The Talented Mr. Ripley

Richard, or “Dickie,” is the son of Herbert and Emily Greenleaf, a wealthy American family with a shipbuilding operation. When the novel begins, Dickie has been in Europe for two years and is currently living in Mongibello, Italy. He purports to be a painter; however, his days are mostly spent at the beach, on his boat, or with Marge at either one of their houses. When Tom first sees Dickie at the beach, he is comfortable and confident, his “arms folded, his lean brown feet planted in the hot sand that didn’t seem to bother him at all” (47). Dickie represents everything Tom wishes he could be: He is confident, wealthy, and, most of all, an insider, belonging to the sophisticated group of wealthy American expatriates that Tom admires. Dickie is charismatic and charming and collects friends easily with the ease and entitlement of his class and money. In a sense he, too, is playing a role—that of a carefree bohemian painter—to escape his professional and familial obligations.

When he meets Tom, Dickie is dismissive, but after Tom plays upon Dickie’s uneasy, scornful relationship with his father by “confessing” that Herbert paid his way to Mongibello, Dickie is amused enough to draw Tom temporarily into his circle. Tom sees Dickie as careless with people’s feelings, but even in his withdrawal from Tom, he tries to make the break gently on their trip to San Remo: “Dickie’s polite cheerfulness on the train was like the cheerfulness of a host who has loathed his guest and is afraid the guest realizes it, and who tries to make it up at the last minute” (94). Dickie also knows that Marge is in love with him; though he does not love her, he takes pains to maintain their friendship, telling Tom, “It’s just that I owe her something” (75). He feels guilty about abandoning Marge, who has been his companion throughout the winter, in favor of Tom. Yet his behavior is not completely blameless, as Tom finds him kissing Marge to make up with her, infuriating Tom, who knows that Dickie is “only using this cheap, obvious, easy way to hold on to her friendship” (76). Dickie’s self-absorption and his interest in maintaining his independence are also illustrated through his strained relationship with his parents; he is so eager to maintain his boundaries with them that he refuses to come home, even as his mother is terminally ill. Dickie Greenleaf is everything that Tom is not; he provides a clear foil to Tom and, later, a model for Tom to emulate.

Marge is a friend of Dickie’s. Tom describes her as “healthy and unsophisticated-looking, with tousled, short blonde hair—the good-egg type” (24). She is the only other American who has been living in Mongibello over the winter, and she and Dickie have become close. Their relationship is fairly intimate yet apparently platonic, despite the fact that Marge is clearly in love with Dickie. Marge is a writer, working on a book about Mongibello, which, toward the end of the novel, she successfully sells to a publisher. She is also, in many ways, the truest, most loyal friend that Dickie has. She remains invested in his well-being even after he ostensibly moves to Rome and then disappears with no word to her. Tom writes letters to her as Dickie, continually trying to get her to stop looking for him, but she is intuitive and determined, even connecting with Herbert Greenleaf when he comes to Italy.

Marge is a constant source of pressure on Tom throughout the novel, first as he works to insinuate himself into Dickie’s life and then, after Dickie’s death, as one of the few people who can identify him as Tom Ripley and potentially put all the pieces of the mystery together. Highsmith uses Marge as a constant, low-level source of tension—and as a moral compass—throughout the book as her persistence and love for Dickie threaten to unravel Tom’s scheme.

Freddie is a member of Dickie’s social set, “the son of an American hotel-chain owner, and a playwright—self-styled, Tom gathered, because he had written only two plays, and neither had seen Broadway” (65). Like Dickie’s painting, Freddie’s occupation seems more of a lark or an aspiration than a serious pursuit. Also like Dickie, Freddie spends his time traveling Europe with no real purpose. In the text, Freddie represents the most vulgar American expatriate, his wealth new, as opposed to Dickie’s inherited family wealth. Tom describes him as “hideous”: “Freddie had large red-brown eyes that seemed to wobble in his head as if he were cockeyed, or perhaps he was only one of those people who never looked at anyone they were talking to. He was also overweight” (64). Freddie represents the typical brash rich American, his “loud sports shirt” clearly identifying him as such (62).

As with Marge, Tom is envious of Freddie’s relationship with Dickie and Dickie’s apparent admiration of him. He immediately dislikes Freddie for several reasons: his new wealth, his loud looks, and, most of all, his friendship with Dickie. Freddie does not like Tom either and is suspicious of him and his motives from the beginning. He suspects Tom of mooching off Dickie and is rude and dismissive of him. Tom ostensibly kills Freddie because he is beginning to figure out the truth, but it could also be seen as a reaction to Freddie’s disdain, which touches on his deep insecurities, and an extension of his own scorn and anger about Freddie’s friendship with Dickie.