Who Is Norman Bates Insane?

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 thriller Psycho, one of the greatest suspense horror films of all time, focuses particularly on its main character Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), a haunted young man with particularly psychological troubles. A seemingly ordinary, meek man, Norman shows throughout the film his propensity for violence, often through the lens of his mother, whose personality inhabits him in moments of great frustration and mania. Hitchcock uses very many psychological lashings-out, putting the audience in Norman’s state of mind while also exposing the terror of his victims. The literary, dramatic and cinematic aspects of Psycho help to explore Norman’s psyche, and make us question whether or not he is a killer or a victim of his own childhood

As she unpacks her baggage to move in, she meets the Motel owner named Norman Bates. Norman starts out as a seemingly nice character, but surprisingly acts as a complex character later in the film. All throughout the film, we are led to believe that Norman Bates’ insane mother is the one killing all of the victims – Marion, the private investigator, and so on due to Norman’s own fear of her, his arguments with her that we hear, and the glimpses of dresses that we see. However, it is only in the latter act of the movie that we are shown that Norman is the killer, impersonating his mother’s body language in a fit of schizophrenia. Throughout the movie we gradually see Norman unearth his mystery and that he was the person we should have been afraid of all this time, for reasons we cannot

When Arbogast goes up to the Bates’ house to investigate it, the house is empty – the audience feels almost as if he is entering Norman’s mind. In the dialogue of this scene, Arbogast hears what could possibly be a human sound coming from upstairs. Upon going up the staircase, the door upstairs cracks open, Hitchcock only showing a sliver of light coming through. This is followed immediately by a wide, God’s eye view of the top floor as Norman (in a wig and dress) runs at Arbogast and brutally cuts him with the knife. Hitchcock does not show us the knife meeting flesh, but the camera immediately creates a straight cut to Arbogast with a red gash over his face, his own terrified expression, and still staring at the camera (aka Norman) in disbelief and fear as he falls down the stairs to his