iority, and not even any kind of past events that are responsible for manifesting neurosis in the here-and-now. Instead, Bateman and the other yuppies suffer psychologically from product-inferiority. When Bateman describes his apartment, a brand-conscious nightmare, he comments that “The Lion Sleeps Tonight coming from the glow of the Wurlitzer 1015 jukebox (which is not as good as the hard-to-find Wurlitzer 850) that stands in the corner of the living room” (Ellis 24). We see this phenomenon many times in the novel.
In fact, Bateman is reduced to an emotional wreck, near tears, which erupts into hostility and anger merely because another male in the group produces a business card which fills him with envy, especially since he just ordered new ones and hoped they would be better than everyone else’s:
We all lean over and inspect David’s car…A brief spasm of jealousy courses through me when I notice the elegance of the color and the classy type. I clench my fist as Van Patten says, smugly, ...