Bret Easton Ellis’ 1991 novel, American Psycho, is a controversial and divisive story that portrays 1980’s New York in a dark light. American Psycho is the story of a young urban professional named Patrick Bateman, who has a dark secret. While on the surface, Patrick is merely a cliché upper-class man, he spends his nights murdering and torturing animals and people indiscriminately. Bateman’s constant bloodshed is set against the height of materialism and greed in Western society. Bateman and all those around him are obsessed with designer brands, and wealth, forming a satirical depiction of capitalist society and consumerism. Patrick gets increasingly sadistic and cruel as the novel progresses, and Ellis focuses on Bateman’s thoughts and psychology. The constant mistaken identities and time skips in the novel make the reader question Patrick, who becomes an unreliable narrator. As time goes on, Patrick’s day-life and murderous secret identity begin to blur together, and he embarks on a path that causes him to question his sanity, and his perception of reality. Patrick begins to torture and murder at every chance he gets, including the murder of his colleague Paul Owen. He repeatedly admits his murders to people, in order to share some kind of connection with someone, but is never taken seriously. That rejection leads him to continue with his murders, with increasing ferocity. Eventually, Patrick’s narration becomes incoherent and confusing. The reader is shown just how unstable Patrick is through his insanity. When Patrick finds the apartment where he stores his victims’ bodies completely redone and for sale, his mental state deteriorates. After a violent shootout with the police, Patrick flees to his office and leaves a confession for his lawyer. At the end of the story, he confronts his lawyer about the message. His lawyer laughs it off as a joke, and refuses to believe that Patrick really kills people. He then tells Patrick that Paul Owen cannot be dead, as the lawyer and Owen had lunch recently in London. However, it is disputable that the lawyer, like many other characters, is so self-obsessed that he may have mistaken someone else for Paul Owen. Patrick then recedes into his usual meaningless banter with his friends, giving the impression that Patrick is doomed to never be acknowledged or understood. Ellis ends off the novel the way it started, portraying Patrick’s struggle as a never-ending one. The ending is left ambiguous, and the reader decides if the murders truly happened or not. Whatever the reader decides, it is evident that Patrick Bateman is, an American Psycho.