Overview of The Talented Mr. Ripley Essay

Ive read The Talented Mr. Ripley, a psychosomatic crime novel, written by Patricia Highsmith. This books story begins during the late 50s, in New York, where an underachieving con-artist named Tom Ripley is mistaken for another someone, by this someones friends father. The father is a shipbuilding mogul and his son, Dickie Greenleaf, is a long lost playboy living off his expenditures on the coast of Italy. Since the father, whos name the book do not tell of, thinks that Tom is a friend of Dickies he wants him to travel to Italy, find Dickie and convince him to come back home, for thousand dollars. Tom agrees to this deal and thereafter the story begins. Later on Tom finds and befriends both Dickie and his fiance Marge. Simultaneously Tom is drawn by the luxurious life that Dickie lives and therefore he do not tend to get Dickie back home, as he rather stay and live the good life. When Dickies father grasps that Tom is doing all but his job, he stops sending him money. Dickie and his fiance are also getting tired of having Tom around, so they decide to move from the little village where Tom found them. When Tom realizes that his new life-style is coming to an ending, he chooses to do something about it and kills Dickie. Before this part of the book I thought Tom was an intelligent man just acting in mysterious ways, afterwards it came to my knowledge that he was a sociopath. This fact then became clearer for every page I turned. Tom practically took Dickies life and lived it. He used Dickies passport, clothes, shoes and money; he even cut his hair like him. Dickies disappearance and Toms frequent visits at the bank made people curious, which led to confrontations between them and Tom. These confrontations evolved during the last parts of the book and ended with Tom killing two of Dickies friends, which were on to him and his con.

Patricia Highsmith left this book with an open ending, causing the reader to think more about the characters, rather than how the story ends. These characters are all rich, big spending Americans in Italy, except for Tom; he is a low-class pretender and sociopath, living among them. Since Toms real morals are exposed in the later parts of this book when he starts to kill people to keep his lies away from the truth, the reader is given time to watch him alter. This alteration is truly amazing when looked upon and it corresponds to the meaning of the book a lie can open a window, but with too many windows open, it is hard to realize which way the wind blows and who you truly are.

This book illustrates the inner confusion many of us may feel at some point in life when we are dealing with quandaries and regrets. Tom sees opportunities instead of risks - as we all do - but unlike us the consequences of the opportunities he is given eludes his train of thoughts. We, non-sociopathic people (if I may say so), often discover our mistakes before they are made. As the book opens up you learn just as much about Tom as he does himself. The thing is that when Toms realizes his mistakes, it is too late. He cannot imagine himself being caught, or shined upon with truthiness, so he does everything in his power to prevent it. In other words, he creates more and more layers of lies that fill up his storage of regrets. Sometimes, even at the very ending of the book when Tom is altered, Tom opens his storage and reflects on his life beneath the lies. For example he says: I alwaysthoughtit'd bebetterto be afakesomebodythan arealnobody. But just as quickly as he opens his storage of lies - and speaks truly in favor for himself - he closes it and twists his way of thinking. The line quoted above, is followed by a scene where Tom seeks evidence of his better sides. In this scene he is lying next to his gay and newly found friend Peter, saying: I want to know if theres anything good about me. To which Peter, in a gay-attractive way, replies:

Goodthingsabout Mr. Ripley? Couldtakesometime. Tom is talented. Tom istender... Tom is beautiful... Tom is a mystery. Tom is not anobody. Tom has secrets he doesn'twanttotellme, and Iwishhe would. Tom has nightmares. That's not agoodthing. Tom hassomeonetolovehim. That is agoodthing. Tom iscrushingme. Tom iscrushingme... Tom, you'recrushingme!.

This sudden alteration of Toms personality, shown in the quotes above, is a minor part of the book but a major part of the books message. Because even though it may seem like this book gives you only thrills, it delivers small portions of memorandums generating in understanding about the character exemplifying the books message. In conclusion, you can fairly state that this book is all but easy to understand from start, but as the book opens up, you learn not to let lies live and to keep your windows closed.