Tom, the novel’s protagonist, is from Boston, brought up by his aunt Dottie after his parents drowned in the harbor when he was a child. When the novel begins, Tom has been living in New York for four years, having first come to the city to become an actor—indicating that he has always been drawn to Playing Roles. Instead, he has become a petty thief and con artist, most recently posing as an IRS agent collecting tax debts. Notably, Tom is never able to cash the checks he receives in this scam, but this does not bother him; instead, he sees it as more of a prank. This scenario illustrates for the reader that Tom is not interested only in money but in the risks involved with his criminal enterprise as well.

When, late in the book, he is forced to return to the identity of Tom Ripley, he feels that “identifying himself as Thomas Phelps Ripley was going to be one of the saddest things he had ever done in his life” (189). Tom describes himself as a child as “a skinny, sniveling wretch with an eternal cold in the nose” (42) and struggles with self-loathing throughout the book; the automatic acceptance and adoration he sees Dickie Greenleaf receive is a strong

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