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.