Monologue I: The post-modern (yuppie) subject

“I live in the American Gardens building on West 81st Street on the Eleventh floor. My name is Patrick Bateman. I’m twenty-seven years old. I believe in taking care of myself, in a balanced diet, in a rigorous exercise routine. 

“In the morning if my face is a little puffy, I’ll put on an ice-pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice pack, I use a deep-pore cleanser lotion. In the shower, I use a water activated gel cleanser. Then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face, an exfoliating gel-scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial mask, which I leave on for ten minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an aftershave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out, and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing ‘protective lotion.’

“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.”

Monologue II: The hysteric confession of guilt

“Howard! It’s Bateman, Pat Bateman. You’re my lawyer, so I think you should know I killed a lot of people! Some escort girls in an apartment uptown … some homeless people, maybe 5 or 10! Ummm … some girl I met at an NYU party. I left her body in the parking lot behind some old donut shop! My old girlfriend Beverly with a nail gun. Some man – some old FAGGOT with a dog!

"Hey Paul!"

“I killed another girl with a chainsaw. I had to, she almost got away. There was someone else there – I can’t remember…maybe a model or something. But, she’s dead too. And, uh, Paul Allen! I killed Paul Allen with an axe in the face! His body is dissolving in a bathtub in Hells Kitchen. I don’t want to leave anything out, now. I guess I killed maybe…twenty people. Maybe forty!

“I’ve got tapes of a lot of it. Some of the girls have seen the tapes. I even…I even ate some of their brains. And I tried to cook a little. Tonight … I just HAD TO KILL ALOT OF PEOPLE! And I don’t think I’m gonna get away with it this time. So…I guess…I guess I’m a pretty sick guy. Well … if you get back tomorrow … I’ll meet you up at Harry’s Bar so … keep your eyes open. Bye.”

Monologue III: Guilty of … well, you (should) know!

“There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain in constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this there is no catharsis.

“My punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself. No new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing.”

Postlogue

“[A]ccording to Saint Paul, the Law itself generates the desire to violate it. Along the same lines, in contrast to the Law’s precise prohibitions (“You shall not kill, steal …”), the true superego injunction is just the truncated “You shall not!” – do what? This gap opens up the abyss of the superego: you yourself should know or guess what you should not do, so that you are put in an impossible position of always and a priori being under suspicion of violating some (unknown) prohibition. More precisely, the superego splits every determinate commandment into two complementary, albeit symmetrical, parts – “You shall not kill!,” for instance, is split into the formal-indeterminate “You shall not!” and the obscene direct injunction “Kill!” The silent dialogue which sustains this operation is thus: “You shall not!” “I shall not – what? I have no idea what is being demanded of me! Che vuoi?” “You shall not!” “This is driving me crazy, being under  pressure to do something without knowing what, feeling guilty without knowing of what, so I’ll just explode, and start killing!” Thus killing is the desperate response to the impenetrable abstract superego prohibition.”

(Slavoj Zizek, The Puppet and the Dwarf, p. 105)