When Pat gave her 'criminal-hero' Tom Ripley a charmed and parentless life, a wealthy, socially poised Alter Ego {Dickie Greenleaf}, and a guilt-free modus operandi {after he kills Dickie, Tom murders only when necessary}, she was doing just what her fellow comic book artists were doing with their Superheroes: allowing her fictional character to finesse situations she herself could only approach in wish fulfillment. And when she reimagined her own psychological split in Ripley's character - endowing him with both her weakest traits {paralyzing self-consciousness and hero-worship} and her wildest dreams {murder and money} - she was turning the material of the 'comic book' upside down and making it into something very like a 'tragic book.' 'It is always so easy for me to see the world upside down,' Pat wrote in her diary– and everywhere else.
( Joan Schenkar )
[ The Talented Miss Highsmith: ]
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