Truth And The Rules Of Attraction

6 Pages 1575 Words

The book The Rules of Attraction, by Bret Easton Ellis, is a book that delves into the lives and personalities of young college students. It exposes the startling truth about the way point of view can skew a story. The story jumps around, retelling the same scene, each time narrated by another character. Although each explanation of the characters’ encounters with each other was factually correct to that individual, the stories conflicted. By giving contradictory stories and paradoxical truths, Ellis questions the reader as to what truth really is and whether it exists. Ellis’s use of the rotating first person was very intriguing and thought provoking, as it considers the reality of truth.
This book essentially revolved around Sean, Paul, and Lauren. Sean entered the book as a disgruntled realist frustrated with his environment. He was an apathetic lost soul on campus who rarely cared about others. Enjoying his binge-drinking and habitual drug use, he viewed Camden as a college where he had no place. Soon the object of Paul’s affection, he did not describe their relationship to be anything of the romantic nature. He regarded Paul as only an annoying acquaintance, and often did not even extend friendship to him. Paul, an openly bisexual tramp, had innumerable sexual encounters with most the men and women of Camden College. His melodramatic personality often masked the truth by his embellished take on the world. He met Sean and allegedly had a sexual encounter with him that started a romantic relationship between them, although Sean never confirmed their affair.
Meanwhile, Sean had slowly become infatuated with Lauren, a girl who was very indecisive with her life. She indulged in alcohol and drugs, just as everyone else on her campus did. She and Sean had a very dysfunctional relationship, one in which the line between love and hate was often blurred. After Sean slept with Lauren’s best friend Judy, Lauren parte...