William King

Psycho Critical Analysis

Eng. 102 Prof. Avdoian
September 25th, 2013

Hitchcock: The Psycho

Through the years Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho has held in a vaunted place among
the vast catalogue of American film. Hitchcocks dark masterwork appears at a surface
level to simply be an exciting tale of theft, murder, and mental illness; however, when
one parts the curtains and more deeply examines the film they are presented with a
choice. One can either choose to disregard the man behind the curtain or delve into the
salacious undertones littered throughout this seminal film. Sexuality shapes and shifts the
drama of Psycho constantly, from Marion Cranes drive to flee into the arms of her lover,
to Norman Bates quasi-oedipal obsession with his mother, to the mother personas
caustic rejection of Bates baser sexual desires. Hitchcock surrounds us with sexuality,
whether comfortable or not, we cannot escape it. The very plot of the film and our
experience therein are due, in their entirety, to Hitchcocks masterful psychosexual
extrapolations of his characters.
Granted a birds eye view of an unremarkable hotel room, the film opens with the
aftermath of a sexual encounter between Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and her lover Sam
Loomis (John Gavin). This begins the first section of the film which could be described
as an exploration and examination of female sexuality and criminality (Samuels 149).
Sex is a common theme throughout all of Hitchcocks works. In Psycho, however, he
becomes much more explicit than in any of his previous works. Marion Crane lounges on

the bed in a post-sexual state, the embodiment of the pure feminine. She tells her lover
she is ending their secret relationship. Her sexuality in this scene is expressed as the
proper female role. She yearns for the stability of a structured, condoned relationship.
The scenes sexual tension comes to a head when Sam decries her stating, You make
respectability seem disrespectful. He is asserting himself as the dominant sexual partner
which comes into play later as Marion flees Phoenix, cash in hand, to be with her
disrespectful lover.
We continue through the narrative to Marions encounter with a client at the realty
office in which she is employed. Mr. Cassidy, an exceptionally wealthy man, brazenly
assaults Marions respectability by shamefully flirting with her and displaying his
vast wealth. His conception that female flesh is equitably comparable to the almighty
dollar is made plainer during a later scene. His voice appears in Marions subconscious
saying If anything is missing, Ill replace it with her fine, smooth flesh. The female
body, and therein the Real female sexuality are turned into commercial goods to be
bought and sold. When know this lays within Marions subconscious. From said
knowledge we can then infer a great deal of her motivation. She is rebelling, changing
her being from that of the pure female to the criminal. She is now no longer presented in
white undergarments but black signifying the damage to the feminine sexuality and
psyche which occurs through marring language and objectification. Marion will continue
to shift throughout the story until she has been reduced to a terrifying state of
nonexistence on any but a physical level. Barbara Klinger describes Marions journey:
Marion is transformed in this progression from an overt
erotic spectacle (semi-clad in postcoital embrace) to a
figure entirely shrouded from view (a body in the trunk of a

car): a figure initially manifested strongly as spectacle

becomes an almost complete visual nonentity. (334)
Marions image is gone. She is now a nonentity. This is not the only occurrence
of this theme. Normans mother persona becomes a nonentity before the film even begins
and yet she returns as the dominant half of what according to Freud would be Normans
bisexual psyche. Once Marion has met Norman, the drama shifts to being motivated by
Normans series of sexual perversions and mental psychosis. The dinner scene, where
Marion and Normans sexual identities are contrasted through the use of birds sets up the
murder exquisitely. Norman appears in the scenes framings always flanked by predatory
birds. The birds are his representation. Marion, however, is backed by an oval painting of
three female angels. The central angel appears to be rising, as if up to heaven. In a
following shot, The menacing shadow of a crow is projected onto the wall, penetrating
the picture like a knife blade or a penis. (Buellour 350) This is a clear representation for
murder that is soon to come. Normans bulging eye (352) soon becomes the voyeuristic
manifestation of his male sexuality. He spies on Marion as she undresses to shower and
his eyes view (first person view through a peep hole) sets his male side ablaze with
desire. However, the mother-persona, or Normans psychosis cannot control the breadth
of the desire and so soon the eye-camera becomes body-knife, entering the field of its
object and attempting in vain to coincide with it. (352) The stabbing of Marion Crane
grants Normans male sexuality the release and satisfaction through stabbing while also
quieting the jealous urges of his mother persona.
The mother persona must murder. Normans obsession with his mother lead him
to poison her. He so loved his mother that to his mind she became his. She was so

much his that the mother, fetishized to death, so to speak, becomes the body that
murders, in keeping with the desire awakened in the eye of the subject (Norman)
possessed by it. (Bellour 353). Normans obsession with his mother and the sexual
perversion therein are the driving force for the narrative of Psycho. Without that
motivation, Hitchcocks masterwork could have never been.
Throughout Psycho, we are assaulted by sexuality. A sexuality of darkness plays
the characters, shifts them, and motivates them. Without this sexuality, of which there is
an abundance too great to but touch upon in four short pages, Hitchcocks masterwork
could never have been. Perversion strikes us on a subconscious level. The exuding
creepiness which is captured in Psycho exists largely as a byproduct of our discomfort
with our own repressed sexual desires and urges and the demonstrably hyperbolized
extent to which Hitchcock takes those urges in his characters. It is through those
characters that he forwards the plot of his film and ultimately gives us insight into our
own minds and how we all go a little mad sometime.

Works Cited
Bellour, Raymond .. "Psychosis, Neurosis, Perversion." Trans. Nancy
Huston. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho: A Casebook. Ed. Robert P.
Kolker. New York: Oxford UP, 2004. 341-60. Print.
Klinger, Barbara. "Psycho: The Institutionalization of Female Sexuality."
Ed. Marshall Deutelbaum and Leland A. Poague. A Hitchcock
Reader. Ames: Iowa State UP, 1986. 334. Print.
Samuels, Robert .. "Psycho and the Horror of the Bi-Textual
Unconcious." Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho: A Casebook. Ed. Robert
P. Kolker. New York: Oxford UP, 2004. 149-62. Print.