A Thematic Analysis of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho
Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho has been commended for forming the archetypical basis of all
horror films that followed its 1960 release. The mass appeal that Psycho has maintained
for over three decades can undoubtedly be attributed to its universality. In Psycho,
Hitchcock allows the audience to become a subjective character within the plot to enhance
the film's psychological effects for an audience that is forced to recognise its own
neurosis and psychological inadequacies as it is compelled to identify, for varying
lengths of time, with the contrasting personalities of the film's main characters.
Hitchcock conveys an intensifying theme in Psycho, that bases itself on the unending
subconscious battle between good and evil that exists in everyone through the audience's
subjective participation and implicit character parallels.
Psycho begins with a view of a city that is arbitrarily identified along with an exact
date and time. The camera, seemingly at random, chooses first one of the many buildings
and then one of the many windows to explore before the audience is introduced to Marion
and Sam. Hitchcock's use of random selection creates a sense of normalcy for the
audience. The fact that the city and room were arbitrarily identified impresses upon the
audience that their own lives could randomly be applied to the events that are about to
follow.
In the opening sequence of Psycho, Hitchcock succeeds in capturing the audience's
initial senses of awareness and suspicion while allowing it to identify with Marion's
helpless situation. The audience's sympathy toward Marion is heightened with the
introduction of Cassidy whose crude boasting encourages the audience's dislike of his
character. Cassidy's blatant statement that all unhappiness can be bought away with
money, provokes the audience to form a justification for Marion's theft of his forty
thousand dollars. As Marion begins her journey, the audience is drawn farther into the
depths of what is disturbingly abnormal behaviour although it is compelled to identify
and sympathize with her actions.
It is with Marion's character that Hitchcock first introduces the notion of a split
personality to the audience. Throughout the first part of the film, Marion's reflection
is often noted in several mirrors and windows. Hitchcock is therefore able to create a
voyeuristic sensation within the audience as it can visualise the effects of any
situation through Marion's conscious mind. In the car dealership, for example, Marion
enters the secluded bathroom in order to have privacy while counting her money.
Hitchcock, however, with upper camera angles and the convenient placing of a mirror is
able to convey the sense of an ever lingering conscious mind that makes privacy
impossible. Hitchcock brings the audience into the bathroom with Marion and allows it to
struggle with its own values and beliefs while Marion makes her own decision and
continues with her journey.
The split personality motif reaches the height of its foreshadowing power as Marion
battles both sides of her conscience while driving on an ominous and seemingly endless
road toward the Bates Motel. Marion wrestles with the voices of those that her crime and
disappearance has affected while the audience is compelled to recognise as to why it can
so easily identify with Marion despite her wrongful actions.
As Marion's journey comes to an end at the Bates Motel, Hitchcock has successfully made
the audience a direct participant within the plot. The suspicion and animosity that
Marion feels while at the motel is felt by the audience. As Marion shudders while hearing
Norman's mother yell at him, the audience's suspicions are heightened as Hitchcock has,
at this point, made Marion the vital link between the audience and the plot.
The initial confrontation between Marion and Norman Bates is used by Hitchcock to subtly
and slowly sway the audience's sympathy from Marion to Norman. Hitchcock compels the
audience to identify with the quiet and shy character whose devotion to his invalid
mother has cost him his own identity. After Marion and Norman finish dining, Hitchcock
has secured the audience's empathy for Norman and the audience is made to question its
previous relationship with Marion whose criminal behaviour does not compare to Norman's
seemingly honest and respectable lifestyle. The audience is reassured, however, when
Marion, upon returning to her room, decides to return the money and face the consequences
of her actions.
Upon the introduction of Norman, Hitchcock introduces the first of several character
parallels within Psycho. The clash between Marion and Norman, although not apparent to
the audience until the end of the film, is one of neurosis versus psychosis. The
compulsive and obsessive actions that drove Marion to steal the money is recognisable,
albeit unusual behaviour, that the audience embraces as its sympathy is primarily
directed towards her character. The terror that Hitchcock conveys to the audience
manifests itself once the audience learns that it empathised with a psychotic person to a
greater extent than with rational one when its sympathy is shifted to Norman. The shift
from the normal to the abnormal is not apparent to the audience in the parlour scene but
the audience is later forced to disturbingly reexamine its own conscience and character
judgment abilities to discover why Norman's predicament seemed more worthy of its
sympathy than Marion's.
During the infamous shower scene, Hitchcock conveys a sense of cleansing for the
audience. Hitchcock has reassured the audience of Marion's credibility and introduced
Norman as a wholesome character. The audience's newly discovered security is destroyed
when Marion is murdered. Even more disturbing for the audience, however, is that the
scene is shot not through Marion's eyes, but those of the killer. The audience, now in a
vulnerable state looks to Norman to replace Marion as its main focus in its subjective
role.
After Marion's murder, the audience's role in the film takes a different approach.
Hitchcock provokes the audience to utilise the film's other characters in order to solve
the mystery of Marion's death yet he still successfully maintains the sympathetic bond
between Norman and the audience. Interestingly, Hitchcock plays on the audience's
obsession with the stolen money as the audience knows that it had been sunk yet clings to
the fact that Marion's death may have been a result of her crime with the introduction of
Sam, Lila, and Arbogast.
Hitchcock uses Arbogast's character to arouse suspicion within the audience. Arbogast's
murder is not as intense as Marion's because the audience had not developed any type of
subjective bond with his character. Arbogast's primary motivation, however, was to
recover the stolen money which similarly compels the audience to take an interest in his
quest. Despite the fact that Arbogast interrupts Norman's seemingly innocent existence
the audience does not perceive him as an annoyance as they had the interrogative
policeman who had hindered Marion's journey.
When Sam and Lila venture to the Bates Motel to investigate both Marion's and Arbogast's
disappearances, Hitchcock presents the audience with more character parallels. As Lila
begins to explore Norman's home, Hitchcock conveniently places Sam and Norman in the
parlour where Marion had dined with Norman before she had been murdered. As the two men
face each other, the audience is able to see their contrasting personalities in relation
to Marion. Sam, who had legitimately gained Marion's affection is poised and respectable
in comparison to Norman, whose timid nature and sexual repression is reflected in the
scenes of Lila's exploration of his bedroom. The conflict that arises between Sam and
Norman reflects the fact that Sam had what Norman wanted but was unable to attain due to
his psychotic nature.
Psycho concludes by providing a blatant explanation for Norman's psychotic tendencies.
The audience, although it had received a valid explanation for Norman's actions, is left
terrified and confused by the last scene of Norman and the manifestation of his split
personality. Faced with this spectacle, Hitchcock forces the audience to examine its
conscious self in relation to the events that it had just subjectively played a role in.
The fear that Psycho creates for the audience does not arise from the brutality of the
murders but from the subconscious identification with the film's characters who all
reflect one side of a collective character. Hitchcock enforces the idea that all the
basic emotions and sentiments derived from the film can be felt by anyone as the unending
battle between good and evil exists in all aspects of life. The effective use of
character parallels and the creation of the audience's subjective role in the plot allows
Hitchcock to entice terror and a convey a lingering sense of anxiety within the audience
through a progressively intensifying theme. Hitchcock's brilliance as a director has
consolidated Psycho's place among the most reputable and profound horror films ever
made.
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