This essay examines the philosophical questions raised by the 1973 film The Exorcist, focusing on what constitutes the human self when the body remains but character is radically altered. Drawing on Regan's demonic possession as a narrative device, the paper explores parallels with real-world experiences of mental illness, adolescent transformation, and dementia—situations in which loved ones confront a familiar body housing an unrecognizable personality. The essay argues that the film's deepest horror lies not in the supernatural spectacle but in its meditation on identity, selfhood, and the cognitive dissonance of separating a person's body from their behavior, voice, and character.
The paper demonstrates sustained analogical reasoning, systematically connecting a fictional supernatural scenario to three distinct real-world conditions (mental illness, puberty, and dementia) to illuminate a single philosophical question. This technique allows the writer to expand the significance of a narrow textual observation into a broader claim about human identity without introducing unrelated evidence.
The essay opens by introducing the central philosophical provocation — what constitutes the self apart from the body — and immediately grounds it in specific scenes from the film. Each subsequent paragraph develops a distinct analogy (mental illness, parental trust, dementia) before converging on the mother's desire to recover her daughter's former self. The conclusion returns to the viewer's perspective, asking how the audience itself navigates the separation of body, character, and identity, which gives the argument a satisfying circular closure.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the film The Exorcist is the question it provokes regarding what constitutes the human self. Over the course of the film, a demonic force possesses a seemingly innocent child named Regan. Regan's character changes as a result, altering her original demeanor and the viewer's initial assumptions about who she is and what she represents in the narrative. From a kind, agreeable girl, Regan turns into a child who tells an astronaut at her mother's dinner party that he is going to die up in the sky. The once healthy prepubescent suddenly cannot control her bowels, yet can throw her mother across the room by sheer force of will.
The philosophy of self asks precisely this kind of question: when behavior, memory, and personality are radically altered while the body remains the same, in what sense does the original person still exist? The Exorcist dramatizes this question in an extreme and visceral way, but the underlying dilemma is one that many people encounter in far more ordinary circumstances.
In a film that did not validate the existence of the supernatural, Regan would be seen as mentally ill. Indeed, many of her early symptoms closely mimic those of a child suffering from a delusional mental illness such as schizophrenia. Parents of severely disturbed children must also confront the fact that the child with whom they felt such a strong bond is now behaving in a socially unacceptable, alien manner — unable to show affection in any way the parent can recognize as normal or human. And, like Regan's mother, the cure for frightening behavior in a once-normal child can be elusive.
Regan's mother is forced to deal with the problem of how to contain her child so that Regan does not hurt herself or others. Eventually, the girl is strapped to the bed. The mother must treat the child she gave birth to as if she were an enemy in her own home, and she is frightened to solicit outside help until, finally, she turns to a priest. The girl lashes out and attempts to harm her mother in ways she never did before, driven by her illness.
In some ways, this mirrors the experience of many ordinary adolescents coping with puberty. When a child undergoes a particularly rocky transition from childhood to adulthood, the parent often feels that the child he or she once knew well has suddenly changed. The parent cannot grant the child full liberty, because trust has been broken. The adolescent transformation — while far less extreme than possession — raises the same unsettling question: is this still the same person?
This disturbing contrast between body, voice, and self strikes the viewer of the film while watching The Exorcist. Who is the girl lying in the bed — is it a child, or some other being? Does one hate the character of Regan, or hate the invisible force causing Regan's body to act in such a fashion? Can one separate the body of the actress from the character she plays, or the character of the child at the beginning of the film from the being she becomes later? The difficulty of making such a separation is jarring.
Ultimately, one of the most frightening and haunting philosophical questions raised by the film is how the self is defined — particularly when illness, possession, or transformation alters a person's character while leaving the body outwardly intact. The film does not answer this question, but it forces its audience to confront it in a way that lingers long after the credits roll.
The Exorcist. Starring Linda Blair. 1977.
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