Norman Bates Character Analysis

Horror Character Analysis

Norman Bates

  Norman Bates from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is a classic example of a horror character. Norman is a schizophrenic who shares the personality of his dead mother. His mother, Norma Bates, was a Christian who taught Norman that sex was evil; all women were whores (except her) and would punish Norman every time he showed some kind of attraction towards another woman. When Norma falls in love with Joe Considine, Norman becomes enraged at his own mother’s hypocrisy, and kills her and Joe with poison, disguising it as a suicide with a carefully written note. Norman was then hospitalised for a brief time to deal with the shock, but in this time he adopted the alternate personality of his mother as a result of repressing her death from his memory, and after being released from hospital he inherits his mother’s house and keeps her corpse to talk to. When he begins to fantasise about Marion Crane, who stays at the Bate’s motel while fleeing from the police, his “mother” takes over him and kills her. His mother then kills Detective Arbogast and attempts to kill Lila Crane before Sam Loomis saves her. Norman himself is portrayed as a shy reclusive that seems to be fearing of his own mother.

  The character of Norman Bates is based loosely off two people; Ed Gein, a serial killer and body snatcher from the early 1900s who tanned and used the skin of middle-aged woman who resembled his mother to create a full-body “woman suit” because he wanted a sex change after the death of his mother, and Calvin Beck, the publisher of Castle of Frankenstein. You can see how Gein influenced the character, that Gein was driven into his madness by the death of his mother, and also how Gein took on a feminine side after his mother’s death, just like how Norman Bates took on his mother’s persona when she was murdered by him.

  Norman has two states of mind during Psycho; himself and when his “mother” takes over. When he is by himself, he is represented as a normal, if not shy and reclusive young adult. Hitchcock had changed Norman’s appearance greatly from that of the book; in the book, Norman is middle aged, balding and overweight, while in the film he is tall, slender and good looking. Hitchcock did this not because he didn’t like the idea of an “ugly” person staring in the movie, but because he wanted the audience to sympathise with Norman and almost “rule him out” of the murder. Although the audience know he’s not innocent (he hide’s “mother’s” murder victims and spies on Marion as she showers), but they think of him as a victim who’s been living alone with no one but his strict mother, which is why he’s shy, awkward and not used to being with other people. In Psycho, he is depicted as a victim, as although he’s helping his mother hide the evidence, he doesn’t want to be a part of it and he’s stuck keeping his mother safe and away from people. The fact that he’s a handsome young man also reinforces this, as most villains are usually depicted as ugly. When he takes on the mind of his mother, he becomes very different. His mother, a strict Christian woman who believes that sex is sinful and that all women are whores. As such, she doesn’t like the idea of Norman being involved with a woman and kills Marion when Norman decides to watch her shower. Norma, Norman’s mother, takes on many themes of horror villains during her time on screen. She attacks her victims with a butcher’s knife in a similar style to other murders or horror villains. She skulks around the house and grounds, and attacks her victims from out of nowhere, like Marion in the shower, or Arbogast at the top of the stairs, and seemingly disappears without a trace afterwards. She is the type of villain who could be anywhere at any time. If we were to classify her as a “female” character, she would be considered ugly; because “she” isn’t actually a woman. Although Norman Bates isn’t actually female or even his “mother,” he believes himself to be, to the point he wears her clothes, a wig and puts on her voice, so we could account this character as a “female” character, if only in personality, and as such her appearance is quite ugly when compared to other female roles such as Lila or Marion.