true, he has either learned
through or from the senses, however he is aware that the senses are deceptive. Sense
Perception is a way of knowing, yet if the senses may deceive us, then we should not
fully trust them. For instance, the fact that Bateman knows people can shake his hand
and feel his flesh does not necessarily mean that Bateman exists, since his senses may
be deceiving him. The word senses in Batemans internal monologue emphasizes the
importance of the senses in defining who he really is. In Descartes first meditation, he
seeks to found human knowledge on the secure foundations of those truths that we can
work out through reason alone, and not through our senses which are deceptive. Patrick
Batemans senses may be misleading him into believing things that may not be really
happening. This, in turn, leads us to the Dream/Reality distinction.
When we dream, we process the events and actions that occur within the dream
as real, and we are only aware that we would have been dreaming once we wake up,
therefore discovering those events to occur in our dream as false. However, if we cannot
sense that we are dreaming when we are dreaming, how do we know when we are
awake? Descartes argues that we do not realize when we are in a dream and we often
have the same perceptions in a dream as we have in what we refer to as awake. Events
and images that occur within our dreams are built upon ideas in our minds, such as
innate and adventitious ideas. Generally, our dreams consist of invented ideas, which

consist of combinations that we create ourselves of two or more ideas. There are no
clear signs to distinguish the dream experience from the waking experience, even
though we are conscious of the fact that any image to appear in a dream is an idea of
objects in reality.
Bateman tells himself that he is simply not there, even though one can
physically come into contact with his body. This may be a reference to the fact that he
is dreaming, and therefore, isnt mentally there but lost in his dream. There are many
scenes that exhibit possible sense deception in American Psycho. One scene that makes
the reader question Batemans state of mind is when he is at an ATM and upon noticing
a cat, sees the words, Feed Me A Stray Cat on the screen of the ATM, and proceeds
to do so. This event may easily be the product of a dream or his sense of sight deceiving
him. If Patrick Bateman truly is in a dream state, he is undoubtedly unaware and
believes that he is awake. Could his senses be deceiving him to the extent that he cannot
distinguish which events are really taking place and which are a figment of his
imagination? Possibly, but even if he is in fact dreaming, what may he define himself
as?
If Bateman claims that there only exists an idea of a Patrick Bateman, then this
idea needs to derive from somewhere in order for there to exist an abstraction on this
idea. This brings about the existence of other beings or ideas that resemble Patrick
Bateman; other human beings. Descartes is yet to define what he is, or any other being
for that matter. If there is an idea of something known as Patrick Bateman, then what
is that something?
Descartes, as he begins his second meditation, is certain that he may doubt
everything there is to doubt, except the fact that he is doubting. Some object or thing

must be doubting, which Descartes believes to be himself. Therefore, he concludes that

since he is doubting, he has to exist, Cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am). The
I is a doubting thing. Patrick Bateman is doubting his physical existence, and if we
relate this to Descartes meditations, we may say that Patrick Bateman does in fact exist
as a thinking thing, nevertheless we are yet to find out if there is more to him, or if he
simply is an abstraction; an entity.
We are certain that we cannot be deceived about our existence as a thinking thing,
that is a mind, soul or intellect, but our knowledge of those objects around us may be
false. The existence of individuals as thinking things is strengthened by Descartes
argument of the wax. If wax melts, all its properties that we perceive through our senses
change, yet it is still the same exact piece of wax. Both forms of the same wax contain
the idea of wax, thus the knowledge of wax is attained through our intellect. From this,
we can say that our mind is more clearly and distinctly known to us than our body.
There is no correct definition of what our body truly is, but Descartes understands
it to be anything that can be limited by shape, circumscribed in a place and fill a space
that all other bodies are excluded from. It can perceived by touch, sight, hearing,
taste/smell and may be moved by whatever else touches it. Bateman has a clear and
distinct perception of himself as a thinking thing, as does Descartes by the third
meditation. The possibility of deception presents the idea of a benevolent and superior
being to us; God. To negate the likelihood of deception, Descartes attempts to prove
the existence of God, who may be the Evil Deceiver the last of Descartes doubts.
According to Descartes, he [a thinking thing] is born with innate ideas, which are
supposedly not tainted by other things, such as the idea of a perfect circle. These innate
ideas are the result of an infinite and perfect source which we refer to as God superior

perfect being. Descartes moves on to find out whether he may have created the source
for these innate ideas. He is aware of his own imperfections, and argues that this
requires an idea of perfection. This idea must originate from something or someone
which has at least as much perfection as the notion itself. Therefore, there must exist a
perfect cause for the idea of perfection, which we call God. Descartes refers to this as
the Trademark Argument. Descartes rules out the possibility of these innate ideas being
false since God cannot be a deceiver since it is manifest by the natural light that all
fraud and deception depend on some defect, and Gods perfection implies the nihility
of any defect or imperfection.
Up until now, we know that Patrick Bateman undeniably exists as a thinking thing
and may in fact be dreaming though that does not deny his existence. Descartes, in
his final two meditations, wishes to discover the essence of material objects through a
rational approach as opposed to an empirical approach. Firstly, essence is those
qualities that make an object what it is. Descartes, as well as Bateman, may clearly and
distinctly perceive the property of material things, known as extension; therefore
material things exist. Here we come to see that Bateman may exist as a thinking thing
separate from an extension; a body. The Ontological Argument argues that Gods
essence is distinct to that of other ideas and includes all perfections, which in turn
include existence, making existence a necessary property of God. Once we are aware
that God exists and is not an evil deceiver, then anything we see as clear and distinct is
true.
According to Descartes, we can conclude that Patrick Bateman exists as a
thinking thing and cannot distinguish between dreams and reality. Those things that
Bateman perceives as clear and distinct are true since God is benevolent and not an evil
deceiver. Batemans words give the impression that he believes that he only exists as a

thinking thing and not as a physical being, without an extension. Descartes argues that
human beings move and act on two different levels, mentally and physically. Patrick
Bateman considers himself not to truly exist or not to be complete. As we have seen, if
an object does not consist of all the properties that form an idea of that object, then it
is not considered to be that object.
According to Jean-Paul Sartre, human beings are fundamentally different from
objects in that they are initially simply there, and only later identify themselves. There
exist two kinds of transcendence of the phenomenon of being; that of being and of
consciousness, defining the two categories of being: the in-itself (non-conscious being)
and the for-itself (conscious being) respectively. Sartre establishes that if something
perceives, there must be a consciousness doing the perceiving. He presents the in-itself
as existing without reason, independently of the for-itself. The for-itself is characterized
by a lack of identity with itself, perceived as a nothingness of Being. If there exists
nothing besides consciousness - nothing of which it can be conscious of, then it ceases
to exist. Thus, the for-itself is undetermined and entirely free to become through its
actions. Patrick Bateman is unable to distinguish between those actions that occur in
his dream-like state or reality, thus lacking consciousness. For Sartre, Bateman would
not be a complete Being since the being for-itself does not exist.
There is an idea of Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no
real me - Bateman is certainly a thinking thing, however we are still unsure on whether
there exists an extension of his mind; a body. The fact that he is continuously mistaken
for Marcus Halberstram (a businessman working at the same firm who does the same
job that Bateman does) reinforces the possibility that Bateman may physically not exist
as a Patrick Bateman, but as an idea, and is thus confused with Mr Halberstram since
they are so alike.

We can therefore conclude that Ellis unique character, Patrick Bateman, does not
have a true concept of self, owing to the fact that he is unaware that his senses often
deceive him and is unable to distinguish between reality and the dream state.
Consequently, he doubts his own existence, and by doing this he exists as a thinking
thing, clearly proving his existence as a thinking thing.

Bibliography:

Daigle, Christin. "Sartres Being & Nothingness: The Bible of Existentialism?" Sartres
Being & Nothingness: The Bible of Existentialism? N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan.
2015.
Descartes, Ren, Desmond M. Clarke, Ren Descartes, and Ren Descartes.
Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings. London: Penguin, 1998. Print.
Ellis, Bret Easton. American Psycho: A Novel. New York: Vintage, 1991. Print.
"Jean Paul Sartre: Existentialism." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p., n.d.
Web. 22 Jan. 2015. <http://www.iep.utm.edu/sartre-ex/#H3>.
Schaffer, Christopher. "Examining the Personality of Patrick Bateman of American
Psycho." Examining the Personality of Patrick Bateman of American Psycho
(n.d.): 4-5. Academia.edu. Web. 13 June 2014.