Id, Ego And Superego In Hitchcock's Psycho

Key words: id, ego, superego, close reading, figurative language, Oedipal conflict, developmental stage,
Are we psycho? From the very beginning of the film “Psycho”, Hitchcock brings the audience into suspense as to what is going on behind the window of the hotel. The first scene takes us through the city of Phoenix, which represents “a mythical bird that is reborn from the ashes of fiery death”, and we see through this “mythical bird” a foreshadowing of Norman’s mother’s rebirth after he kills her. From guilt or to not get caught, Norman turns himself into her to bring her back to life (Jay). We go further in watching the camera scan the buildings in bird’s-eye view, which again represents the mythical bird. It takes focus on one window,

All three are represented through Marion Crane’s character in the film. Hitchcock represent the id – “devoted solely to the gratification of prohibited desires of all kinds…without an eye to consequences”– in Marion when she walks off with the $40,000 her boss told her to bring to the bank (Tyson 25). Marion was only looking for the pleasure that the money would give her and her poor lover Sam, without thinking about the consequences of her actions. In the beginning, we watch Marion dressed in white, – Hitchcock’s intent to show her as innocent – and after she steals the money from her boss, she is seen in black while packing to escape; implying that she is now wrong-doing. The superego—"internalization of cultural taboos—shows that”—which is represented through Marion when she has conversations in her head with the people she hurt for stealing the money (Tyson 25). Though she has these conversations playing in her head, she chooses to continue to run with the money. Marion’s ego – “the conscious self that experiences the external world through the senses and is the source of our self-image and feeling of stability – tries to play the referee between the id and superego…”— couldn’t control her ego, because of the id and superego, which ended with her choosing to run off with the money and live a new life. As the audience, we don’t hate Marion for stealing the money, we sympathize with

The voices in Marion’s head signify that she is under pressure; having an internal conflict for the crime she has committed. The camera focuses on her frightened facial expressions, which Hitchcock uses many times with her; instead of the use of words. As the audience, we can decipher that she is scared and having this issue in her head through her expressions. When Marion drives to escape from anyone realizing that she has taken the money, Hitchcock uses foreshadowing through the dark rainy night. This represents that something bad is going to happen to our innocent Marion. Hitchcock’s use of figurative language, with the dark rainy night when Marion is driving and can’t see, symbolizes the moment in which Marion is going to be murdered and she doesn’t see it coming. It can also symbolize the internal conflict she is having for taking the money, which enables her to come up with conversations in her head with the people she has hurt when she decided to steal the money and run