Norman Bates: psychological profile and character analysis

Norman Bates

Psychological Analysis of Alfred Hitchcock's Norman Bates

"She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?" (Hitchcock 1960). The character of Norman Bates is probably one of the most memorable ones in all of horror movie history. His disturbing behavior haunted audiences for generations. What psychological forces would have driven a character so mad as to dress as his dead mother and murder time and time again? Well, there are two primary theories which prove helpful in the exploration of Norman Bates' psychosis: that of Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic theory and the behaviorist notion of dissociation. It is clear that Bates exhibits an extreme attachment to his mother, explained by Freud's Oedipus complex, as well as a severe case of dissociation which fractures his personality into two completely separate entities.

Norman Bates frightened audiences across the world in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 release of the film Psycho. In the film, Bates is a lonely hotel owner who seems innocent until a chance encounter with a beautiful thief running from her job in Los Angeles with $40,000 of her boss' money. Completely ignorant of the large amount of cash on hand, Bates murders her in the infamous shower scene while dressed as his mother. Hitchcock is careful to portray the murder as if it really were his mother, a fact the audience is led to believe until his mother's shriveled body is found in his estate and his horrifying mental illness is truly discovered at the end of the film. What goes wrong in Bates' mind? What happened to that seemingly lovable lonely young man who just seemed to want some extra attention at the beginning of the film? It is clear that the character development of Norman Bates within the context of the plot is anything but normal, and so his character is morphed into a helpless boy who becomes his mother in order to cope with the world around him as well as his own internal desires.

The first theory that helps explore the development of Norman Bates' character is that of Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic theory. According to Freud, there is within all of us what he called the Oedipus complex. This is based on Sophocles' great tale of a Greek King who unknowingly murders his father and marries his mother. According to Freud's thinking, this complex explains the natural affinity children have towards the parent of the opposite sex and their innate initial hatred of their parent of the same sex. As the infant is limited in terms of social construction, he or she exhibits the Oedipus complex when the first sexual feelings towards the opposite sex lead to a feeling of competition for the attention of the parent of the opposite sex with the parent of the same sex. This competition fuels the affinity for the parent of the opposite sex and the tension between the parent of the same sex. According to Freud, the Oedipus complex was acquired at the killing of the father by the brothers banded together," (Freud 1989:93). The boy loves the mother, despises the father, for the mother is the first sexual attraction and the father is the direct competition of that sexual relationship. It is clear that Norman Bates is in the midst of an extreme case of Oedipus complex. Unknowingly, he is playing out his jealousy by embracing the role of his mother when she is challenged by another sexual attraction; "Norman Bates is a grown man stuck in the Oedipus complex, and in the film we see Norman driven to an act of murder through the jealousy he perceives his mother to experience when he is sexually aroused by another woman," (LeDrew 2009:1). Until the arrival of the young blonde thief, Norman was completely cut off from the rest of society. This left his relationship with his mother unchallenged, therefore allowing his psychosis to go relatively un-triggered. However, when another female sex figure appears, it sets off a reaction within him that is typical, but on a much bigger and more dangerous scale. Rather than allowing his sexual attraction for another woman override the innate attraction he has with his mother, as most men his age do, he is consumed by guilt. Norman then becomes "his mother whenever he experiences sexual desire for other women illustrating his inability to resolve the Oedipus complex and achieve a mature sexuality," (LeDrew 2009:1). Thus, he takes on the role of the jealous mother and acts out according to that jealousy. This is further exacerbated by the fact that his mother was so damaging to his psyche while she was alive. She completely debilitated him as a mature male adult, constantly putting him down. This took away all hopes of him dealing with the harshness of the real world, for he had absolutely no confidence in himself. His mother's rage was left unchecked because there was no father figure in the picture. Norman's real father had left long before the start of the plot, and therefore he was raised with no male influence to quell the unhealthy female influence of his mother's constant nagging and put downs. Thus, "the absence or failure of a paternal order to ensure resolution of the Oedipus complex, serving as a reminder of the Oedipus complex that we all have experienced, and the repression of the desire for the mother that was necessary to resolve the complex," (LeDrew 2009:1). Without a father figure to crush the jealous female influence, Norman has no way to fight off those feelings of jealousy that his mother would have felt if she were alive. A strong male figure would have naturally crushed the female jealousy and allowed for Norman some sort of normal development that would have lead to a much different and less bloody lifestyle. However, with no male figurehead to guide his development out of the stage of the Oedipus complex, Norman is completely defenseless to his own psychosis imparted on his mother well before she died.