This paper argues that The Scarlet Letter and American Psycho occupy particular historical moments in the same national allegory of American self-fashioning. Critical readings tend so see Hawthorne's self as particularly American while overlooking the "American" in Ellis's title. By reading labels, logos, and signs, I show that the self-fashioning depicted in American Psycho is explicitly tied to an idea of nation based on typological exclusionary practices. But, whereas Hawthorne's "A"-for "American"-has the power to transform both its wearer and its interpreters, thus transforming a typological label into an individualized expression of character, the empty logos and designer labels that pervade American Psycho inhibit any such transformation and turn interiority into pathology. Where Hawthorne was the "allegorist of the heart" of the nation, Ellis is the allegorist of the place where that heart used to be.
