Novel of the American Psycho Violence Controversy

Of course, not everyone has agreed with Mehta's drumhead of view. In particular, feminists run through been placeraged at the fact that American Psycho graphically depicts the torturing and murder of women. In near cases these depictions take the reader step-by-step through the process. In the wrangle of John Leo in U.S. News & World chronicle: "The book is totally hateful - in effect, a how-to manual on the torture and dismemberment of women." It may be noted that Bateman's victims in the sassy are not limited to women. In the course of the legend, men, dogs, and so far a child are also slaughtered. Nevertheless, the most raving madly detailed descriptions are concerned with Bateman's hate-crimes against women. In various scenes, accounts are given of Bateman using nail guns, scissors, saws, and other(a) implements to mutilate women. In one passage, Bateman uses electrodes to explode a woman's breast. In one particularly disturbing section of the raw, Bateman forces a large rat into a woman's vagina with the intention that it will gnaw its sort stomach out again. Because of these types of descriptions, the National Organization for Women (NOW) in Los Angeles claimed that the novel "is socially irresponsible and legitimizes inhuman and savage violence masquerading as sexuality." Even before it was published, NOW called for a boycot

Part of the controversy of American Psycho surrounds the neck of whether it should be considered a excogitate of art or not. If it is art, and so the depictions of violence can be justified as reservation an important statement. Most critics have dismissed the work as amateurish and have considered it to not be a work of art in both sense of the word. For example, Peter Plagens in Newsweek has criticized the book as being boring in its neediness of plot. John Leo, in U.S. News & World Report, has made even more scathing remarks about Ellis' book. In Leo's opinion, the book is "violent junk" which has "little literary merit." Leo feels that the only intellect that the book was published at all is because the writer and his publishers were sordid for money.

Leo drives his point home by stating: "In my judgment, it has no discernible plot, no believable characterization, no sensibility at work that comes anywhere close to making art out of all the blood and torture." Other critics of American Psycho have accused Ellis of selling out by filling the novel with violent details. They point out that Ellis' second novel, The Rules of Attraction, was a exceptional failure in the literary marketplace. Because of this fact, it has been charged that Ellis filled American Psycho with sensationalized violence simply in the hopes of making it back onto the best-seller lists.

In Vanity Fair, the noted author Norman Mailer argued long and hard over the issue of whether American Psycho is a work of art or not. Although he believes that Ellis' intentions were good, Mailer finally concludes that the novel is not art. Mailer feels that Ellis has a great thesis regarding the dehumanization of the 1980's; however, he also argues that Ellis fails to pull this thesis off in any meaningful way. Mailer claims that Ellis' thesis would work if the novel helped the reader to guarantee into the mind and motivations of the killer. However, this does not occur, and in the end Bateman "remains a cipher."
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