Psycho Family Quotes

How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Psycho.

Quote #4

NORMAN: Mother! Oh, God, Mother! Blood! Blood!

Motherhood is frequently associated with blood and menstruation. Norman's shout is about Marion's death, but it could also be seen as a terrified fear of his mother's sexuality or fertility. Sex, blood, mothers—they're all banging around in Norman's fractured psyche. You could say Norman was driven insane by the thought that his mother had to have sex to give birth to him.

Quote #5

NORMAN: [voiceover in police custody, as Norman is thinking] It's sad, when a mother has to speak the words that condemn her own son. But I couldn't allow them to believe that I would commit murder.

This is Norman, thinking as his mother. Norman/mother claims that Norman/son is the real murderer. But it was when Norman/son thought he was Norman/mother that he committed the murder. Who is really guilty? It doesn't exactly matter, because the point of Psycho (and of Freud) is that mother lodges in the child's psyche; the child is partly the mother. So the mother is always responsible for what the child does. Which hardly seems fair given that mom here is a corpse, but Freud and Hitchcock aren't known for being fair, especially when women are involved.