The Talented Mr. Ripley

It is common, these days, to create villains who live three-dimensionally in the reader’s imagination, who have histories that explain their behavior and complicate their characters. Media sensations like Breaking Bad introduce villains like Walter White, who begins as a sympathetic character—a victim, even—and gradually morphs into a hardened criminal the audience has been trained to root for. The sympathetic villain is not a new archetype, however, and one of its most popular iterations in modern literature is the character of Tom Ripley. Tom’s character was compelling enough for Highsmith to write five novels featuring him, known as The Ripleiad, which have been adapted in film, television, and radio. Although The Talented Mr. Ripley was written in 1955, the fascination with this character endures, inspiring an adaptation into a 2023 Showtime series.

This long-term fascination with the character is due in no small part to Highsmith’s much-lauded ability to push beyond “bad guy” stereotypes and flat characters to create a more nuanced portrait of the classic villain. In literature and film, psychological thrillers with complicated villains provide a compelling vehicle for the audience to consider the questions of morality, such as how much greed is inevitable in human nature, and what it says about society when the crimes of the privileged or powerful go unpunished.