Why is Tom Ripley, an unreliable narrator, SO appealing?

I shouldn't be so invested in a murderer

One of the topics that we encountered when recording our main podcast episode for ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’ was discover that we both had kind of really been sucked in by Tom Ripley.

A liar. A murderer. A fraudster. A psychopath.

And yet I was cheering for him and desperately hoping that his crimes wouldn’t be uncovered and that he wouldn’t get caught…

There’s something about Tom that feels innocent and naive, even in his actions. His intentions and wants are very open and direct: he wants to be someone who is not Tom Ripley; someone with the wealth, possibilities and freedom that he believes that he is entitled to, even if that means taking it from someone else. And so he becomes someone else; he becomes Dickie Greenleaf.

“His stories were good because he imagined them intensely, so intensely that he came to believe them.”

There’s a fascinating moment in the novel where he has committed two murders, but in that moment he is Dickie and he tells himself that he has committed one murder because in his mind Dickie is not dead, instead he has become Dickie entirely.

And he deserves to be Dickie and have everything that Dickie has.

It’s makes for a fascinating narration and a really compelling protagonist to follow because it’s impossible to not be sucked in by his unwavering belief that it was made for him and he exists in that ‘rich American abroad in the ‘50s’ microcosm of life and entitlement which is very beguiling, even now.

I truly wouldn’t say no to swanning around mainland Europe for a year or two with no worries about money and going back to work, but minus all of the murder…

There’s something very appealing about his full-bodied determination to grasp what he wants, with no care for the ramifications of his actions. It’s a very freeing perspective and I think that’s part of the appeal - Ripley does whatever he wants, to get what he thinks he deserves, and he gets away with it.