Tom Ripley

Highsmith introduced Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955), in which she provided him with a backstory. He was orphaned at age five when his parents drowned in Boston Harbor, and then raised by his aunt Dottie, a cold, stingy woman who mocked him as a "sissy.” As a teenager, he attempted unsuccessfully to run away from his aunt's home to New York City before finally moving there at age 20 to pursue an unsuccessful career as an actor. Ripley subsequently made a meager living as a con artist utilizing his skills in "forging signatures, telling lies, and impersonating practically anybody.”^[4]

Ripley is paid to go to Italy by shipbuilding magnate Herbert Greenleaf to convince his son Dickie, a half-remembered acquaintance, to return to New York and take over the family business. Ripley befriends the younger Greenleaf and falls in love with the rich young man's indulgent, carefree lifestyle; he also becomes obsessed with Dickie himself. When Dickie grows bored with Ripley and spurns his friendship, Ripley kills him and assumes his identity, living off his trust fund.

In Ripley Under Ground, set six years later, Ripley has settled down into a life of leisure in France. He lives in a small country house called Belle Ombre ("Beautiful Shadow") in Villeperce, a fictional small town near Fontainebleau, about an hour’s drive from Paris. He has added to his fortunes by marrying Héloïse Plisson, an heiress who has suspicions about how he makes his money but prefers not to know. He occasionally assists small-time gangster Reeves Minot with lucrative forgery and smuggling jobs, but he avoids direct involvement in crime as much as possible to preserve his shady reputation. Ripley is also a silent partner in a gallery that markets counterfeit works by the artist Derwatt, who has actually been dead for years.

In Ripley's Game, Ripley turns down Minot's offer to kill two rival gangsters in two separate hits. Soon afterward, he is insulted at a party by Jonathan Trevanny, a poor picture framer who has leukaemia. To get back at him, Ripley tells Minot that Jonathan is an assassin who can kill his two rivals. Minot then approaches Jonathan offering to hire him as a freelance assassin, an offer he reluctantly accepts in order to support his family after his death.

In The Boy Who Followed Ripley, Ripley befriends Frank Pierson, a teenage boy from a wealthy family who has run away from home. After Frank confesses to Ripley that he killed his own father by pushing him off a cliff, Ripley lets the boy live with him and Heloise at Belle Ombre, seeing in him a kindred spirit. However, Frank is kidnapped by German gangsters who hold him for ransom.

In Ripley Under Water, Ripley's new neighbors, David and Janice Pritchard, hear of his suspicious reputation and begin prying into his private life, simply because they dislike him. When they discover that he murdered Murchison and threaten to expose him, Ripley pursues them with the aid of Ed Bradbury, one of his business partners in the Derwatt forgery scam.

Highsmith characterizes Ripley as a "suave, agreeable and utterly amoral" con artist and serial killer who always evades justice. Ripley is epicurean and sophisticated, living a life of leisure in rural France. He spends most of his time gardening, painting, or studying languages. This is financed by a stolen inheritance, a small income from the Buckmaster Gallery, and his wife's allowance from her wealthy father. He is polite, friendly, and cultured, and dislikes people who lack such qualities; when the Pritchards appear in Ripley Under Water, their poor taste and manners immediately offend him. Ripley has typically been regarded as "cultivated", a "dapper sociopath", and an "agreeable and urbane psychopath."^[5]

In his review of Purple Noon, René Clément's 1960 adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley, film critic Roger Ebert described Ripley as "a committed hedonist, devoted to great comfort, understated taste, and civilized interests. He has wonderful relationships with women, who never fully understand who or what he is. He has friendships – real ones – with many of his victims. His crimes are like moves in a chess game; he understands that as much as he may like and respect his opponents, he must end with a 'checkmate'."^[6]

While Highsmith never explicitly portrays Ripley as gay or bisexual, certain passages in the Ripley novels imply that he harbors some unacknowledged attraction towards men. In The Talented Mr. Ripley, he is obsessed with Greenleaf and is jealous of his girlfriend to the point that he fantasizes about Greenleaf rejecting and hitting her. Afraid that others will think he is gay, he jokes that he wants to give up both men and women because he cannot decide which he likes more.^[7] In Ripley Under Ground, he recalls "turning green" during his wedding, then going impotent with laughter while having sex with Heloise during their honeymoon.

In The Boy Who Followed Ripley, he reflects that he and Heloise rarely have sex and that frequent sexual demands on her part "really would have turned him off, maybe at once and permanently.”^[8] The Boy Who Followed Ripley, meanwhile, has been cited as portraying a homoerotic subtext between Ripley and the novel's supporting protagonist, Frank Pierson. For example, Frank sleeps in Ripley's bed without changing the sheets and speaks of his happiness at being at Belle Ombre with "the words of a lover.”^[8] Highsmith herself was ambivalent about the subject of Ripley's sexuality. "I don't think Ripley is gay,” she said in a 1988 interview with Sight & Sound. "He appreciates good looks in other men, that's true. But he's married in later books. I'm not saying he's very strong in the sex department. But he makes it in bed with his wife."^[9]

Ripley is portrayed as devoid of conscience. In The Boy Who Followed Ripley, he admits that he has never been seriously troubled by guilt. Though he sometimes feels "regret" about his earliest murders – he considers the murder of Dickie Greenleaf "a youthful, dreadful mistake" and that of Freddie Miles "stupid" and "unnecessary" – he cannot remember the number of his victims.^[8] In his 2001 book Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited, Sam Vaknin writes that Ripley (as portrayed in the 1999 film The Talented Mr. Ripley) meets five of the seven criteria for antisocial personality disorder and also displays narcissistic traits.^[10]

Ripley is not without redeeming qualities, however. He feels genuine affection (if not love) for several characters throughout the series and has his own code of ethics; in Ripley's Game, Ripley reflects that he detests murder unless it is "absolutely necessary.”^[11] In his review of Purple Noon, Roger Ebert wrote: "Ripley is a criminal of intelligence and cunning who gets away with murder. He's charming and literate, and a monster. It's insidious, the way Highsmith seduces us into identifying with him and sharing his selfishness; Ripley believes that getting his own way is worth whatever price anyone else might have to pay. We all have a little of that in us."^[6]

Highsmith's first three Ripley novels have been adapted into films. The Talented Mr. Ripley was filmed as Purple Noon (French: Plein Soleil) in 1960, starring Alain Delon as Ripley, and under its original title in 1999, starring Matt Damon. Ripley Under Ground was adapted into a 2005 film, starring Barry Pepper. Ripley's Game was filmed in 1977 as The American Friend, starring Dennis Hopper, and under its original title in 2002, starring John Malkovich.

The Ripley novels have also been adapted for television and radio. The Talented Mr. Ripley was adapted for a January 1956 episode of the anthology television series Studio One,^[12] and Jonathan Kent played Ripley in a 1982 episode of The South Bank Show titled "Patricia Highsmith: A Gift for Murder", dramatizing segments of Ripley Under Ground.^[13] In 2009, BBC Radio 4 adapted all five Ripley novels with Ian Hart as Ripley.^[14]

In 2015, The Hollywood Reporter announced that a group of production companies were planning a television series based on the novels.^[15] The following year, Deadline Hollywood announced that the series would be written by Neil Cross, having been in development at Endemol Shine Studios for over a year.^[16] In 2019, the show was ordered to series at Showtime, with actor Andrew Scott playing the lead role and writer-director Steven Zaillian replacing Cross.^[17] In 2023, the series had moved to Netflix. The series premiered in April 2024, with Scott receiving critical praise and a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for his performance as Ripley.^[18]

Of the Ripley portrayals that Highsmith saw, she praised Delon's performance in Purple Noon as "excellent"^[9] and described Jonathan Kent as "perfect".^[13] She initially disliked Hopper's Ripley in The American Friend, but changed her mind after seeing the film a second time, feeling that he had captured the essence of the character.^[19][20] In Joanna Murray Smith's 2014 play, Switzerland, Tom Ripley comes to life and visits Highsmith planning to kill her. In the 2014 Sydney Theatre Company premiere production, he was portrayed by Eamon Farren.^[21]