Suspense and Unease in Patricia Highsmith’s Ripliad

Abstract

This chapter argues that Patricia Highsmith’s most famous character can be regarded as a transatlantic and cross-class invention of the 1950s. The novels featuring Tom Ripley must also be placed in the context of the transnational literary developments of the crime novel and especially the suspense novel. The contribution focuses on the construction of suspense and suggests that the emotional state of unease plays a central role, mainly in the construction and presentation of the protagonist, but also in the impact of the novels on the readers. In contrast to research on the Ripliad so far, this contribution does neither adopt a psychoanalytical approach nor does it focus on emotions that are easily readable: it is routed in narrative theory, explores the subtle emotional state of unease, and thus contributes to affective narratology.

1. Introduction

Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995) was a North-American writer who spent the greater part of her life in Europe and also set many of her novels in Europe. Her most famous literary invention is the criminal Tom Ripley, a character that mirrors the transatlantic career of his inventor. Highsmith’s five novels that follow Tom Ripley’s criminal career [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], written between 1955 and 1991 – the so-called Ripliad – attest to her life-long fascination with this character as well as to her continuing endeavours to push the boundaries of the conventions of the crime novel. At the same time, Tom Ripley’s roots lie in the U.S.A. of the 1950s and its political and economic as well as literary traditions. My investigation, therefore, begins with a short look at the character as a transatlantic invention of the 1950s.

Interestingly, Highsmith wrote not only fiction but also literary criticism with a focus on the genres she published in so prolifically herself. In her analysis of key elements of her favoured genre, titled Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction [6], Highsmith suggests that the recording of “emotional experiences” plays a vital role in the writing process and that suspense writers “must have some kind of sympathy and identification with criminals, or they would not become emotionally engrossed in books about them”. Accordingly, most of her novels present main criminal characters whose emotions are minutely recorded. In order to understand Highsmith’s construction of emotions, it is necessary to first learn more about the interconnections between literature and emotions in general. Crime fiction is especially suited to investigate these interconnections, since its narrative structure is strongly based on a cognitive and emotional game with the reader. I suggest that the creation of suspense and its constant interaction with surprise are essential for the genre.

While currently the necessitation of strong, easily readable emotions is enhanced by contemporary visual culture and the ongoing self-representation of users of social media, I will turn to Highsmith’s Ripliad to examine the representation of the more subtle emotional state of “unease” in a literary medium. Accordingly, I will argue that Highsmith achieves a peculiar presentation of the emotional experiences of her most famous protagonist by describing his individual processes of cognitive and emotional reactions in her very own literary language. At the same time, her construction of unease has a bearing on the suspense that she creates for the readers of her Ripley novels. Since the readers’ emotional investment in the narrative and the protagonist plays a crucial role for the creation of suspense, it is necessary that Highsmith offers her readers possibilities to feel sympathy for her notorious murderer. I will therefore examine Ripley as a likeable criminal before the focus is directed to Highsmith’s creation of unease.

In my discussion of Ripley’s unease, I wish to illustrate the relationality and connectivity of this subtle emotion and its important function for the creation of suspense and argue that the suspenseful and emotionally charged moments Highsmith creates in her narratives might have an effect on the reader and might interact with the reader’s mental and physical reality through sensory imagination. As a conclusion, I will return to the narrative features of suspense and look at the paradox of its resilience.

2. Tom Ripley as a transatlantic invention of the 1950s

Elizabeth A. Hatmaker and Christopher Breu have highlighted the central function that “the transnational dictates of the emerging global economy” in the 1950s play for Highsmith’s construction of her notorious protagonist [7]. They have described Tom Ripley as “a perverse condensation or parody of the ‘other-directed’ company man so celebrated of high Fordism” and argued that Ripley “would seem to almost be an allegorical figuration of the Marshall Plan if he were not so routinely associated with consumption in contrast to investment and production”.

In an era that becomes witness to mass production on such a large scale for the very first time, we find a number of crime novel heroes that see themselves confronted with the need to achieve “an upwardly mobile success” in order to avoid staying “a faceless working-class ‘nobody’” [7]. The protagonists of Dorothy B. Hughes’ In a Lonely Place (1947) and Cornell Woolrich’s Rendezvous in Black (1948) might have been influential for Highsmith’s conceptualisation of her hero-villain. As David Bordwell explains, she “kept away from domestic suspense and the woman-in-peril plot, but she didn’t accept the conventions of hard-boiled storytelling either”: Highsmith “took crime out of the shabby streets” and “thrust it back into the drawing room” [8]. Her hero-villains are mostly not professional crooks and generally operate from socially privileged locations.

In this context, it is also important to note that the narrative of the first Ripley novel is based on the plot device that the father of Dickie, shipping magnate Herbert Greenleaf, sends Tom Ripley to Europe. Herbert Greenleaf finances the trip, because he is (mistakenly) thinking that his son and Ripley are friends and hoping that Ripley might persuade his son to come back to the United States. Herbert Greenleaf’s shipping business forms the basis for Dickie’s care-free existence in Italy and for Ripley’s ensuing affluence, especially after he has killed Dickie and forged his will. The continuing references to Herbert Greenleaf in the dialogues of the protagonists, in the references to Dickie’s yacht, and in form of Ripley’s correspondence with him keep reminding the readers of his success as a “self-made man”. As I have argued elsewhere [9], this construction of masculinity can be linked to the Protestant movement of Muscular Christianity, which stems from 19th-century Britain. Interestingly, its ideals connect ethical with economic as well as biological ideas and express themselves in the wish to rise to power as a “self-made man”. Such success stories already play a significant role in the industrial novel of the nineteenth century.

On the one hand, the creation of Tom Ripley must be situated in North America’s mass production and consumer culture of the 1950s; on the other hand, the construction of masculinity in the novel and the homophobia that Ripley repeatedly encounters also need to be linked to them. Erving Goffman gives a helpful example with regard to the ideal of masculinity in the United States of America at the time he is writing his study on stigma in the early 1960s:

For example, in an important sense there is only one complete unblushing male in America: a young, married, white, urban, northern, heterosexual Protestant father of college education, fully employed, of good complexion, weight and height and a recent record in sports. […]. Any male who fails to qualify in any of these ways is likely to view himself – during moments at least – as unworthy, incomplete and inferior […] [10].

While Dickie Greenleaf represents such an “unblushing male” with regard to many of the aspects Goffman mentions, Ripley fulfils far fewer of these important prerequisites. It is, therefore, understandable for the reader that Ripley admires and envies Dickie and wishes to cross class boundaries to improve his lot. The educational projects that Ripley pursues throughout the Ripliad also attest to the ideals of the transatlantic jet set of the 1950s: “People are cultivated. They know Bach and Vivaldi, Cocteau and Kafka, Malraux and Proust” [8]. Accordingly, Bordwell argues, the crime novel “becomes the ‘novel of manners’”.

Moreover, the high living standards of North Americans during the 1950s placed U.S. citizens in a privileged position within the global community. Hatmaker and Breu have pointed to the important role that Ripley’s status of being a North-American citizen plays in the interactions of the police with him: “This position of political-economic privilege is indicated throughout the narrative by Tom’s assumption that he will be treated more gingerly and respectfully by the police because of his status as an American” [7]. Indeed, Highsmith shows throughout the Ripliad that due to this bias, it is repeatedly made easier for Ripley to lie, get away with forged documents or to assume his disguises.

3. Literature and emotions

We neither read literature to gather data or information nor because we know that reading is a possibility to train our brains, but because we derive pleasure from reading fictitious texts, as Wolfgang Iser and others have shown. In her discussion of the “affective value of fiction”, Vera Nünning suggests that narratological investigations need to combine different approaches. Not only the author’s motivation and process of writing should be taken into account, but at the same time “the nexus between the text and the reader” should be investigated with regard to “the presenting, thematising or alluding to emotions in the text on the one hand, and the evoking of the reader’s emotions on the other” [11]. I will follow these hints by combining Highsmith’s own literary criticism with an analysis of the presentation of emotions on the textual level and the generic peculiarities and narrative techniques that will very likely have an impact on the reader.

Bordwell refers to Highsmith’s own critical writing, especially to her article “The Sense of Form”, which appeared in The Writer in January 1948 [8]. In this article, Highsmith states that the pleasure the readers derive stands in connection to the form of the text – that it is “to feel form” – and that she does not differentiate between “professional” and “arty” writing (in [8]). With Bordwell, one can argue that she fulfilled this premise, since her writing combines popular thriller elements with “classic novelistic techniques of restricted viewpoint” [8]. At the same time, Highsmith’s suggestion that to enjoy reading is “to feel form” can be combined with Roger Scruton’s understanding of the emotions that are being produced while reading [12]. Scruton gives his article the title “Feeling Fictions” and thus indirectly takes up Highsmith’s idea that literary form has an impact on emotional responses.

According to Scruton, imagination is the capacity to entertain thoughts without affirming or asserting them as we do in the real world: “Imagination, as I envisage it, is a response to the question ‘What if …?’” [12]. While readers might have “gut reactions” Scruton doubts that “affective appraisals” precede “cognitive evaluation”, as theorists like Jenefer Robinson have suggested [13]. Instead, Scruton argues that it is the reader’s imagination that is “a cognitive capacity” in itself and that “works of fiction, which are explicitly directed to the imagination, are asking us to conjure up thoughts without asserting them as true”. Accordingly, a literary text can serve as “a vehicle through which we rehearse various emotions, and by rehearsing acquire them” [12]. With regard to the reader’s reactions to the suspenseful or surprising elements of crime fiction I would argue that the emotional responses might even acquire a physiological quality, so that I suggest to additionally speak of “sensory imagination”.

Nünning suggests that emotions can have a narrative quality themselves and that the sequence-structures of emotions may resemble “narrative patterns” [11]. With regard to potential reactions of the readers Nünning mentions descriptions of facial expressions and body language of a character as well as their verbal exclamations, for instance, of surprise, joy or disappointment, as possible stimuli. For the understanding of Highsmith’s representation of unease in the Ripliad in connection to her appropriation of suspense features, Nünning’s hints at “linguistic and narrative devices”, “formal features” and “the choice of words” as well as the “innovations of generic conventions” are especially helpful.

4. Reading crime fiction: pleasure and unease

“Sensation fiction” and the “thriller”, for instance, are two genres that have been given their peculiar names in reference to the emotional states that are linked to their reception, that is the evocation of stark sensations or a feeling of being thrilled. David Glover attributes to thrillers a “direct impact upon the nervous systems of their readers” and describes a potential reaction as “a hyperventilated state of pleasurably anxious unknowing”. In the description of an experience of “pleasurably anxious unknowing”, Glover indirectly brings together the initial state of the reader’s being “unknowing” with the cognitive processes of gathering plot details or arriving at insights whilst reading, which happens gradually and erratically and forms part of the enjoyment of the reading process [14]. He also juxtaposes the two conflicting emotional reactions – the pleasure and the anxiety – that can likewise be caused in consequence of the reading process of this literary genre.

I suggest that the genre of crime fiction is especially suitable to approach the interconnections of cognition and emotion because of its peculiar features and narrative structures that combine the representation of a social and moral transgression in the criminal act with a generally linear plot outline that invites the reader to search for clues or at least to follow a relatively clear arrangement of the events, usually before, during, and after the criminal action. Depending on the subgenre of detective or suspense fiction, respectively, the reader’s reception process might be characterised by a stronger or a less strong engagement with the text in imaginative and emotional terms and accordingly might cause a variety of physiological reactions or “rehearsals”, as Scruton would call them.

In order to describe current emotional states in Western societies, scholars tend to focus on strong sensations and clearly readable emotions. I propose the use of another term – “unease” – to enlarge the descriptive spectrum of emotional structures and in order to offer a more appropriate term for the understanding of predominant emotional frameworks in current Western cultures. With the term “dis-ease” Patrick Duggan has proposed a stronger form of the emotional state that I wish to describe with the term “unease”. Duggan’s “dis-ease” can be understood as a starker version of the state of “unease” with a more powerful physical impact: “an in-between space […] which creates anxiety, uncertainty and insecurity” and which derives from “exposure to a constant threat of being ripped from a state of normalcy” [15]. In contrast, unease is a milder emotional state of discomfort, uncertainty, and insecurity.

I would suggest that the term “unease” lends itself especially well to an analysis of crime fiction and is appropriate to describe the potential reader response to crime fiction as – in adaptation of Glover’s description of the thriller reception above – a pleasurably uneasy unknowing. Accordingly, I wish to argue that the emotion of unease is central to the production and reception of the crime genre.

It is also fitting for an analysis of Highsmith’s suspense novels because they excel in a simplicity and unaffectedness of language that can be described as unsensational. When Highsmith commented on Julian Symons’ writing style, she praised it as “casual, unexciting prose which is still compelling reading simply because of its everydayness” [6], a praise that is likewise true for her own writing style. Bordwell describes Highsmith’s language as “unfussy prose” which reminds him of Simenon’s “flatness” as well as of “Hammett-like minimalism” [8] – an assessment that can again be interpreted to prove the transnational quality of her writing.

5. From surprise to suspense: The Talented Mr. Ripley

In contrast to the detective novel, the suspense novel neither needs a detective as a central figure who controls the question-and-answer game nor does it have to offer a catalogue of clearly constructed questions for the reader. Ulrich Suerbaum argues that the change from the riddle structure to the suspense structure can be regarded as a form of liberation [16]. The crime novel can – at least to a certain extent – dispense with the strict limitations of the detective novel and experiment with retardation and surprise.

In his study Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel, Julian Symons provides a helpful chart which lists the most important differences between the detective story and the crime novel [17]. He also makes a rough division between authors who continue to adhere to the puzzle structure, such as P. D. James and Ruth Rendell, and writers who have abandoned the puzzle element in their novels, such as Nicholas Freeling or Patricia Highsmith. Although both the detective novel and the suspense novel in general follow a more or less linear plotline, the most significant difference is that the detective story “is constructed backwards from this deception”, while the crime novel “is constructed forwards from such a problem” [17]. The change that is of greatest significance for the discussion of suspense fiction is the shift from the important function that surprise plays in detective fiction to the central role of suspense for the genre that carries its name.

The so-called “Master of Suspense”, Alfred Hitchcock, also differentiates between suspense and surprise (in [18]). The difference lies in the discrepancy of knowledge between the fictitious characters and the audience. According to Hitchcock, suspense is only possible if the audience has a surplus of information in comparison to the characters:

In the usual form of suspense it is indispensable that the public be made perfectly aware of all the facts involved. Otherwise, there is no suspense […].

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let us suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, “Boom!” There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o’clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions this same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen […].

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed [18].

This description already illustrates that the cognitive and emotional investment of the audience can be extended with the help of suspense in comparison to the shorter effects of surprise. With regard to the crime novel this means that a surplus of information for the readers in comparison to the characters allows for a different form of a novel. A corresponding change of construction of the narrative – forwards from a problem – is made possible for the author, for example by exposing the murderer early on in the narrative. This structural device was introduced already by, among others, Francis Iles in Malice Aforethought (1931) and Before the Fact (1932). Malice Aforethought starts with the famous lines:

It was not until several weeks after he had decided to murder his wife that Dr. Bickleigh took any active steps in the matter. Murder is a serious business. The slightest slip may be disastrous. Dr. Bickleigh had no intention of risking disaster [19].

From the very beginning of his novel, Iles familiarises the reader with the protagonist’s situation and his motivations for murdering his wife and thus heightens the suspense element. The readers’ imaginative investment is extended over a considerable period of the reading process, because they wonder how the murder will be carried out and whether Dr. Bickleigh will be caught.

Richard Austin Freeman’s short story “The Case of Oscar Brodski” from 1912 is regarded as the first crime story that starts with the introduction of the murderer and then quickly follows with the execution of the murder. As Austin Freeman explains in his “Preface”, the curiosity of his readership is not going to be concerned with the usual question of “Whodunit”, but with the question: “How was the discovery achieved?” (in [20]) While the second part of the short story is accordingly dedicated to the detection of the crime, the first part, however, presents us “The Mechanism of Crime” and shows us how the motivation for the murder quickly arises and how the murder is then immediately carried out [20].

In her Ripliad, Highsmith combines elements of both Iles’s and Austin Freeman’s texts: similar to Iles’s novels, the detection of the crime – that still takes up the greater part of Austin Freeman’s story – fades into the background, while the protagonist’s situation and his motivations for murder feature prominently now. At the same time, Highsmith’s representation of Ripley’s cognitive and emotional processes resemble Austin Freeman’s descriptions of the thoughts and feelings of a murderer.

When one looks at the theoretical discussion of suspense, it becomes obvious that many scholars focus on the main characters and the significant roles that their features and tendencies in terms of morality play for the narrative. In addition, the outcomes of suspense thrillers seem to bear considerable scholarly weight, not only on their being described as such but also on their being used as demarcation points for the genre. Since Highsmith’s murderer-hero always gets away with his evil deeds, the Ripley novels can be regarded as such demarcation points.

In his study of suspense films, The Suspense Thriller: Films in the Shadow of Alfred Hitchcock, Charles Derry regards the suspense thriller as an umbrella term for a variety of subgenres, which he tries to differentiate from each other [21]. In my opinion, Derry’s findings on suspense films are illuminating and allow for insights into the features of subgenres. Moreover, by generally focusing on the narratives of the films, Derry also indicates that there must be narrative features that stand in direct relation to the genre and its subgenres. The subgenres that Derry suggests are the following: “(1) the thriller of murderous passions, (2) the political thriller, (3) the thriller of acquired identity, (4) the psychotraumatic thriller, (5) the thriller of moral confrontation, and (6) the innocent-on-the-run thriller” [21]. Which category a film is finally attributed to depends on the respective prominence that the narrative elements have.

When one transfers Derry’s film subgenres directly onto narrative suspense fiction, one can state that, for example, Highsmith’s first Ripley novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley, shows traces from different subgenres. There are for instance the triangular grouping in which two characters compete for the affection of a third one (Ripley, Marge, Dickie), psychological abuse which victimises the protagonist (by Ripley’s Aunt Dottie) or the competition of protagonist and antagonist. However, most readers would probably consider the two murders and the identity theft as the most prominent suspense features of the novel and agree that The Talented Mr. Ripley might be described as a suspense novel of acquired identity.

It thus becomes obvious that there are clear narrative features that allow for a definite genre description of narratives, but that there is also the level of reception which opens up a great variety of generic associations. For instance, in the beginning of The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley is being followed – “There was no doubt the man was after him” [1] – which might lead some readers with generic knowledge to expect him to turn out to be an innocent man on the run.

In this context, I regard two findings as especially illuminating. The first one is Noël Carroll’s insight that emotional responses “can evolve in reaction to whole narratives, or in response to discrete scenes or sequences within a larger narrative whose overall structure may or may not be suspenseful” [22]. In consequence, a Western movie, for example, with powerful suspenseful sequences does not turn into a suspense film but remains a Western. And the second one is William F. Brewer’s differentiation between microstructure and macrostructure: “to keep up reader suspense one needs a number of ‘mini’ suspense and resolution episodes along the way, in addition to the macro suspense and resolution structure” [23].

Brewer’s statement sounds, however, as if micro and macro structure can exist fairly independently, which must make for an unsatisfactory reading experience. In reference to Hitchcock’s film Psycho McGowan makes clear that a close relation of both structures is important: “The initial surprise does not function as an end in itself but works to increase the power of the later suspense sequence” [24]. The Talented Mr. Ripley, for instance, shows a perfect interplay of micro and macro suspense structures: no mini suspense sequence stands for itself but serves to build up the macro suspense structure.

6. Tom Ripley, the likeable criminal

Similar to the detective novel, appearances are deceptive in the suspense novel. But while the detection of whose appearances are deceptive for which reasons forms part of the clue-puzzle, Highsmith informs us about her protagonist’s deceptions throughout the Ripliad. Ripley takes over the detective’s function to control the sequence of events and to influence the question-and-answer game. Ripley executes the crimes himself and does his best to hinder the detection process by erasing his traces. Thus, at times, he can be in charge of the complete “game” – as the title of the middle novel, Ripley’s Game, so aptly illustrates. In contrast to the detective novel, the process of clue gathering does not have to play a central role (cf. [17]), and the knowledge distribution, therefore, functions differently. Whereas the secrets of the characters in a detective novel contribute to the surprise effects, in the Ripliad the readers become witnesses – or perhaps even imaginative accomplices – of Ripley’s plans and deeds. The readers are provided with superior knowledge in comparison to uninformed characters, such as Ripley’s future victims or police officials. Accordingly, the readers can, for instance, admire Ripley for his ingenuity or feel cleverer than the police. Thereby, the readers’ investment is both extended and intensified – and of an emotional as well as intellectual nature.

According to Francois Truffaut suspense involves concern for a character and for how he or she will react to a threat that the audience already knows about [18]. Since a reader’s investment in any story is clearly interlinked with concern for the main character, Highsmith argues:

There are many kinds of suspense books—government spy stories, for instance—which do not depend on psychopathic or neurotic heroes like mine […]. I can only suggest giving the murderer-hero as many pleasant qualities as possible—generosity, kindness to some people, fondness for painting or music or cooking, for instance. These qualities can also be amusing in contrast to his criminal or homicidal traits [6].

Unfortunately, because of the threat that a crime brings with it on the happiness or security of an important character, an astonishing number of scholars jump to the conclusion that suspense is in itself a moral concept. Carroll, for instance, repeatedly emphasises that the reader is interested in “what is morally right” and that the reader desires a “morally correct” or “morally righteous” outcome [22]. At least, in passing, Carroll grants that “the reader’s or spectator’s moral allegiances in response to a suspense fiction do not always precisely correlate with his or her normal repertory of moral responses and, indeed, the audience’s moral responses are frequently shaped by fiction itself”. Interestingly enough, Brewer states as one result of his empirical findings that “suspense can be produced when either good or bad characters are at risk” [23]. This clearly indicates that suspense can work as a “gimmick” independent of a character’s morality.

An important prerequisite for the functioning of suspense in the Ripliad is the point of view that Highsmith decides on. Highsmith chooses a narrative perspective that is similar to Austin Freeman’s choice: a third-person narrative with a personal, subjective point of view. Highsmith explains her decision as follows:

The first-person singular is the most difficult form in which to write a novel; on this writers seem to be agreed, even if they agree on no other matter in regard to point of view. […]. I have quite a bit of introspection in my heroes, and to write all this in the first person makes them sound like nasty schemers, which of course they are, but they seem less so if some all-knowing author is telling what is going on in their heads [6].

According to Suerbaum, the Ripley novels are exceptional because the murders are classical murders with intent; they are not being translated into a non-moral category or excused by a serious illness [16]. However, in her first Ripley novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Highsmith takes great care to establish a tragic background story for her protagonist. He is an orphan, whose parents drowned and who is raised by an aunt that repeatedly treats him cruelly:

He thought suddenly of one summer day when he had been about twelve, when he had been on a cross-country trip with Aunt Dottie and a woman friend of hers, and they had got stuck in a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam somewhere. It had been a hot summer day, and Aunt Dottie had sent him out with the thermos to get some ice water at a filling station, and suddenly the traffic had started moving. He remembered running between huge, inching cars, always about to touch the door of Aunt Dottie’s car and never being quite able to, because she had kept inching along as fast as she could go, not willing to wait for him a minute, and yelling, “Come on, come on, slowpoke!” out the window all the time [1].

The reader is invited to connect Ripley’s unhappy, loveless youth with his frustrations and cruelty. Highsmith mentions that already at the age of eight he has imagined running away from his aunt and “hitting her with his fists, flinging her to the ground and throttling her, and finally tearing the big brooch off her dress and stabbing her a million times in the throat with it” [1]. This makes obvious that, at least partly, his upbringing is to function as a sort of excuse for his sudden outbreaks of violence and general murderous tendencies.

At the beginning of the Ripliad, Ripley clearly suffers under his dire financial and social situation and under the fact that even as a young grown-up – because of his poor education and professional failures – he is still dependent on his aunt’s financial support. This is made explicit in Ripley under Ground, when Highsmith explains that Ripley “had longed for leisure and a bit of luxury when he had met Dickie Greenleaf, and now that he had attained it, the charm had not palled” [2].

With regard to the sufferings in his youth, Highsmith creates another strong emotional moment in The Talented Mr. Ripley at the beginning of the sea voyage that takes him to Europe. As mentioned above, Dickie’s father has financed the trip, because he is hoping that Ripley might persuade his son to come back to the United States. The new wealth that Ripley suddenly sees himself confronted with and the promise of a new existence full of ease and without financial worries is symbolised by the “bon voyage basket” that awaits him in his cabin:

The basket had a tall handle and it was entirely under yellow cellophane—apples and pears and grapes and a couple of candy bars and several little bottles of liqueurs. Tom had never received a bon voyage basket. To him, they had always been something you saw in florists’ windows for fantastic prices and laughed at. Now he found himself with tears in his eyes, and he put his face down in his hands suddenly and began to sob [1].

I would suggest that this moment of conflicting emotions might also have an emotional effect on the reader. Although it is not clear whether the first “tears” are tears of joy or grief, the verb “to sob” indicates an unusually strong emotional reaction. The description that “he put his face down in his hands suddenly” moreover has a visual component and stirs up an image of despair, which stands in contrast to the common reaction to the reception of a present and accordingly opens up a variety of readings. The emotional outburst of the protagonist might accordingly arouse the reader’s interest or even create feelings of pity for him. The readers might imagine themselves in a corresponding situation of conflicting feelings and feel with and for Ripley, thus using what I would call their “sensory imagination”.

The readers’ intellectual uncertainty and emotional unease in relation to the murderer-hero’s upbringing and his crimes can be regarded as a trace of unease throughout the Ripley novels. Suerbaum makes an important point concerning Ripley’s amorality: he argues that critics err in stating that he is an amoral hero, because his amorality is solely restricted to the murders. In other situations he acts like a moral person, for instance he feels pity for other characters or anger about injustice [16]. Suerbaum’s finding is essential for the understanding of the intense and lasting impact of the Ripliad, since otherwise the long-time investment of such a huge readership would most probably not be possible. Ripley’s peculiar morality is repeatedly made explicit, for instance in Ripley under Ground, when he feels pity for Mrs. Murchinson: “Tom felt sorry for her. He felt sorry that he had killed her husband” [2]. This novel is particularly interesting with regard to Ripley’s ability to feel pity for female characters, for instance, when he muses about the transformations that the Derwatt forgings have brought about in his group of friends:

He was thinking of the changes in Jeff, Ed, and now Bernard since the Derwatt fraud. And Cynthia had been made unhappy, the course of her life had been changed because of Derwatt Ltd.—and this seemed to Tom more important than the lives of the three men involved [2].

Interestingly, the protagonist’s feelings of sympathy for other characters open up possibilities for the readers likewise to feel sympathy for Ripley. In consequence, the moral aspects of his personality contribute to the creation of suspense, since the reader becomes excited to see whether Ripley is able to come up with a solution to a particular problem and in the long run escape punishment (cf. [16]). In a traditional detective novel it is not necessary for the readership to feel sympathy for the murderer, because it might even work contrariwise and hinder the solution structure. The connectivity of the feeling of sympathy in the Ripliad, however, strengthens the impact of the suspense in general and heightens the intensity of unease in particular.

7. Tom Ripley’s unease

With regard to the differences between the whodunit and suspense fiction, Hitchcock argues that detective fiction deals with the surprise element and not with suspense at all:

To my way of thinking, mystery is seldom suspenseful. In a whodunit, for instance, there is no suspense, but a sort of intellectual puzzle. The whodunit generates the kind of curiosity that is void of emotion, and emotion is an essential ingredient of suspense [18].

Hitchcock’s emphasis on the important connection of suspense with emotions is significant for a discussion of the genre. Carroll describes suspense as “an emotional response to narrative fictions” (in [22]; his italics) and further states: “the emotion of suspense takes as its object moments leading up to the outcome about which we are uncertain”. The most frequently mentioned emotional states that are to define what suspense might be are anxiety, fear or uncertainty. Other states that are mentioned, for example by Altan Loker, are apprehension, expectation, indecision, indetermination, and tension [25]. We can find examples for each and every of these states for the title figure in Highsmith’s Ripliad, and the reader might experience corresponding feelings – but not necessarily so. Derry also grants that “what is thrilling to one spectator is not necessarily so to another” [21].

Symons has pointed out Highsmith’s talent to furnish her protagonists with lively emotions: “[…] it is when she is treating criminal themes that she brings a particular characteristic intensity of feeling to the central figures” [17]. Thus her novels have obviously been successful in fulfilling her ambition to invest her own “felt experiences” into them:

Even if a suspense book is entirely calculated, a product of the intellect, there will be scenes, descriptions of events—the sight of a dog being run over, a feeling of being followed in a dark street—which the writer has very likely known himself. The book is always better if there are first-hand and really felt experiences like these in it [6].

In their study Le Roman Policier, Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac suggest that a thriller creates fear and describe the genre as “le roman de la victime” (in [21]). Accordingly, the protagonist of a suspense narrative is not in control – a feature that Derry concludes is “virtually universal to the genre” [21]. In Highsmith’s Ripliad the protagonist’s fight for control is an omnipresent and important feature, either in connection with his crimes or the police enquiries. This corresponds with Highsmith’s definition of the suspense story as “one in which the possibility of violent action, even death, is close all the time” [6]. In this context, another one of Highsmith’s comments on her plotting and writing processes is especially illuminating. She explains that she discarded her earlier design of the first part of The Talented Mr. Ripley, which presented Ripley in a relaxed mood:

In my bucolic mood, I started the book, and it seemed to be going very well. But on page seventy-five or so, I began to feel that my prose was as relaxed as I was, very nearly flaccid, and that a relaxed mood was not one for Mr. Ripley. I decided to scrap the pages and begin again, mentally as well as physically sitting on the edge of my chair, because that is the kind of young man Ripley is—a young man on the edge of his chair, if he is sitting down at all [6].

The emotional state of “unease” appears to me to be the one that most closely corresponds to Highsmith’s description of “sitting on the edge”. Aurel Kolnai’s writing on disgust consists of descriptions of emotional states that give an idea of my understanding of unease. For instance, Kolnai describes “uneasiness” as “hardly intentional at all” as well as “growing and rising” [26]. Similarly, his understanding of “free-floating fear or anxiety” in the following can be interpreted as a description of the functioning of unease:

For what is alien and threatening can be so much more profoundly experienced when it is unknown and unidentifiable, when its nature can be only conjectured. Free-floating fear or anxiety of this kind is radically different from mere weariness of life or general malaise [26].

The fact that the nature of unease can often only be conjectured is one reason why I regard the choice of this emotional state for an analysis of Highsmith’s fiction so promising. Another reason for the suitability of “unease” as an exemplary emotion for an analysis of the Ripliad is the linguistic markedness of the lexical field of this emotional state. The use of the noun “fear” is fairly common, giving 14,482 overall hits in the British National Corpus (128.90 per million words) [27]. The use of the word “anxiety” is less common, but still relatively frequent, with 3093 overall hits (27.53 per million). The use of the noun “unease”, in contrast, is very rare and has a frequency of only 408 hits (3.63 per million) in the British National Corpus. “Uneasy” as an adjective is more frequent with 923 overall hits, but it still only appears 8.22 per million words [27]. “Unease” and “uneasy” can therefore be described as strongly marked in a grammatical and lexical sense and therefore more likely to receive a listener’s attention. I would argue that in a literary text, this increase of markedness is even greater, not only in a linguistic but also in an aesthetic sense.

Highsmith achieves a peculiar representation of the emotional experiences of her protagonist by developing her own lexicon. The reader becomes witness to this linguistic development, for instance, when Ripley finds himself short of words that describe his feelings. Narrator and protagonist are both eager to enlarge their lexicons of emotions, and the readers accordingly widen their understanding of emotional structures.

States of mind are often made apparent through indirect descriptions or even the negation of other emotions: “Well, well, Tom thought, realizing that his heart was beating faster than usual. Due to anger? Surprise? Not fear, Tom told himself” [5]. Highsmith has a particular preference for the use of “ease” in a negative form, such as in the idioms “not at ease” or “ill at ease”, for instance in: “[Marge] was ill at ease with [Tom]” [1].

Interestingly, these descriptions can imply potential (anticipated) perceptions by other characters – who are either present or merely imaginary –, as in: “[…] he was trying to sound more at ease than he felt” [5], or in: “Tom felt suddenly ill-at-ease, as if eyes were on him” [3]. Here “ill-at-ease” is used as an adjective, corresponding to the use of “uneasy” in “to be uneasy” or “to feel uneasy”. There are a number of examples of the use of “to be uneasy” throughout the Ripliad, which appear in a variety of contexts, for example: “And Tom was a little uneasy, because Bernard ought to know what was going on” [2], and: “Tom was uneasy, and he felt worse when he realised that his heart was beating rather fast” [2]. In the first Ripley novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley, when Ripley is not yet married to Heloise Plisson and his sexual orientation is not made explicit, Dickie Greenleaf’s girlfriend Marge Sherwood is a constant source of irritation to him and the expressions “ill at ease” and “uneasy” are repeatedly linked to her or her actions, as in the example previously given and in: “Tom began to be uneasy about ten days after Marge’s letter […]” [1].

“Uneasy” is also used in the form of the adverb “uneasily”, particularly in connection with the art fraud: “Tom listened uneasily. He hadn’t heard of Derwatt’s attempted suicide” [2]. Similar to Marge’s function as a source of unease in The Talented Mr. Ripley, Bernard’s ex-girlfriend Cynthia Gradnor makes Ripley uncomfortable on various occasions in two different novels: “[Tom] glanced uneasily at Cynthia, who was leaning with folded arms against a cabinet across the room” [2]. The expression “to feel uneasy” is also used repeatedly by Highsmith, in its simplest form in Ripley under Ground to describe Ripley’s emotional framework: “Tom felt uneasy” [2]. However, Highsmith also experiments with the expression, for instance by using it to describe an emotional process: “Tom began to feel uneasy. He tried to think ahead. What questions were coming next?” [5].

The expression “to make uneasy” is occasionally used to indicate a situation in which something makes the protagonist feel uncomfortable, such as in:

The only thing that made him uneasy, and that was not very uneasy, was the possibility of Marge’s coming up to see him in Rome before he could get settled in an apartment. [1].

Highsmith’s usage of the expression “to make uneasy” is especially illuminating because it generally indicates the interaction between two characters, for example, in The Boy Who Followed Ripley, in which a young American comes to France to make Ripley’s acquaintance: “Frank had stood up, with his air of respect for Tom which made Tom a bit uneasy” [4]. In her final Ripley novel, Highsmith introduces the odd American married couple, the Pritchards, who attempt to beat Ripley at his own game and cause him to have many moments of unease. In light of their peculiarities, Ripley begins to regard himself as relatively normal: “Normal people, Tom thought, were made uneasy by seriously abnormal people” [5]. In the middle novel, Ripley’s Game, it is Ripley who plagues a neighbour and plans to revenge himself on this neighbour in several ways, after he has been snubbed by him:

But the business with Jonathan Trevanny was merely a game for Tom. He was not doing it for Reeves’ gambling interests. […]. Tom had started the Trevanny game out of curiosity, and because Tom wanted to see if his own wild shot would find its mark, and make Jonathan Trevanny, who Tom sensed was priggish and self-righteous, uneasy for a time [3].

In this example, Highsmith’s use of the expression “to make uneasy” represents the starting point for a process of corruption that I will return to below.

Highsmith also uses the noun “uneasiness”, for instance, in The Boy Who Followed Ripley. The young American, Frank Pierson, seeks Ripley out in France (under the name “Billy”) and becomes both a mirror image of him and a son substitute. The relationship is characterised by feelings of uneasiness on both sides. Ripley perceives Frank’s feelings, but suffers likewise from unease:

Tom waited, noting the boy’s uneasiness, the frown. Tom felt uneasy also, and deliberately pushed off his shoes and swung his feet up on the bed, pulled a pillow under his head [4].

The moment Highsmith changes from the more frequent “uneasy” as an adjective to the use of “unease” as a noun she transforms the description of a state of mind into an actual state of mind: unease becomes a veritable emotion in its own right. And since the use of the noun “unease” is so rare, its usage in the novels is always strongly marked and especially helpful in describing emotionally charged situations. Unease ranges from a fairly mild state of discomfort – “Tom felt an unease akin to embarrassment on reading this” [4] – to a more pronounced feeling that can be rendered an even stronger impact by the use of an additional adjective: “There was a touch of the insane in his [Bernard’s] dogmatic delivery of this, and Tom felt again a profound unease” [2]. However, similar to her experiment with the adjective “uneasy”, Highsmith also uses “unease” to describe an emotional process: “Tom, more slowly than usual, felt an unease” [3].

In her final Ripley novel, Ripley’s concern for the emotional well-being of his wife, Heloise, is constructed by Highsmith in the form of a sympathetic perception of unease:

Tom arrived back at Belle Ombre to find Heloise standing in the living room. She had a restless air.

“Chéri—a telephone call”, she said.

“From whom?” asked Tom, and felt an unpleasant start of fear.

“From a man—he said he was Deekie Graneleaf—in Washington—”.

“Washington?” Tom was concerned about Heloise’s unease. “Greenleaf—it’s absurd, my sweet. A rotten joke”.

She frowned. “But why—this choke?” Heloise’s accent had come back in force. “Do you know?” [5]

Usages of “uneasy”, “unease” and “uneasiness” can also be found with regard to the perceptions and emotional frameworks of other characters, especially in Ripley’s Game, because a number of chapters are narrated from the perspective of Ripley’s victim, Jonathan Trevanny. The gradual emotional and moral corruption of Jonathan can be also be regarded as “an education in unease”, because Jonathan learns to perceive when someone else is uneasy before developing feelings of unease himself. We first find Jonathan asking himself: “Why was the man uneasy, Jonathan wondered”, before the narrator describes Jonathan’s own uneasiness: “Jonathan listened uneasily, waiting for an opening in which he could say that he didn’t care to take on another job” [3]. Such moments prove that Ripley’s strategy to make Jonathan uneasy is successful.

During the course of the novel, Jonathan becomes “a specialist of unease” and witness to the potential of the emotion to be transferred onto others:

He [Jonathan] realised that it wasn’t Ripley’s presence that had spoilt the evening, but Simone’s reaction. And Simone’s reaction had been caused, Jonathan knew also, by his own uneasiness at seeing Ripley [3].

This uncanny potential for the spreading of unease becomes particularly clear in Ripley’s process of corrupting Jonathan. However, once Jonathan has also become a murderer, Highsmith expresses their comradeship through their emotional interactions: One becomes a – what I propose to call – “barometer of unease” for the other: “Tom’s unease was making him [Jonathan] uneasy, and as far as he had been able to find out Tom had no real reason to be so anxious” [3].

I would further suggest that a stronger linguistic markedness of an expression is likely to have a stronger emotional impact on the reader. Accordingly, I can barely imagine that the readers’ sensory imagination can escape the emotional impact of instances of the diegetic spreading of unease – the contagious quality of unease in general and the corruption of Jonathan Trevanny by Ripley in particular.

8. Conclusion: the resilience of suspense

It has become clear that a cognitive and emotional investment in the Ripley novels and Highsmith’s most famous protagonist is of vital importance for the reading process. Moreover, the creation of sympathy for the character is a significant aspect of the reception process. Highsmith’s special style of writing and ways of description as well as the suspenseful and emotionally charged moments she creates certainly have an impact on the reader. In consequence, the suspense elements of the texts likewise function as traces that might have a disquieting effect on the reader in their own right, and that might be, at least in part, the reason why readers return to the Ripliad.

The phenomenon that so many readers return to Highsmith’s Ripley novels can be connected to the problem which Carroll has called “the paradox of suspense”: “audiences returning to fictions whose outcome they already know” and still experiencing suspense during a renewed reception process [22]. In conclusion, I would suggest that the resilience of suspense during repeated reception of the Ripliad is linked to the reader’s investment in the plot and the main character. C.S. Lewis famously stated that “[w]e do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading. Not till the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, has been given its sop and laid asleep, are we at leisure to savour the real beauties” (On Stories 103, quoted in [28]). Following Lewis, Paula Marantz Cohen argues that “[w]e may even feel more suspense in knowing more about them [the characters] and thus caring about them more”. In addition, she argues, a familiarity with the plot may likewise intensify the experience of suspense, since the element of surprise loses its importance and surprise becomes “more like suspense”. She even goes so far and suggests that “[s]tripping away surprise can produce suspense of a more profound sort” [28].

Numerous passages from the Ripliad have illustrated the evocation of suspense, the important function of sympathy, the potentially contagious nature of unease and even the corrupting forces that unease might have. Accordingly, it seems likely that the texts might even interact with the reader’s mental and physical reality through sensory imagination. Intellectual uncertainty and – even more so – emotional unease may persist and transpire to be lasting, growing, and even spreading, and thus turn out to be contagious and corrupting.