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End of the 1980s
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in American Psycho, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Materialism and Consumption
Identity and Isolation
Monotony and Desensitization
Vice and Violence
The Truth
Summary
Analysis
It’s December and Bateman is in a limo with Jeannette. He’s reading an article about Donald Trump and she’s upset, nursing a black eye he gave her the night before to “coerce” her to dinner. Bateman has no sympathy for her issues and feels no guilt. He has the driver drop her off at her brownstone and then continues on to JFK. He tells the reader that this isn’t the first child he’s had aborted, and that Jeannette will be okay, out of the country by the time he even returns in January. Besides, since she likes Sting and the movie Pretty in Pink, none of this is undeserved.
Bateman’s cold relationship with Jeannette comes to a rocky close in this chapter. As is normal, they are together and disconnected, with Bateman, as usual, obsessing over Donald Trump. As the chapter unfolds, however, it is revealed subtly that Bateman has forced Jeannette into getting an abortion. He feels no remorse for her, violently making her come to dinner and using her taste in movies and music to determine that she has bad taste and is worthy of his mistreatment. In this terribly misogynistic and cruel moment, we see another side to Bateman’s lack of care for others and violence against women. Even in comparison to his terrible acts of violence, this act of heartlessness is still shocking and upsetting.
Themes
