Psycho

“She'd thrown something at the mirror, and then the mirror broke into a thousand pieces and she knew that wasn't all; she was breaking into a thousand pieces, too.”

After years of caring for her mother, Mary has a weak sense of her own identity. Smashing the mirror is an act of rebellion, indicating that Mary is ready to start her own life. Her regret over wasted time causes her to act impulsively, breaking the mirror and stealing the $40,000 from Mr. Lowry. The smashed mirror suggests that this impulsivity leads to her demise.

“I think perhaps all of us go a little crazy sometimes.”

This statement comes at the end of Norman’s speech about putting Mrs. Bates in a mental institution and uses the word “crazy” pejoratively to refer to people with mental health conditions. The comment resonates with Mary, who changes her mind and decides to take the stolen money back to the bank in Fort Worth on Monday. It also foreshadows Norman’s imminent murder of Mary. Lila Crane echoes this statement at the end of the novel, showing empathy for Norman.

“Then she did see it there—just a face, appearing through the curtains, hanging in midair like a mask. A head-scarf concealed the hair and the glassy eyes stared inhumanly, but it wasn't a mask, it couldn't be. The skin had been powdered dead-white and two hectic spots of rouge centered on the cheekbones. It wasn't a mask. It was the face of a crazy old woman.

Mary started to scream, and then the curtains parted further and a hand appeared, holding a butcher's knife. It was the knife that, a moment later, cut off her scream.

And her head.”

The first great twist of the novel, the scene of Mary's murder, became one of the most iconic scenes in horror movie history. Bloch’s depiction of the murder is even bloodier than the movie version, as censors constrained Hitchcock, who could merely emulate the stabbing. This scene defies the audience’s expectation that Mary is the novel’s protagonist. Bloch depicts Norma clearly here, but also subtly disguises that she is actually Norman, using makeup and a head scarf. The passage uses the word “crazy” pejoratively to refer to people with mental health conditions.

“As it was, maybe he'd never see her again. Tomorrow she'd be gone. Gone forever. Jane Wilson, of San Antonio, Texas. He wondered who she was, where she was going, what kind of person she really was, inside. He could fall in love with a girl like that. Yes, he could, after just seeing her a single time. It was nothing to laugh at, but she'd laugh, probably. That's the way girls were—they always laughed. Because they were b*tches.”

Norman Bates has had so little contact with women that he feels as if he could fall in love with Mary. This lack of contact with the opposite sex is due to Norma’s puritanical ideas about women, echoed in Norman’s calling them “b*tches.” Coming into such close contact with Mary, coupled with seeing her nude through the people, causes Norman to retreat to the persona of Norma to “protect” him from the perceived threat his attraction poses.

“Cold blooded murder is one thing, but sickness is another. You aren't really a murderer when you're sick in the head. Anybody knows that. Only sometimes the courts didn't agree. He’d read of cases. Even if they did recognize what was wrong with her, they'd still put her away. Not in a rest home, but in one of those awful holes. A state hospital.”

Norman has a preoccupation with mental health, demonstrating a low level of perception about his own mental condition. He does not want to turn his mother in to the authorities because he believes they will not understand her condition, and she will suffer in a psychiatric hospital. Later, Bloch reveals that Norman himself spent time in such a hospital, informing his aversion toward them. This passage uses outdated and offensive language to discuss people with mental health conditions.

“Then he inspected the bedroom once more. Luck was still with him; just under the bed he found an earring. He hadn't noticed that she was wearing earrings earlier in the evening, but she must have been. Maybe it slipped off when she shook out her hair. If not, the other one would be around here somewhere. Norman was bleary-eyed and weary, but he searched. It wasn't anywhere in the room, so it must either be in her baggage or still attached to her ear. In either case, it wouldn't matter. Just as long as he got rid of this one. Throw it in the swamp tomorrow.”

As careful as Norman is about cleaning the crime scene in the bathroom, the missing earring will ultimately be the key connecting him to Mary's disappearance. His weariness likely prevents him from doing a more thorough inspection of the room.

“Sometimes he almost wondered if they hadn't made a mistake when they planned ahead. After all, what did they really know about each other? Aside from the companionship of the cruise and the two days Mary had spent here last year, they'd never been together. There were letters, of course, but maybe they just made things worse. Because in the letters, Sam had begun to find another Mary—a moody, almost petulant personality, given to likes and dislikes so emphatic they were almost prejudices.”

Sam and Mary planned their engagement hastily; the two only knew each other for the length of a cruise vacation. Here, Bloch reveals that Sam harbors doubts about their relationship, even before learning that she has stolen a large amount of money. This passage illustrates the theme of The Duality of Human Nature: One can never truly know another person’s true intentions or feelings.

“Lila began to sob softly. ‘No, it doesn't! You should have listened to me when I wanted to call the police. Instead I let you and Mr. Lowry talk me out of it. Because you said you wanted to keep things quiet, and maybe if we waited Mary would decide to bring the money back. You wouldn't believe what I said, but I know now that I was right. Mary didn't take that money. Somebody must have kidnapped her period somebody who knew about it—”

Like Sam, Lila feels conflicted about her sister, struggling with the idea that Mary committed theft. Lila’s intuition tells her that something else is amiss concerning Mary's disappearance. The fact that she never came to Sam after stealing the money tells Lila that Mary is likely in trouble, and she would rather go to the police than let Arbogast (and Mr. Lowry’s company) have his way.

“Norman didn't like to shave, because of the mirror. It had those wavy lines in it. All mirrors seemed to have wavy lines that hurt his eyes.

Maybe the real trouble was that his eyes were bad period yes that was it, because he remembered how he used to enjoy looking in the mirror as a boy. He liked to stand in front of the glass without any clothes on. One time mother caught him at it and hit him on the side of the head with the big silver handled hairbrush. She hit him hard, and it hurt. Mother said that was a nasty thing to do, to look at yourself that way.”

Norman’s aversion to mirrors stems from his mother chastising him for looking at himself in the nude as a child. Norman's inability to look in a mirror suggests that he is unable to form a concrete sense of his own identity. His repulsion for his own body contributes to his cross-dressing and willingness to let his mother's persona dominate his own ego.

“He picked her up right off the bed and carried her, and she was light as a feather compared to Mr. Arbogast, and she smelled of perfume instead of stale cigarette smoke, the way he had. She was too astonished to put up a fight, just one hurdle little. Norman was startled at how easy it was, once he made up his mind to go through with it. Why, she was just a sick old lady, a frail, feeble thing! He didn't have to be afraid of her, not really. She was afraid of him, now. Yes, she must be. Because not once, all through this, had she called him ‘son.’”

After Arbogast’s murder, Norman’s adult persona briefly overcomes his mother’s, causing him to take charge for her safety as well as his own. Norman believes in the delusion that his mother is still alive; his surprise at how light she is does not just stem from the fact that she is old—she is a taxidermized husk of her former self.

“‘You told me what he said when he called you from the motel, last night. Well, that was just a stall. He must have already found out about Chicago, and he wanted to keep you quiet long enough for him to get a good head start. That's why he lied.’

‘I don't understand sheriff. Just what did he lie about?’

‘Why, when he said he was going up to see Norman Bates’s mother. Norman Bates has no mother.’

‘He hasn't?’

‘Not for the last 20 years he hasn't. She's dead.’”

This passage depicts the second great twist of the novel: Mrs. Bates has been dead for years. This calls into question all the interactions between Norman and his mother so far. Norma always appears on the periphery of these scenes, never directly in focus or physically described like the other characters. Now, her very existence is in doubt.

“‘Norman Bates is no murderer.’

The word emerged, just like any other word, and died away. But it's echo lingered. Sam heard it and Lila heard it. It stayed with them as they drove over to the courthouse annex with Sheriff Chambers. It stayed with them after the Sheriff drove away, out to the motel. He'd refused to take either of them along; Told them to wait. So they waited in the office, just the two of them. The two of them—and the word.”

Sheriff Chambers’s insistence upon Norman’s innocence stems from the perceived safety of small-town communities, where everyone is known to everyone else. While Chambers is trying to assuage Sam and Lila’s worries, this is the first moment in the novel when the possibility of murder is mentioned, indicating that the sheriff privately thinks foul play is a possibility, even if he doesn't think Norman was the one who did it. The implication of this hits Sam and Lila hard, spurring them to check out the Bates Motel themselves.

“He saw the sky darken as the sun surrendered its splendor. The sun surrendered its splendor—why, it was like poetry; He was a poet; Norman smiled. He was many things. If they only knew—

But they didn't know, and they wouldn't know, and right now he was just a fat, middle-aged motel proprietor who blinked up at the pair of them as they came in and said, ‘Can I help you?’”

When Norman drinks, his ego becomes more dominant, at times making him almost boastful or arrogant. The persona of adult Norman Bates, with which he greets Sam and Lila, functions as a defense mechanism. His demeanor matches his appearance: a harmless, even pathetic man, incapable of hurting anyone. This passage parallels Norma’s thoughts about being weak and harmless at the end of the novel. The truth is, neither is harmless, illustrating the theme of The Duality of Human Nature.

“He turned to face the man, wondering what he was going to say.

But even more, he was wondering what the Sheriff would do. The Sheriff could go up to Fairvale Cemetery and open Mother’s grave. And when he opened it, when he saw the empty coffin, then he'd know the real secret.

He’d know that Mother was alive.”

Norman’s panicked thoughts cast yet another layer of doubt upon the situation concerning Norma. With this passage, Bloch raises two possibilities, given the new evidence that Norma’s grave is empty: either she is alive, as Norman contends, or she is dead, and something more strange is afoot. The latter proves to be the case.

“Mary had stolen some money, Mary had been here overnight, she had lost an earring in the shower. But she could have banged her head, she could have cut her ear when the earring came off. Yes, and she could have gone on to Chicago, too, just the way Arbogast and the Sheriff seemed to think. He really didn't know very much about Mary, when he came right down to it. In a way, her sister seemed more familiar. A nice girl, but too hair-triggered, too impulsive. Always making snap judgments and decisions. Like this business of wanting to run straight up and search Bates’s house. Good thing he talked her out of that one. Let her bring the sheriff. Maybe even that was a mistake. The way Bates was acting now, he didn't seem like a man who had anything on his conscience.”

Sam finds it hard to believe that the seemingly insipid Norman Bates is capable of murder. Like Mary, he seems to be nice, and like Mary, he turns out to have hidden darkness. This passage suggests that Sam has a skewed perception of “normal” and that even the most ordinary-seeming people are capable of surprising acts. This reflects the theme of The Duality of Human Nature.

“Oh, yes. I brought mother back home with me. That was the exciting part, you see—going out to the cemetery at night and digging up the grave. She'd been shut up in that coffin for such a long time that at first I thought she really was dead. But she wasn't, of course she couldn't be. Or else she wouldn't have been able to communicate with me when I was in the hospital all that while. It was only a trance state, really; what we call suspended animation. I knew how to revive her period there are ways, you know even if some folks call it magic. Magic—that’s just a label, you know. Completely meaningless. It wasn't so very long ago that people were saying that electricity was magic. Actually, it's a force, a force which can be harnessed if you know the secret. Life is a force, too, a vital force. And like electricity, you can turn it off and on off and on. I'd turned it off, and I knew how to turn it on again. Do you understand me?”

Norman’s monologue to Sam is the closest Bloch comes to a direct confession; he reveals all other information about Norman’s past through Dr. Steiner at the end of the novel. Norman goes to great lengths to rationalize his delusion and find ways of making it more plausible for himself. His interests in the occult and psychology help him explain to himself how he brought his mother back to life, a coping mechanism for the extreme guilt he feels for murdering her.

“You didn't know that she stopped the car, did you? You thought she went on to get the Sheriff, the way you told her. But she has a mind of her own. Remember what she wanted to do? She wanted to take a look at the house. And that's what she did do. That's where she is, now.”

In this passage, Norman reveals that instead of going to the sheriff, Lila went up to the house. This passage shows that Sam underestimated Lila’s determination, as well as Norman’s harmlessness. Norman drops his façade of impotence and becomes cold as the “Norma” personality takes over due to Norman’s fear.

“Lila wasn't quite prepared to step bodily into another era. And yet she found herself there, back in the world as it had been long before she was born.

For the decor of this room had been outmoded many years before Bates’s mother died. It was a room such as she thought had not existed for the past 50 years; a room that belonged in a world of gilt ormolu clocks, Dresden figurines, sachet-scented pincushions, turkey-red carpet, tassel draperies, fresco vanity tops and four poster beds; A room of rockers, china cats, of hand-embroidered bedspreads and overstuffed chairs covered with antimacassars.

And it was still alive.”

The Bates house is a time capsule, which Norman meticulously preserves—much like Norma’s body. It reflects his Shame and Repression over murdering Norma and his persona’s submissiveness to Norma. The anachronistic setting reflects the Norman’s devotion to keeping it exactly as his mother did.

“Lila opened the fruit cellar.

It was then that she screamed.

She screamed when she saw the old woman lying there, the gaunt, Gray haired old woman whose brown, wrinkled face grinned up at her in an obscene greeting.

‘Mrs. Bates!’ Lila gasped.”

In the novel’s biggest and most iconic twists, Lila uncovers Norma Bates’s taxidermized remains. In a way, both Sheriff Chambers and Norman were correct: Norma is indeed dead, but she is not in her grave.

“Lila turned to stare at the fat, shapeless figure, half concealed by the tight dress which had been pulled down incongruously to cover the garments beneath. She stared up at the shrouding shawl, and at the white, painted, simpering face beneath it. She stared at the garishly reddened lips, watched them part in a convulsive grimace.

‘I am Norma Bates,’ said the high, shrill voice.”

The final twist in Psycho finally gives us a direct description of “Norma.” The spectacle of Norman cross-dressing was scandalous to both Bloch's and Hitchcock’s audiences due to the era’s repressive views of cross-dressing. “Norma’s” assertion of her identity in the presence of her own dead body foreshadows the final chapter of the book, in which her persona eclipses Norman’s once and for all.

“Long before the week was out, it was beginning to appear that virtually the entire population of Fairvale, to say nothing of the entire county area South of there, had been personally and immediately acquainted with Norman Bates. Some of them had ‘gone to school with him when he was a boy’ and even then they had all noticed something funny about the way he acted.’ Quite a few of them had ‘seen him around that motel of his,’ and they too attested to the fact that they'd always ‘suspected’ him. There were those who remembered his mother and Joe Considine, and they tried to establish how they ‘knew something was wrong when those two were supposed to have committed suicide that way,’ but of course the gruesome tidbits of 20 years ago seemed stale indeed as compared to more recent revelations.”

Bloch’s prose reflects on the sensationalism such scandalous news precipitates in small, closely-knit communities. The townspeople of Fairvale and its vicinity insert themselves into the narrative surrounding Norman Bates as a way of relieving their own guilt for never having suspected that there was something wrong with him. This passage also reflects the public’s morbid fascination with tragedy and violence.

“According to Steiner, Bates was now a multiple personality with at least three facets. There was Norman, the little boy who needed his mother and hated anything or anyone who came between him and her period then, Norma, the mother, who could not be allowed to die. The third aspect might be called ‘Normal’—the adult Norman Bates, who had to go through the daily routine of living, and conceal the existence of the other personalities from the world. Of course, the three weren't entirely distinct entities, and each contained elements of the other period doctor Steiner called it an ‘unholy Trinity.’”

Norman’s three personas are suggested through his observations in the novel. This explains why Norma only attacks when Norman has been drinking. The alcohol is a red herring because he is not blackout drunk but in a fugue state when he attacks Mary and Arbogast. Norma, whose main motivation is preserving her existence, suppresses Norman.

“‘I’m glad,’ Lila said slowly. ‘It's better this way. Funny, how differently things work out in real life. None of us really suspected the truth, we just blundered along until we did the right things for the wrong reasons. And right now, I can't even hate Bates for what he did. He must have suffered more than any of us. In a way I can almost understand. We're all not quite as sane as we pretend to be.’”

Lila ironically echoes Norman’s earlier comment to Mary: “I think perhaps all of us go a little crazy sometimes” (96). After accepting the fact that Mary stole the money from her boss, Lila has an easier time finding compassion for Norman. Her empathy also follows Sam’s explanation of Norman’s traumatic background. With this, Bloch suggests that people with mental health conditions are deserving of compassion.