Movies: A Thematic Analysis Of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho

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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. ...

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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 ...

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