The Fear of Mrs. Bates : The Use of Psychoanalytical Aspects, Anticipation and Retrospection in Robert Bloch’s Psycho

Sammanfattning: This essay focuses on psychoanalytical notions in Robert Bloch’s novel Psycho. The theoretical framework is based on Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis. Slavoj Žižek’s idea that the house serves as a symbol of Freud’s concept of the Super-Ego, Ego and Id is presented and further developed. Moreover, it is exemplified how the idea of repression as a defense mechanism can be traced in the novel. It is then explained that repression is used as a tool for making the reader feel sympathy for Norman Bates. In addition, Wolfgang Iser’s reception theory is used to explain how Bloch uses gaps and pre-intentions in order to create anticipation and retrospection in the reader to produce suspense and horror. The intention is to prove that the attention to the psychological issues is what makes the monster of the novel more sympathetic and recognizable to us as readers. Thus, the result is that we position ourselves closer to the monster, which leaves us wondering if we could, due to our shared psychology, be monsters as well.