Psycho

Psycho highlighted some important concepts that most mystery stories tend to have. The idea of true guilt, reflected heavily upon in this movie, mostly at the end, is one such concept. Norman Bates himself is not technically guilty as Norman Bates as a whole does not exist anymore. His mother, however, is guilty in the sense that Norman's other personality is the one that commits the murder. This is an interesting concept because we are unsure as to whether or not Norman Bates' mother, when she was actually alive, was harmless or not. We know that she was protective of her son but did Norman exaggerate this trait of his mothers when he reincarnated her inside of his own mind?Norman himself was just a killer all along but needed some sort of justification. When he could not find any justification, he turned to madness which freed his own mind from the guilt of his evil thoughts. The murder of his mother drove him even further over the edge, which he used to his advantage in justifying the killing of Marion.

I had a hunch from the beginning that maybe his mother and Norman were the same person after all. We never saw them both in the same place at the same time, alive that is. We heard his mother "speaking," but never actually saw her do anything. It was also odd how Norman met no resistance when moving his mother from upstairs, but this now of course makes sense. I also thought that the whole "you never see them both at the same time" lead was too cliche, but the again this movie is nearly 6o years old so cliches back then were much different than they are today.

A theme of jealousy is also apparent throughout this film. It is what drove Norman to kill his mother and her lover and also what Norman's version of his mother in his own head used as reasoning behind killing Marion. Maybe Norman's mother was not as jealous as he was when she was alive but he made believe that she was so he felt loved by her even when she was not alive anymore.