“L’indice de l’horreur chez Bret Easton Ellis. Le Los Angeles ville morte de Less than Zero et Imperial Bedrooms”, A Contrario. Revue interdisciplinaire de sciences sociales, n° 20, 2014/1 [online].

The Sign of Horror in Bret Easton Ellis. Los Angeles as A Dead City in "Less Than Zero" and "Imperial Bedrooms".This essay aims to show how the minimalist style of the American writer Bret Easton Ellis, developed in two novels Less than zero and Imperial Bedrooms, is part of a global system describing the point of view of Ellis about the white American upper class of Los Angeles.Following the narratives and their symbolic functions we show that the use of a hyper-realistic vocabulary with numerous details aims to criticize the consumerist society and to denounce the habits and behaviour of the people who are part of it. Finally, we will see that the obsession for brands and everyday life objects is part of a literary dispositive denouncing the perdition and the soulless of the characters. One of Ellis’ goals is to represent capitalism evil in his most futile aspects.