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Alfred Hitchcock's Use Of Symbolism In The Film Psycho

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Alfred Hitchcock used various symbols throughout the film Psycho to allow the viewer to get an insight of what is happening in the film. Symbolism is an exceptional way to entice the viewer as it creates suspense and makes it better to understand the film. Alfred uses paintings as a symbol, which can be seen in multiple scenes, to symbolize a certain character in the film to the painting and foreshadow events in the film. This allows the viewer to get more detail on the character’s personality and what is about to happen. In the first picture, we can see Norman Bates is looking at a painting known as Susannah and The Elders. The painting portrays a story from the Bible in which two elder men are spying on a woman taking a bath and then attempt …show more content…

This painting reflects Norman’s suppressed sexuality due to his mother having control over his mind and …show more content…

The painting contains quite a small bird which can be translated to a powerless and weak figure that can be related to Marion since she is the weak and helpless character in this film being prey upon by Norman who is seen besides hawks in certain scenes. The painting is placed right outside of the bathroom in which Marion is killed showing that the bathroom was the trap for her while Norman, the hawk in this case, killed her in the shower. The painting reflects Marion’s personality as weak and powerless and foreshadows that something wrong was going to happen to Marion similar to the Susannah and The Elders painting. The painting symbolizes Marion since the bird in the painting is also small, powerless, and weak. The painting does an effective job in letting the viewer relate bird to Marion and foreshadows her death since Norman in placed in scenes with bigger birds like a hawk. Alfred uses a close-up shot in this scene to make sure the painting is clearly shown to the viewers similar to all his other scenes with

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