I knew I was going to love being Famous. But Brain police are trained not to recognize their cover. In The Talented Mr. Ripley , identity can be deconstructed like the franchised personalities within Fools . After Tom kills Dickie he begins to perfect assuming Dickie's identity. Rather than striving to be a perfect Dickie, Tom strives to be Dickie with all of his imperfections.
Individual imperfections become the mark of the original.
Identity is presented as a series of signifiers and the imperfections therein which constructs the individual subject . He remembered verbatim several sentences that Dickie had said at one time or another which he now knew were incorrect. Tom studiously kept himself from learning the proper uses of the subjunctive. In accordance with Benveniste's theory of the constitution of the subject, Tom chooses to become Dickie, primarily through the mastery of Dickie's language. Dickie's language is through learning Dickie's imperfections.