Repressed Memory, Oedipus Complex and Psycho.

Repressed Memory, Oedipus Complex and Psycho.

Lourdes Charles
University of Bridgeport

Repressed Memory, Oedipus Complex, and Psycho

Norman Bates in the movie Psycho to me is a very interesting character as well as his mother, no other
character was important to me. They were just there for us to learn about Norman Bates and werent
really there for anything but that. In the beginning you would think Marion would be the main character
in this film but she was just the catalyst to start the whole movie leading us up to the killer, Norman
Bates. A tall, lanky, and possibly socially awkward grown man who owns the Bates Motel with his
mother being sick in their house next to the motel.

I already had knowledge about Norman Bates before watching the movie from friends talking
about the TV show Bates motel which is based off of the movie and reading about the movie years ago
hearing about it. The movie shows that Norman has an Oedipus complex, he was very attached to his
mother and got jealous when she found a man to become her lover, which threw him in a rage and
caused him to kill them both. The Oedipus complex I learned around my senior year in high school,
usually in pop culture we relate it to the Shakespeare story where the man fell in love with his mother
and ended up having sexual relations. We can say Norman had feelings for his mother, probably not
sexual, but more so that he loved her enough that seeing her with someone else and that he isnt her
main focus caused him to be extremely angry. Thus murdering them both. To me it showed one of
those If I cant have you then no one else can mentality because one would think that if you loved
someone that much, you wouldnt have killed her as well, the lover maybe, but not her as well seeing as
she was the only person he had in his life.
Norman seems to also repress his memories, he was the one who murdered his mother and yet
he acted as if she was still living, taking up a persona to act as her even keeping her rotting corpse in his
house even though she died 10 years ago. I understand the act of repressing a memory since I have
dealt with a traumatic issue in which when I was younger I tried to forget what happened, and even now

Repressed Memory, Oedipus Complex, and Psycho

I know the gist of what happens, I cant really remember every detail though, I know it happened.
Though in Norman case, it seems like he forgot everything about it and if not, maybe he just choose to
be in denial, even though the facts are clear and right in his face, he dresses up and acts as if his mother
is still alive, though he knows well that she is indeed dead.
Norman Bates is a character I would like to study, I wish the movie was more detailed and
thorough with his back story and maybe more based on him and how he saw the events of the movie
instead of a on the outside looking in feeling the movie left us with. Seeing how he reacted throughout
the movie, his thoughts, and the discussions with his mother in the movie wouldve been a very nice
and drastic switch from Marion then onto him or even starting off with him. The movie in the beginning
was a little long winded and wouldve been better if it were more focused on Bates and his mental
health and life than a story of some women that gets killed off 40 minutes into the movie anyways.
However I cant say the plot of the movie was pretty great for a movie that came out in the 60s.

Repressed Memory, Oedipus Complex, and Psycho

References

Hitchcock, A. (Director). (1960). Psycho [Motion picture]. Shamley productions(IS), Shamley

productionsItalia : CIC video, 1994.