Mr. Ripley and Ripley’s Syndrome

Recently, a famous program in Korea covered the issue of “Ripley’s Syndrome.” According to the television show, a young man who pretended to be a freshman at various prestigious universities, took advantage of his fellow colleagues by borrowing money from them then disappearing. Finally, some of his colleagues grew suspicious of him. The problem was that this man believed in the world of lies he had created for himself.

”Ripley’s Syndrome” refers to a personality disorder in which a person starts believing in the lies he or she has made up. These kinds of lies are not limited to just simple lies; they involve deception, misrepresentation and fraud. For example, a person with this syndrome may fabricate their complete past or act out a totally different personality.

However, “Ripley’s Syndrome” is not actually an officially classified disorder. It is not even listed in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”(DSM), a book published by the American Psychiatric Association which many professional psychologists and psychiatrists use to diagnose patients. As a matter of fact, while “Ripley’s Syndrome” is not a term much used in the United States, it is widely used in Korea.

So where did this term come from? “Ripley’s Syndrome” is derived from Mr. Ripley, who is the protagonist in the book “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” written by American novelist, Patricia Highsmith. In this novel, poor Mr. Ripley pretends to be a friend of a hotel owner’s son but ends up killing him in order to inherit money. In the process, Mr. Ripley makes up lies in order to deceive the people around him and most importantly himself.

Although this syndrome has not been officially classified, it does not mean that it doesn’t exist. From the case of the lying freshman, to the notorious case of Ms. Shin, who lied about her academic background back in 2007, “Ripley’s Syndrome” is reflecting some of the problems of Korean society.

No one can deny Korea’s fervent passion towards education and it is reasonable to ask oneself, “What had caused these people to make up such lies?” In Korea, people are always interested to know one’s academic backgrounds because it is something that takes big part in society. For example, if you graduate from a prestigious university, people will think very highly of you.

Likewise, it turned out that the mysterious freshman also had felt burdened by the people surrounding him. All of his brothers had gone to prominent schools except for him. Hence, the man had started making up lies in order to pretend he was also part of the elite academic society.

At this point, we can ask ourselves, are the individuals with the so-called “Ripley’s Syndrome” really at fault? Or are they victims of a society that put too much pressure on academics? Before people start putting faults on people, it is more important to see what the cause of such happenings was.