Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Blog Post on Ripley Underground

I am about halfway through Ripley Underground and I think it is really good. A while ago I read the first book, The Talented Mr. Ripley and thought it was excellent. In this blog post I wanted to talk about the similarities and differences between Ripley in both books.
In The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley is unsure who he is in the world. He doesn't know who he wants to be yet, and is a freelancer without a home or job. But, in Ripley Underground he knows what he wants. He has a beautiful mansion in France, and is married with lots of money. He looks back on his other days as signs of how weak he was. He is more relaxed and is not as worried about police or detectives as he was in the first book. However, there is a five years difference between the two books, and it is clear he knows who he is. I noticed throughout the book too, that Tom did some things that the old Tom Ripley would also do. One example is when he passes a homeless man on the street he offers him a cigarette, something the new polished Ripley wouldn't do. Another example is when he imitates a painter named Derwatt, who killed himself in Greece, but Tom has to pretend he is still alive. In almost all of the talented Mr. Ripley, he imitates a man called Dickie Greenleaf. I think that Tom Ripley loves to imitate people seriously, and that consciously or unconsciously notices small things about people. He notices things such as a ring on someone's finger saying their married, little things that normal people wouldn't notice.
Some of the differences between the new and old Tom Ripley is what he thinks of art and fine things. In the Talented Mr. Ripley, he would hardly care for a good painting or wine. In this book, he lives a life of luxury, and I think this has also taught him about the morality of people. In the first book, he was more crazed, and when he got angry there was no stoping him. In this second book, Tom Ripley has more restraint and he realizes that killing people isn't always the answer. There is a Detective called Waston and he is investigating Tom Ripley about the disappearance of a man called Murchison.(Who Tom had killed.) I was expecting Tom Ripley to kill Waston, or at least considering harming him, but instead he made up answers and played along.
I think all these similarities and differences show how Tom Ripley has grown as a character, whether in good or bad ways. Like I said at the end of the Talented Mr. Ripley blog post, some people never get caught. I think at that time I was seeing Tom Ripley as more of a bad guy, but now I realize that some times, he is just desperate.

1 comment:

  1. Great post Tess! i love how you went into detail about the characters to give us a clear picture about how each of them acts and how each of them thinks and feels. You made me want to read this book!

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