Literary Criticism, Fall, 99;  Psychoanalysis;

• Pay attention to the images of human eyes (of Norman, Miriam, and Lila), eye sockets, which are associated with the sink drainage, light and the swamp.  Why?  With visual brightness set as a contrast to dark holes and traps, what does Hitchcock suggest about human psyche?
• Holes, on the other hand, are for the voyeurs.  Who are the voyeurs in the film?
• How are the characters associated with birds, innocent birds or birds of prey?

Hitchcock's presence in his films is motivated not only by his wish to observe and control--and, particularly, to control by observing--but also by a constant quest for closeness to his characters, which finds its most potent expression in two practices. One is his celebrated use of point-of-view shots--often praised for their power to generate physical and psychological identification between spectator and character, but equally effective in uniting a character's consciousness and perspective with that of the director himself. The other is H's habit of injecting himself¡Kinto the world of his films. He does this not by becoming a character, but in two other ways: through his famous cameo appearances, which allow him to enter the action directly, costumed yet unmistakably himself, and through his use of characters and objects that serve as surrogates for his own presence.

16. H's cameos are self-publicizing jokes and ironic punctuation marks, no question about it. They also have perkily nondramatic and illusion-breaking qualities. ¡Ksomething more resonant: manifestation of H's deep-seated wish not only to speak through, but to become physically integrated with, his films.
17. the famous shower scene--in 42 seconds there are 78 separate shots
18. Hitchcock's treatment of women.

• His relationship with his mother: closeness, mutual possession, necrophilia
• schizophrenia

 
• Norman's voyeurism and murderousness, . . . , are clarified by Freud's statement that in obsessional neurosis, regression of the libido to the antecedent stage of the sadistic-anal organization is the most conspicuous factor and determines the form taken by the symptoms. The impulse to love must then mask itself under the sadistic impulse. The obsessive thought, "I should like to murder you," means  . . .  nothing else but "I should like to enjoy love of you."

 
• Norman's confusion about sexual difference and appropriate sexual behavior are similarly clarified by Freud's assetion that during the "pre-genital" phase  . . . the contrast between masculine and feminine plays no part as yet; instead of it there is the contrast between active and passive . . . That which in this period seems masculine to us, regarded from the stand-point of the genital phase, proves to be expression of an impulse to mastery, which easily passes over into cruelty. Impulses with a passive aim are connected with the erotogenic zone of the rectal orifice, at this period very important; the impulse of skoptophilia (gazing) and curiosity are powerfully active.

 
II.  Secrecy and greed: Marian -- but is she the only one guilty.
 
III. Human Psyche: how the bright side is inseparable from the dark and evil.  Many characters are suspected of stealing the money.

IV. Images of birds and holes.  Symbolic meanings of the names.
 
V. The camera eye: revealing the dark part of the unconscious.
 
VI. Is Norman completely explained away?

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