Psycho: Revenge Is Murder, Man – Grahm Long
Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho depicts the encounter between a secretary, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), who is hiding at a hotel after embezzling $40,000 out of her employer, and the motel’s owner, Norman Bates. The aftermath escalates into the pivotal and famous shower scene, where Crane is stabbed multiple times by an anonymous figure. Hitchcock’s Psycho is generally characterized by most critics as a suspense/horror film that provides thrills to amuse the audience. However, through careful examination, one can surmise that Psycho is much deeper psychologically, laden with moralistic undertones that make arguments about society. Marion Crane, who is the protagonist, is the center of the film’s main argument of revenge. Crane’s facial features and overall body language suggest that her past has been marked by guilt and anxiety stemming from her actions. This idea is compounded with Crane psychically trying to remove her problems as a mean to “cleanse” herself. And in the end, Crane shields herself away from her inevitable fate. Thus, Alfred Hitchcock exhibits through Marion Crane’s murder that wrongdoing cannot be washed away.
Marion Crane’s subconscious body language demonstrates a person’s psychology after feelings of guilt and anxiety begin to pervade the mind. In the beginning of the scene, Crane sits in her robe in sobering thought and calculates financial figures, apparently working out how she can repay the stolen money she has already spent. Crane’s shoulders are hunched down over the table she sits at, indicating that an exerting psychological pressure is placed on her to rectify the situation. Crane’s attentiveness to the situation manifests into complete concern, as illustrated by Crane’s rapidly blinking eyes and the sigh she gives afterward. These two physical reactions are a result from Crane’s external stimulus. The
The Essay on Split Personality Audience Marion Hitchcock
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 ...
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constant batting of Crane’s eyes is a direct impulse of her dysfunctional state of mind. The sigh is a subconscious attempt to pacify these swarming emotions.
Crane’s source of futility and general desire to mend her character inspires her to take initiative by physically removing the problem. After realizing she cannot possibly return her debt, Crane tears up the paper containing the figures, and flushes the pieces down the toilet. When the evidence flushes away so does Crane’s problem, enabling her to consummate a peace of mind. With this newfound peace of mind, she slips out of her robe and slippers, and steps into the tub to take a shower. As the water from the shower head sprays down her face, Crane’s psychological state begins to change. Previously, her physical nature was characterized by anxiety and guilt. However now, her smiling and erect nature (head up, arms extended) projects a sense of relief. Crane disrobing expresses the shedding of her former self, allowing her to be born again into the world with a “clean” beginning. The physical act of showering solidifies her claim to becoming “clean.”
Crane’s attempt at purification comes to a sudden halt when she is forced into facing fate. Unseen behind her, the bathroom door opens. A figure approaches and pulls back the shower curtain. It is the shadowy/silhouette figure of an old woman wielding a large kitchen knife. Crane screams in a futile, but yet, defensive-mechanistic way as to call for rescue from her impending doom. The blade lifts high into the air, and then strikes Crane multiple times. Crane can neither escape the slicing blows of the knife, nor can she look fate in its eyes as it strikes down with the proverbial knife of revenge. Crane does everything within her power to cease the stabbing and exit of her fate, but to no avail. Crane sinks down, reaching out of desperation for the shower curtain which rips down around her, and she falls over the edge of the tub. The shower continues to run over her dead body, and her blood flows away down the tub drain, her lifeless eyes fixed in a final shell-shocked stare.
The Essay on Antigone: Themes of Fate, Love and Pride
Antigone, by Sophocles, is a play that has three major themes. All three of these themes play a very important part in this play. The three major themes are fate, love, and pride. Oedipus had killed his father, king of Thebes, not knowing it was his father and then took over Thebes. He married Iocaste, queen of Thebes (his mother), and had four children; one was a girl named Antigone. When Oedipus ...
Crane’s wrongdoing ultimately reciprocated the result of her death.
