The talented Tom Ripley2

2nd Proposal

Here is my short summary of the the very good thriller by Patricia Highsmith “THE TLENTED MR. RIPLEY”

Tom Ripley certainly doesn’t have a happy childhood. He grows up with his aunt who considers him a sissy like Tom’s father. He doesn’t develop any perseverance and also hates his aunt from whom he is, however, financially dependent , because it seems that he can’t live on his not very clean jobs.

When Mr. Greenleaf  approaches Tom because he thinks him to be a close friend of his son, in order to travel to Europe or more precisely  to Italy/Mongibello and convince Dickie to return to America and take over his father’s company, Tom finally sees an opportunity to change his dull life. I feel that Patricia Highsmith looks  with a very critical eye at those Americans who lived in Europe after the 2nd. World war.

Tom arrives in Mongibello and meets Dickie, who lives more or less together with Margie, a young lady who seems to be a writer, but not a very serious one. At the beginning Dickie is being amused by Tom, but loses these interests rather quickl and prefers to spend his time with other friends. Tom is getting very jealous and is slowly developing to get rid of Dickie and take on himself  his identitiy. He carries out his plan and from that point on switches from one personality into the other, according  to the needs. Margie is despaired and feels that something is really wrong, but in the end Tom succeeds in getting away with the murder, despite the fact that the Italian police and a famous detective try to find out the truth.

Here a link to:

Chapter summaries, and beaufitul fotos of places  and more information about places Tom had been to.

http://thetalentedtomripley.blogspot.com/2007_09_24_archive.html

and a link to more information about Tom Ripley. http://www.enotes.com/talented-mr-qn