Patric Bateman, a Wall Street investment bank elite, looks beautiful, shows self-confidence, exquisite life, and pursues nobility. However, he has low self-esteem, cowardice, and emptiness inside. He needs constant appreciation and recognition from the outside to confirm his existence.
He takes care of his skin through rigorous and abnormal procedures, and maintains a fit body through highly self-disciplined exercise and diet. He also needs the eyes of others. In short, he has to become the focus and center of the crowd. He is more commendable than Paul Allen, whom everyone admired. What is the point if all of this does not exist? This terrible feeling caused him to be extremely humiliated. He couldn't bear that small self. Only by (fantasy) killing can he feel his self-esteem regained.
He has a bad day every day. The black paintings in the diary are chaotic and without center, just like his broken self-esteem. He hated this kind of self, so he tried to maintain the opposite side, even taking drugs to blend in, but all this made him even more empty. His friend, his fiancée, never gave him attention, never listened carefully to his opinions, and didn't know what he needed. This superficial relationship made him smaller and more inferior. He has never received attention, and naturally has no way to pay attention to others. He does not know what his lover is thinking, what his fiancee needs, ignores the reluctance of prostitutes on the street, and cannot gain enough self-esteem by establishing intimate relationships. Use temptation to obtain brief listening and companionship. Others are just a tool for him to satisfy his own needs, so why is he not so for others.
Gradually, his humiliation and jealous anger made him unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy. (Fantasy) killing became the only tool to relieve pain, and he became mentally ill.
The entire United States is mentally ill. Everyone is trying to maintain their narcissism. Others see nothing but a tool to satisfy narcissism. I am not me, you are not you, neither of us are our true selves.
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