The parallels between Albert Camus’ ‘L'Étranger’ and Bret Easton Ellis’ ‘American Psycho’, regarding Existentialism and Marxism.
My reading of Camus’ ‘L'Étranger’ came just one day after watching Mary Harron’s film adaption of Bret Easton Ellis’ ‘American Psycho’, and as I flicked through my borrowed copy of Camus’ novel I found myself constantly drawn back to the themes of that cult classic film. So, during my weekly pilgrimage to my local Waterstones, I made it my aim to find, buy and read Ellis’ ‘American Psycho’. Yet again, I found myself equally astounded at the parallels between Camus and Ellis, both in dealing with the ‘absurd’ and how they use it to critique the vacuous banality of modern capitalist consumer society.
The novels ‘American Psycho’ and ‘L'Étranger’ are both accounts of man’s confrontation with the absurd. Although set in different geographical and historical climates, 1980s Reaganite New York and colonial-era Algeria, both of their protagonists have an acute awareness of the absurd and undergo, as a result, a profound existential crisis or psychosis. In regard to ‘American Psycho’, Ellis immediately establishes an existentialist tone in the novel’s first two pages. Firstly, Ellis transcribes a quotation from Dostoevsky’s proto-existentialist novel ‘Notes from the Underground’. Dostoevsky, as James Scanlan explains, found many of his thoughts shaped by his “struggle to define the essence of humanity” (Scanlan, 2003), thus many of his characters such as the Underground Man, who Ellis suggests shares great parallels with Patrick Bateman, are painfully isolated and excessively self-conscious. ‘American Psycho’, itself, opens with the line “ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE” taken from the gates of hell in Dante’s ‘Inferno’. Many have suggested that this is used by Ellis to allude to the reader being sent on a “circle of hell” from which they can’t escape (Young, 1992). Indeed, even when the novel ends, Ellis uses the words of Sartre “THIS IS NOT AN EXIT”, referring to Sartre’s play ‘Huis Clos’, or ‘No Exit’. Similarly to ‘L'Étranger’, Sartre’s play and ‘American Psycho’ both recount characters realising the absurdity of their existence and interactions with others. ‘Huis Close’, details a plot where three people are damned to hell, in which they are kept in a room together, ultimately realising that “Hell is—other people!”. In a similar vein, Patrick Bateman states a number of times “my life is a living hell” (136, 133) during the novel’s typically inane dinner conversations. Even his breakdown or existential psychosis towards the end of the novel is, in part, a reaction to his awareness of the absurdity of his existence. (Wenley, 2013). There is a clear influence of Sartre’s writing on Ellis and he draws on many characteristics from the protagonist of Sartre’s ‘Nausea’, Roquentin, in creating his murderous psychopath of Patrick Bateman. On a quick cursory glance both occupy the role of an existential hero, or anti-hero in Ellis’s case, and an alienated outsider with a profound detachment from others and even from themselves. Both also live alone and rarely engage with other people, and when they do their conversations are superficial and tainted by misanthropy.
Similarly, to the protagonists of ‘Nausea’ and ‘American Psycho’, Camus’ protagonist of Meursault in ‘L'Étranger’ exists in constant grappling with the absurd. He is a “stranger” and an absurdity to society because he does not show any emotions, he has no meaning for life, and his only certainty and guarantee is death. His life and everyone else's life is meaningless to Meursault because to him, he will not be remembered after his execution for being a simplistic man, but a psychopathic killer. Indeed, Meursault goes as far to state that execution is really the only thing of interest for a man. He only wishes he could be a spectator instead of the victim, “For the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. . . . For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate”(110). He goes on to fantasise about a combination of chemicals that would kill the condemned only nine times out of ten, because then at least he would have a chance of surviving. If the first attempt fails, the execution will be painful. Hence, the prisoner is forced into “moral collaboration” with the execution process, by hoping for its success.
While Ellis’ use of existentialism can be more easily related Marxist ideas, Camus’ although present and equally profound is less obvious. First, though, I see it fit to discuss a bit about Existential Marxism and Sartre. At first Marxism and Existentialism seem by their very natures contradictory. Marxism's materialism and determinism might seem to contradict the abstraction and radical freedom of existentialism, however, as Sartre outlines in ‘Between Existentialism and Marxism’ the combination of Existentialism and Marxism yielded a political philosophy uniquely sensitive to the tension between individual freedom and the forces of history. As a Marxist, he believed that societies were best understood as arenas of struggle between powerful and powerless groups (Sartre, 1974). Looking through such a lens at ‘American Psycho’ the ‘arena of struggle’ in Reagan-era America between classes is in its most potent form. Ellis uses Bateman as a projection of class difference; Bateman is the exploitative class, inflicting his madness upon the members of society ranking lower than himself on the social hierarchy. This madness is exemplified not only through his job which economically deprives lower factions of society but also through the more obvious and graphic killing of women, most of who are considerably less financially ‘well off’ than Bateman. On the other hand, looking through Marx at Camus offers a reader a clear critique of capitalism. By reviewing the perils of a class divide and its consequences, in terms of social stratification. Camus uses the novel, and more specifically, the character of Meursault to exemplify how in such a stratified social structure, people become alienated from their humanity.
Together, both texts provide a unique literary critique of capitalism. Although Ellis possesses a clearly Sartrean influence in his use of Existential Marxism, differing from Camus’ interpretation of Marx and critique of capitalism. They both, as post-modern novels, nonetheless harbour clear undercurrents of Marxism. Understanding such ideas, as a reader, can significantly transform one’s experience and reading of the novels, whether that be reading the works in conjunction or consecutively.
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