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Patricia Highsmith

tutorials on the novels of American crime writer

tutorials on the novels of American crime writer

Ripley Under Ground

November 8, 2017 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, study guide, commentary, further reading, web links

Ripley Under Ground (1977) is the second of Patricia Highsmith’s novels featuring her anti-hero Tom Ripley. He is a young and ambitious American from a poor background who has a taste for art, luxuries, and fine living. He is enterprising and imaginative, likes to takes chances, and is not averse to murdering anybody who gets in his way.

Ripley Under Ground

There is a series of five Ripley novels, which have become known collectively as The Ripliad. They are self-contained and can be enjoyed separately – but an acquaintance with their chronological development adds depth to their meaning – particularly the ironic contrasts between Ripley’s refined social tastes and his shocking exploits.


Ripley Under Ground – commentary

Background

Since the events of The Talented Mr Ripley (1970) Tom Ripley has ‘retired’ to live in France, and has married Heloise Plisson. He has three sources of income – all gained illegally. The first is Dickie Greenleaf’s inheritance, which he has appropriated by forging Dickie’s will. The second is a business centred on the creation of fake paintings by an artist Derwatt, who is now dead. The third is a courier service for illegal goods sent to him by an associate Reeves Minot from Hamburg.

Ripley has escaped detection for the murders of Dickie Greenleaf and Freddie Miles, and yet a certain opprobrium attaches itself to his name. He is also supported by regular maintenance payments his wife receives from her father, a millionaire pharmaceutical manufacturer who is sceptical about her marriage to Ripley.

Murder and morality

What makes this and the other Ripley novels interesting is the tension between Ripley as a character and what he does. We know that he is a confidence trickster who is living off other people’s money; that he is prepared to adopt another person’s identity; forge letters; lie to the police; and generally evade detection so that he can go on living a comfortable life.

That is Part One of the down side to his character. But he also has positive characteristics. He likes good food and wine; he takes an interest in art; he is considerate to friends and neighbours; and his taste in fine clothes and furniture is based on a genuine appreciation of their quality – not on any snobbish and nouveau-riche accumulation of status objects.

Part Two of his character however, is problematic. Not only does he break the law in matters of finance and irregular business practices – he actually murders people. This is more difficult to defend.

The only possible defence is aesthetic – an acceptance that Patricia Highsmith is offering an entertaining character study in radical existentialism. She makes her protagonist an intelligent and cultivated character who rationalises his crimes by only murdering ‘unsympathetic’ characters. It also has to be said that some of the murderous situations in which Ripley finds himself can be quite funny – in a macabre, black humour sort of way.

Ripley the Protean

We know from the first of the Ripley novels that he is very skillful at imitating the sound of other people’s voices. In Ripley Under Ground he goes one further and convincingly impersonates someone (Derwatt) who has died a few years previously. He transforms himself twice to pull off this trick – though it has to be said that none of the people before whom he puts on this performance would know what Derwatt originally looked like.

Ripley also identifies very intently with certain other people – usually the underdog. He understands why Bernard Tufts wishes to abandon his role as a Derwatt imitator and return to his own career as a painter. This will bring one element of Ripley’s profitable company Derwatt Ltd to a close, but he sympathises with Bernard’s plight – possibly as a fellow amateur painter himself.

Indeed, he carries this sympathy to extraordinary lengths, because Bernard blames Ripley for bringing him to a personal crisis of identity and twice tries to kill him. He even buries him alive (hence the book’s title) yet Ripley seemingly bears no grudge against him.

Ripley also has multiple identities. He lives an apparently blameless life in a quiet French village; yet he has a corrupt business network that stretches to Hamburg and London. He is quite happy to travel on a forged passport. He is a gentleman to his housekeeper, a devoted husband to his wife, and a secretive mystery to everyone else.

Ripley also flits quite easily between two languages – English and French. (We learn later that he also speaks Italian.) In fact he is something of an amateur linguaphile – and he often wonders what the word for an object is in a number of different languages.

The conclusion

Without doubting for a moment Patricia Highsmith’s skill at plotting, her attention to detail, and her knowledge of the technicalities of crime – the conclusion to Ripley Under Ground does seem to raise a few problems.

The novel ends with Bernard’s suicide and Tom’s cremation of the body. We learn in the next novel Ripley Under Ground that Tom returned to the scene of this gruesome bonfire with Inspector Webster, to be questioned closely about the incident – which the police mistakenly think is the death of Derwatt.

Ripley is able to talk his way out of things as usual. But surely there is something more fundamentally wrong here? It is difficult to believe that failing to report a death (Bernard’s suicidal fall over the cliff) would not be regarded as a crime in most European countries. Even more seriously – the private cremation of an unreported dead body would be a very serious crime indeed.

Ripley does his best to remove evidence for identifying the corpse by shattering the skull and detaching the lower jawbone. At that time (prior to DNA technology) recognition of unidentified bodies was often based on dental records, of which there are none for Derwatt. This is a typical and delicious double plot irony on Highsmith’s part, since it was not Derwatt’s corpse that was cremated, but Bernard’s.

But these macabre details apart, surely Inspector Webster or the Salzburg police would have arrested Ripley for the unofficial cremation of an unidentified corpse in a pubic place?

Highsmith was operating within a literary genre (the crime thriller) that often has less exacting standards of logic and credibility in its narratives than the traditional realist novel of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Yet such is the quality of her writing and the seriousness of her themes that she seems to invite comparisons with this tradition.

The giants of the realist novel didn’t always avoid technical errors in their work. From Wuthering Heights (1847) to Nostromo (1904) there are chronological infelicities and logical flaws in many classic narratives – but they tend to be of a minor nature and not crucial to the outcome of events.

Highsmith plays slightly fast and lose in this respect with the credibility of her narratives. For instance, Ripley’s often-absent wife Heloise, who comes from a very ‘respectable’ family, actually tolerates the fact that her husband is a murderer. She knows Ripley has killed Murchison in their wine cellar – but she remains unconcerned and as peripheral to the narrative as Highsmith requires for a tidy conclusion. This part of the story is simply not credible in realistic terms.


Ripley’s Game – study resources

Ripley Under Ground Ripley Under Ground – Penguin – Amazon UK

Ripley Under Ground Ripley Under Ground – Penguin – Amazon US

Ripley Under Ground Ripley Under Ground – Kindle – Amazon UK

Ripley Under Ground Ripley Under Ground – Kindle – Amazon US

Ripley Under Ground Ripley Complete – Box Set – Amazon UK


Ripley Under Ground

Patricia Highsmith


The complete Ripliad

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)

Ripley Under Ground (1970)

Ripley Under Ground (1974)

The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980)

Ripley Under Water (1991)


Ripley Under Ground – plot summary

Tom Ripley is living in a large house called Belle Ombre with gardens outside Paris. He is married to Heloise and running a fraudulent art business in London dealing in faked paintings by Bernard Tufts in the style of an artist Derwatt who has died some years ago in Greece. Ripley also acts as an intermediary in shady business transactions with his associate Reeves Minot in Hamburg.

An exhibition of Dewatt’s work is due to open, and one customer is going to challenge the authenticity of a work he has bought. Tom proposes to act the part of Derwatt at the opening of the exhibition.

He dresses in disguise and answers questions from the press. Then the American collector Murchison claims that paintings are being faked. He wants an expert opinion and thinks the gallery’s records of sale should be inspected. Tom invites Murchison to Paris to compare Derwatt paintings.

They have dinner and discuss the pros and cons of forgery. Next day prior to his departure for London, Tom appeals to Murchison’s sporting sense on the issue of forgeries. When Murchison flatly refuses, Tom kills him in his wine cellar.

Tom drives to Orly airport, dumps Murchison’s suitcase and painting, then collects a courier from Reeves. He takes the courier back for dinner and extracts a microfilm hidden in a tube of toothpaste.

Next day he receives a letter announcing the arrival from California of Chris Greenleaf (Dickie’s younger cousin). The he starts burying Murchison’s body in some nearby woods. Next day Chris arrives and the police start asking questions about Murchison, all of which Ripley answers quite convincingly.

Bernard Tufts suddenly arrives and acts strangely. He wants to put an end to the Derwatt forgeries, and wishes to confess his part in the swindle – so as to reclaim his own identity and self-esteem as a serious painter.

Bernard helps Tom to dig up the body, which they dump in a river some distance away. A London police inspector Webster arrives. Tom appears to answer all his questions quite truthfully.

Bernard is depressed and suddenly disappears. Heloise arrives from Greece and discovers a body hanging in the cellar. It turns out to be a dummy, made by Bernard to represent the death of his old self.

Bernard turns up again and wants to stay. That night he tries to kill Tom, who he blames for all his problems. Next day he attacks Tom again and buries him in Murchison’s old grave. Tom manages to escape, but thinks it will be safer to act as if dead.

He orders new fake passports from Reeves in Hamburg, flies to the Greek islands in search of Bernard, but finds nothing. Back in London he makes a final appearance as Derwatt. He confronts Inspector Webster and Mrs Murchison, but answers their queries with half truths. But as Heloise becomes more suspicious he confesses to her that he has killed Murchison.

Tom flies to Salzburg where he spots Bernard in the Mozart museum. When they meet again in a restaurant, Bernard is clearly shocked to find Tom alive. Next day Tom pursues Bernard through the outskirts of town
until Bernard falls over a cliff and dies from the fall. Tom returns to the scene and very laboriously cremates the body.

Tom goes back home where Webster arrives next day. He questions Tom closely about the two (apparent) deaths in Salzburg. But Tom has all the necessary answers, and lives on to feature in two further volumes of The Ripliad.


Ripley Under Ground – characters
Tom Ripley a young American confidence man
Heloise Plisson his beautiful and wealthy wife
Bernard Tufts an amateur painter and forger
Jeff Constant a photographer and gallery owner
Edmund Banbury journalist and gallery owner
Thomas Murchison an American industrialist and art collector
Chris Greenleaf younger cousin of Dickie Greenleaf
Cynthia Gradnor Bernard’s disillusioned girlfriend

© Roy Johnson 2017


More Patricia Highsmith
Twentieth century literature
More on short stories


Filed Under: Patricia Highsmith Tagged With: English literature, Literary studies, Patricia Highsmith, The novel

Ripley’s Game

November 6, 2017 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, study guide, commentary, further reading, web links

Ripley’s Game (1974) is the third in a series of novels by Patricia Highsmith featuring her anti-hero Tom Ripley. He is an ambitious young American who has come from a poor background, but who has a taste for good quality living.

Ripley's Game

There are five novels in the series, which have become known collectively as The Ripliad. Each one is self-contained and can be enjoyed separately – but a knowledge of their chronological development adds a great deal of depth to their meaning – particularly the ironic contrasts between Ripley’s refined social tastes and his shocking exploits.


Ripley’s Game – commentary

Background

Ripley is living ‘retired’ in a quiet French village near Paris, married to Heloise Plisson. He has three sources of income – all gained illegally. The first is Dickie Greenleaf’s inheritance, which he has appropriated by forging Dickie’s will. The second is the remains of a business Derwatt Ltd centred on an artist Derwatt, who is now dead. The third is a courier service for illegal goods sent to him by an associate Reeves Minot from Hamburg.

He is also subsidised by a monthly allowance paid by Heloise’s millionaire father Ripley spends his time gardening and occasionally painting, studying languages, and enjoying the haut cuisine of his French housekeeper

The main theme

As in the two preceding Ripley novels, the main theme underlying the dramatic main events of the novel is a relationship between Ripley and another male – in this case the Englishman Jonathan Trevanny. Ripley introduces him to Reeves as a potential assassin for no more reason that he insulted him at a party. “Oh, we’ve heard about you” says Jonathan innocently.

Ripley knows that Jonathan has a serious illness, and he knows that he is vulnerable. He wonders prospectively, and correctly, if such a person would be tempted by the prospect of easy money to commit a crime. He is correct: Jonathan accepts the offer.

But having set the snare and inveigled Jonathan into a world of murder and deception, Ripley begins to feel responsible for him. He joins Jonathan on the Mozart Express out of Munich to execute the Mafia murders, and he later invites him to defend Belle Ombre against an attack by Mafia hit men.

The main theme is not simply crime and its non-detection – it is the psychological relationship between two men. They appear to be antagonists or in opposition to each other – but are drawn closer by a perverse sort of logic.

It is significant that Ripley’s wife Heloise is routinely absent when these developments are taking place. His primary attachments in the novels are to Dickie Greenleaf, Bernard Tufts, and Jonathan Trevanny – all men whose deaths he brings about.

Ripley is even correct about Jonathan’s wife Simone – who hates Ripley for the havoc he brings to her family. Simone disapproves of Jonathan’s association with Ripley, who she suspects of being a criminal (which he is). She thinks the money Jonathan gains is tainted with illegaility (which it is). And yet following Jonathan’s death at the end of the novel, she is left with a numbered Swiss bank account containing forty thousand Francs, and when she spits at Tom en passant in the street, he realises that she has decided to stay quiet:

But if Simone hadn’t decided to hang on to the money in Switzerland, she wouldn’t have bothered spitting and he himself would be in prison.

For all Simone’s strong Catholic morality Tom knows she has also bought a new house in Toulouse with this money, and is thus implicated in the overall crime..

Black humour

Many of the features of Ripley’s character and the grand guignol elements of the plot require both a strong stomach and a willingness to share Patricia Highsmith’s sense of black humour.

For instance, having implicated Jonathan Trevanny in the murder plot, Ripley is genuinely concerned about his ‘innocence’ and the delicacy of his sensibility. When the Mafiosa attack Belle Ombre, Ripley invites Jonathan to go into the kitchen so that he doesn’t have to witness his garrotting of the Mafiosi Lippi.

The ending

There is a slightly unsatisfactory dramatisation in the finale of the narrative – and what might be called a ‘false body count’. When four Mafia hit men arrive at Jonathan Trevanny’s house, Ripley kills the first two of them with hammer blows to the head. He then escapes the scene, and the two deaths are later reported in the newspapers as ‘two Italians, also shot’.

We know from the text that no shots were fired at the Mafiosi, so that account is not true. Now it is possible that Patricia Highsmith might be pointing to slipshod newspaper journalism here. But it is inconceivable that police would not know the difference between death by shooting and hammer blows. They would also want to know who had administered the blows – but the whole incident (three deaths in all) is glossed over and left unresolved.


Ripley’s Game – film adaptations

Italian director Liliana Cavani takes a few liberties with the events of the novel for her 2003 screen adaptation. The film opens with a sequence that features Ripley and Reeves defrauding art dealers in Berlin. This is clearly a nod back to the Derwatt episodes of the previous novel Ripley Under Ground (1970). Cavani also transforms Ripley’s house Belle Ombre into a much grander establishment than that described in the novel, and she relocates it to the Veneto region of Italy.

But apart from that the movie is faithful to the original. Film enthusiasts might wish to know that the Italian director left her entire film project unfinished. It was completed by its multi-talented star John Malkovich

Highsmith’s novel was also previously adapted in 1977 as The American Friend by German director Wim Wenders, starring Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz.


Ripley’s Game – study resources

Ripley's Game Ripley’s Game – Penguin – Amazon UK

Ripley's Game Ripley’s Game – Penguin – Amazon US

Ripley's Game Ripley’s Game – Kindle – Amazon UK

Ripley's Game Ripley’s Game – Kindle – Amazon US

Ripley's Game Ripley’s Game – DVD film – Amazon UK

Ripley's Game Ripley’s Game – DVD film – Amazon US

Ripley's Game The American Friend – DVD film – Amazon UK

Ripley's Game The American Friend – DVD film – Amazon US

Ripley’s Game Ripley Complete – Box Set – Amazon UK


Ripley's Game


The complete Ripliad

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)

Ripley Under Ground (1970)

Ripley’s Game (1974)

The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980)

Ripley Under Water (1991)


Ripley's Game

Patricia Highsmith


Ripley’s Game – plot summary

Gangster Reeves Minot wants Tom Ripley to supply an assassin who will rid him of unwanted Mafia competition in the German gambling business. Tom refuses the job but thinks an innocent neighbour with leukaemia might do it for the money.

Jonathan Trevanny visits his local doctor to check on a rumour that his blood cancer is getting worse. He is reassured, but art shop owner Gauthier will not reveal who gave him the information. We learn that this was Ripley.

Tom writes to Reeves recommending Jonathan as a potential victim. Reeves visits Jonathan and makes his proposition – a huge payout for one piece of work. Jonathan immediately requests further medical tests, which are delayed.

Reeves writes offering to pay full expenses for a specialist in Germany. Jonathan travels to Hamburg where Reeves briefs him on the assassination. Jonathan has the tests and Reeves lays on all the necessary arrangements.

Jonathan collects his results, which are not good. He then goes to the U-Bahn and shoots Bianca the Mafia button man. He is not paid as promised, but goes home relieved.

Reeves produces more money and a numbered Swiss bank account – but he wants another assassination, which Jonathan refuses. Tom visits Jonathan, then tells Reeves to ‘keep trying’.

Jonathan joins Reeves in Munich, has tests, then takes the Mozart Express for Paris. He is joined by Tom, who has begun to feel responsible for Jonathan. Tom uses a garrotte to murder the Mafia boss Marcangelo and one of his bodyguards. Then they throw the bodies off the train. Jonathan stops off in Strasbourg.

The bodyguard is not dead. Back in Villeperce, Tom reassures Jonathan. Reeves’ flat in Hamburg is bombed. Tom buys a harpsichord for Heloise, and Jonathan buys a Chesterfield for Simone., who begins to be suspicious about the money and the connection with Ripley. Then art dealer Gathier is killed in a hit and run accident.

Reeves changes his name and moves to Amsterdam. The Mafia bodyguard is reported dead Simone finds the Swiss bank account and is hostile to Jonathan. Tom receives anonymous phone calls. He fears the Mafia are going to attack him at home. He invites Jonathan to join him – along with a gun.

The Mafiosi arrive. Jonathan kills the first, then Tom interrogates the second before killing him with his own garrotte. Suddenly, Simone arrives, sees the corpses, and is then sent home.

Tom and Jonathan drive south through the night, then set fire to the two bodies in the car. Jonathan then goes into hospital for a blood transfusion, whilst Tom tries to ‘explain’ to a hostile Simone – without success

The two cremated bodies are found, and Simone continues hostilities towards Jonathan. When Tom takes Jonathan home, they are attacked by further Mafia hit men. Tom kills two of them with a hammer. But then two more in a car shoot Jonathan, who dies. Reeves has been tortured by the Mafia and led them to Jonathan’s house. Tom escapes with Reeves and despatches him to Zurich.


Ripley’s Game – characters
Tom Ripley an American bon viveur living near Paris
Heloise Plisson his rich young and attractive wife
Reeves Minot an American gangster based in Hamburg
Jonathan Trevanny an English picture-framer with leukaemia
Simone Trevanny his French wife
Vito Marcangelo a Mafia button man
Vincent Turoli his Mafia bodyguard

© Roy Johnson 2017


More Patricia Highsmith
Twentieth century literature
More on short stories


Filed Under: Patricia Highsmith Tagged With: English literature, Literary studies, Patricia Highsmith, The novel

Strangers on a Train

May 25, 2010 by Roy Johnson

psychology, mystery, and murder

Strangers on a Train was Patricia Highsmith’s first novel. Published in 1950, it was quickly made into a film the following year by Alfred Hitchcock. The film become a classic, and it is this version which has become better known. Unless you are only twelve years old or have been living on Mars for the last few decades, you’ll already know the basic plot outline. Two men meet on a train. Guy has an estranged wife standing in the way of his romance with a wealthy socialite, whilst Bruno has a rich father whom he hates because he refuses to give him an allowance.

Strangers on a TrainBruno suggests to Guy that they ‘exchange murders’ – removing their respective obstacles to happiness. He argues that nobody will be able to assign motive, because the assailants are unknown to the victims, and nobody will have any reason to think that the two plotters knew each other, because they have never met before. At first the two men appear to be polar opposites. Bruno is a spoiled emotional child, a psychopath, a drunk, and a failure. Guy on the other hand is a cultivated professional, a successful architect with a promising future. But as the novel progresses they slowly become more like each other. Both of them have mother fixations, and both possess a gun. Guy reads Plato and Bruno carries poetry around in his wallet. In fact the whole plot is driven by a series of parallel events, repetitions, and echoes which link the two men.

Bruno is infatuated with Guy, and murders his troublesome estranged wife in an effort to please him. Despite being oppressed by Bruno’s attentions, Guy eventually murders Bruno’s father in an effort to put the ‘pact’ between them at an end. But in fact this draws them even closer to each other.

Those who have seen the film will have to put Hitchcock’s plot (written by Raymond Chandler and Ben Hecht) out of their minds. The original novel (quite apart from the twin murders) has more subtlety and depth, and is also a much darker piece of work. It’s also a curious blending of literary genres. Superficially, it is a crime thriller, but it has rich seams of psychological analysis running through it, as well as meditations on existential philosophy (which was popular at the time the novel was written).

Strangers on a Train

Farley Granger and Robert Walker

Bruno takes a Nietzchean view of the world, seeing himself as some supra-moral being who can float above the pettiness of everyday human beings. Guy on the other hand is racked with guilt and despair, and despite the fact that they appear to go undetected in their plans, Guy in the end feels driven to make a Raskolnikov-like confession of the diabolical plot into which he has allowed himself to be drawn.

The outcome is disastrous for both of them, but the novel offers no comforting moral reassurance. The world it creates is one of ethical ambiguity and free-floating malevolence.

Highsmith is an interesting literary stylist. She has an attractive habit of what might be called narrative ellipsis – leaving out parts of the story for the reader to supply. She is obviously attracted to violence, sexual ambiguity, and the perverse in life. She deliberately courts the grotesque and shocking, and of course she was originally from the American South, famous for its Gothic.

Her characters drink and smoke to excess (as she did) and they are drawn into forming destructive and humiliating relationships (as she was) of a kind we normally associate with Dostoyevski (who was one of her favourite writers). See Hitchcock’s film version of Strangers on a Train by all means: it’s one of his class acts, with lots of witty touches. But for the real thing, do yourself a favour and read Patricia Highsmith’s original novel. It’s a disturbing, often uncomfortable experience – but not one you will easily forget.

Alfred Hitchcock film 1951

© Roy Johnson 2010


Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train, London: Penguin, 1999, pp.256, ISBN 0140037969


Strangers on a Train – study resources

Strangers on a Train Strangers on a Train – paperback novel – Amazon UK

Strangers on a Train Strangers on a Train – paperback novel – Amazon US

Strangers on a Train Strangers on a Train – Kindle edition – Amazon UK

Strangers on a Train Strangers on a Train – Kindle edition – Amazon US

Strangers on a Train Strangers on a Train – Hitchcock film (DVD) – Amazon UK

Strangers on a Train Strangers on a Train – Hitchcock film (DVD) – Amazon US


More Patricia Highsmith
Twentieth century literature
More on short stories


Filed Under: Patricia Highsmith Tagged With: Literary studies, Media, Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train, The novel

The Talented Mr Ripley

October 30, 2017 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, study guide, commentary, further reading, web links

The Talented Mr Ripley (1955) is the first of a series of crime thrillers by Patricia Highsmith featuring the character Tom Ripley. He is an ambitious young American who has come from an undistinguished background, but who has a taste for the good quality things in life, which are not within his means. The talents mentioned in the title turn out to include forgery, deception, mimicry, lying, and murder – from which he miraculously escapes detection.

The Talented Mr Ripley

There are five novels in the series, which have become known collectively as The Ripliad. They are self-contained and can be enjoyed separately – but a knowledge of their chronological development adds a great deal of depth to their meaning – particularly the ironic contrasts between Ripley’s refined social tastes and his shocking exploits.


The Talented Mr Ripley – commentary

Genre and morality

Patricia Highsmith’s novels are often categorised as mystery thrillers or detective stories. Yet the Ripley series in particular contain very little mystery and virtually no detection. That’s because we know who commits the crimes – Ripley himself. The only element of suspense in the narrative is the question ‘will he be found out?’ – to which the answer is ‘Amazingly – no’.

Highsmith is exploring a rather bleak, pessimistic, sometimes misanthropic view of the world in which virtue is not necessarily rewarded and mischief is not always punished. It also has to be said that this view is shot through with elements of black humour – another sign of the times in which she wrote.

The plot

Before she became a full time novelist, Patricia Highsmith wrote the stories for comic books (1942-1948). These have the virtue of being fast-moving tales with clearly defined characters and lots of dramatic twists. This background undoubtedly had an influence on her work as a novelist.

She is also a product of the age of existentialism. – ideas she had already explored in her dramatic and very successful first novel Strangers on a Train (1950) – the text of which is even more complex and psychologically searching than the famous film adaptation made by Alfred Hitchcock.

It is her fascination with aberrant and psychologically disturbed characters that give her stories such impact. In this there is clearly the influence of Dostoyevski – a founding father to the existentialists.

Tom Ripley is a vivid character not just because he commits murders and evades detection, but because he is ruthlessly honest about himself, and scathingly critical of everybody else as well. He knows that Dickie Greenleaf is a mediocre person, a talentless painter, and a spoiled playboy. Yet he is attracted to Greenleaf; indeed he wants to become him. He wears his clothes and jewellery, imitates his voice and his writing, and is happiest when living as him.

The homo-erotic element in this relationship is unmistakable – especially in Tom’s glorification of Dickie’s physical beauty and his disparagement of Marge, who he likens to the leader of a Girl Guide group. What is even more complex and interesting in thiis psychological farrago is that this study of male desire was created by not only a female author, but one who was avowedly homosexual in her own tastes and practices.

Tom’s character

Tom originally thought he might become an actor. His deprived background left him feeling he had no central identity to define a real self, so he thought that imitating someone else might provide him with an acceptable substitute. The events of The Talented Mr Ripley present a study of Tom’s identifying with someone else, to the extent that he wishes to become that person – Dickie Greenleaf.

He does not set out with malicious intentions. Fortune puts the opportunity in his way via Dickie’s father’s request that he try to persuade Dickie to come back from Europe. There is a clear echo of Henry James’ The Ambassadors here, which Patricia Highsmith signals quite clearly in the narrative.

In one sense Tom Ripley does become Dickie Greenleaf. He forges Dickie’s will and inherits his wealth, then he retires to live in a grand French house, with a playboy existence – pottering amongst his plants and painting when the mood takes him. So he replicates the lifestyle of Dickie’s which he so coveted. He also has a glamorous wife (with a rich father) to whom he is rather unconvincingly devoted.


The Talented Mr Ripley – film adaptations

There have been two major film adaptations of the novel. The first was made in 1960 by French director Rene Clement and is called Pleine Soleil, also known as Purple Noon. It stars Alain Delon as Ripley in what was his first major film.

The second was made by British director Anthony Minghella in 1999, starring Mat Damon as Ripley and Jude Law as Dickie Greenleaf. This version is beautifully photographed (by John Seale) and received several nominations and film awards

Minghella’s version takes some minor liberties with the story line and introduces new characters and plot complications. Minghella rather unnecessarily creates a second lead female (Meredith Logue, played by Cate Blanchett) and adds a third murder when Ripley kills Peter Smith-Kingsley (Jack Davenport) during the boat trip to Greece. But on the whole his film is amazingly faithful to the original text in terms of rhythm, tone, locations, and atmosphere.


The Talented Mr Ripley – study resources

The Talented Mr Ripley The Talented Mr Ripley – Penguin – Amazon UK

The Talented Mr Ripley The Talented Mr Ripley – Penguin – Amazon US

The Talented Mr Ripley The Talented Mr Ripley – Kindle – Amazon UK

The Talented Mr Ripley The Talented Mr Ripley – Kindle – Amazon US

The Talented Mr Ripley The Talented Mr Ripley – DVD film – Amazon UK

The Talented Mr Ripley The Talented Mr Ripley – DVD film – Amazon US

The Talented Mr Ripley Pleine Soleil – DVD film – Amazon UK

The Talented Mr Ripley Pleine Soleil – DVD film – Amazon US


The Talented Mr Ripley


The complete Ripliad

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)

Ripley Under Ground (1970)

Ripley’s Game (1974)

The Boy Who Followed Ripley (1980)

Ripley Under Water (1991)


The Talented Mr Ripley

Patricia Highsmith


The Talented Mr Ripley – plot summary

Tom Ripley is a young man living on the edge of legality in New York City. He is collecting cheques from people by issuing false income tax demands. He meets shipbuilder Herbert Greenleaf who asks for help in recovering his son Richard, who has gone to live in Italy. Tom has dinner at the Greenleaf house, where he lies about his academic record.

Crossing to Europe on board ship Tom reflects on his unhappy childhood and blames his Aunt Dottie for not making his life easier. In the (ficticious) town of Mongibello in Italy Tom locates Dickie and Marge Sherwood on the beach. They invite him back for lunch, after which he is sick.

When they meet again Tom explains his mission on behalf of Mr Greenleaf. Dickie invites Tom to live temporarily in his house. Tom finds Dickie commonplace but attractive. They go for lunch in Naples, then on to Rome for the night.

There is talk of travelling together, but Marge disapproves of their irresponsible behaviour. Dickie claims Marge is just a friend, but Tom spies and sees him kissing her. This puts Tom into a jealous rage. He dresses in Dickie’s clothes and imagines strangling Marge. Dickie suddenly appears in the room and there is an embarrassing scene.

Tom and Dickie argue about a proposed trip to Paris. Tom feels he is being squeezed out, and will be left alone at Christmas. They go to Cannes and San Remo, where Tom begins to hate Dickie because of his cold remoteness. When they go out on a boat Tom kills Dickie, steals his wallet, and scuttles the boat.

Tom returns to Mongibello and tells Marge that Dickie is stayIng in Rome for the winter. He steals Dickie’s clothes and makes arrangements to sell Dickie’s house and boat. He goes to Rome, where he writes a goodbye letter to Marge in Dickie’s name.

He goes to Paris at Christmas and enjoys living in someone else’s persona – shedding his own.. He spends the rest of winter in Rome, avoiding giving anyone his address. . However, a fleeting mistake brings Dickie’s friend Freddy Miles to the apartment. Knowing his deception will be exposed, Tom murders Freddy.

He dumps Freddy’s body on the Appian Way then prepares to leave for Majorca. But the body is found and the police arrive to question him. The scuttled boat is also found. Tom feels threatened by people trying to contact him.

The police return to say they think Tom Ripley is dead because of blood in the boat. Then Marge arrives, but he lies to her, gives her the slip, and goes instead to Palermo, Sicily.

In Palermo a letter arrives from Marge for Dickie. She is giving up on the relationship and going back to America. Tom receives notice from the bank that they suspect the signatures on Dickie’s cheques might be forgeries.

When he receives a letter from the police demanding his presence in Rome, he decides reluctantly to revert to being Tom Ripley. The police are also searching for Ripley, but when he presents himself to them he is easily able to convince them of his innocence.

He establishes himself in grand style in Venice, and is visited by Marge. She questions him closely about his time apparently spent with Dickie. Speculation continues about Dickie’s whereabouts. Herbert Greenleaf arrives to check on the latest news. Tom gives him an edited version.

Suddenly, Marge finds Dickie’s rings. Tom lies his way out of the tight corner, and fantasises about killing her. Private detective McCarron arrives to question Tom and Marge closely. Some days later Tom posts Mr Greenleaf a copy of Dickie’s will that he has forged.

Tom is preparing to go to Greece when Dickie’s luggage is found in the American Express office in Venice. Tom sails to Greece, all the time thinking he is about to be arrested. But on arrival in Athens a letter from Mr Greenleaf confirms that he accepts the terms of the will: Dickie’s entire inheritance is left to Tom.


The Talented Mr Ripley – characters
Herbert Greenleaf a rich and successful shipbuilder
Masie Greenleaf his wife, who is dying from lukemia
Richard (‘Dickie’) Greenleaf his son, a self-indulgent playboy and amateur painter
Marge Sherwood Dickie’s American girlfriend, a would-be writer
Tom Ripley a confidence man
Freddie Miles an American playboy friend of Dickie

© Roy Johnson 2017


More Patricia Highsmith
Twentieth century literature
More on short stories


Filed Under: Patricia Highsmith Tagged With: English literature, Literary studies, Patricia Highsmith, The novel

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