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Black Swan Character Analysis

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Nina Syers, a young ballet dancer at NYC Ballet Company, has always wanted to become the female lead. For ‘Swan Lake’, the director, Thomas, offers the role of ‘Swan Queen’ to the reserved and rigid Nina. She had to perform both the White Swan, who is fragile and filled with innocence, and the Black Swan, who is cunning and seductive. Nina easily fits into the role of White Swan due to her child-like persona. She, however, faced hardships in being the Black Swan. The stress of being the perfect Swan Queen turns into madness and Nina develops schizophrenia. Her mother imposed strict social morals and constraints, and Nina had fear of Lily, her colleague, stealing the role from her. This led Nina to struggle both psychologically and physically …show more content…

Syers, who displaces strict morals onto Nina, and treats her like a child; for instance, she dresses her, puts her into bed and had sexual repression as ‘sex’ was seen as morally wrong. Lily and Thomas portray Nina’s Id. A frigid Nina struggles to perform as seductive and cunning Black Swan since it is against Nina’s upright upbringing. Thomas prompts her to follow her sexual desires, embrace the opposite and bring the Black Swan out of her. She masturbates but stops after seeing her mother; representing her Superego overshadows Id. Lily is sensual and free from any social constraints, which Nina envies. Lily exposes Nina to her sensual side as Lily personifies Black Swan. She had fear of Lily snatching the role of Swan Queen and vividly hallucinated Lily having sexual contact with Thomas. She began to get in touch with her darkness to retain her role and developed rebellious attitude towards her mother, for instance, she slammed the door in front of her mother after late night clubbing. She ultimately performed Black Swan with perfection. Her ego, that is herself, managed to stabilize her Id and superego, balancing her morals and sensuality because she said ‘I felt it..Perfect.. It was perfect’, depicting that she felt the role, while not merely perfected her

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