Norman Bates: Character Analysis

Norman Bates: Character Analysis

Norman Bates is a fictional character that appeared for the first time in the 1960 classic horror film, Psycho. Norman Bates a motel manager in his mid 20s who suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder. He also happens to be a serial killer. Things just get interesting he is not actually a serial killer, but it is the other personality that takes over him does all the gruesome killing activities. This other personality is that of his dead mother’s. A prequel to the film was made as a TV series called Bates Motel. The series shows Norman in his teenage years and the story revolves around the conflict between him and his mother.

Norman Bates is the son of Norma Bates who is a very domineering and controlling woman and is obsessive about protecting her child from any harm. Norman is not usually allowed by his mother to hand out and spend time with other people, not even with kids his own age. This can be understood if we dealt into Norma’s abusive past. As a child, she was raped by her own brother. Later on, she got married into another abusive relationship with Norman’s father. Norma and her son move on to start a motel business after she kills her abusive husband. Maybe Norma’s uncomfortable past forces her to keep Norman within her sights and thus becoming obsessive about her son’s well-being. This also leads to paranoia about her son’s safety. As a result of all this, Norma becomes the singular individual with whom Norman can feel comfortable and safe. Losing his father at the early age in such a manner also took a toll on Norman. He also believed that he can be safe only with his mother. He obeys his mother diligently. If his mother forbids him from meeting with any other people or friends, he terminates those relationships immediately without any further arguments on the matter. This lack of interaction of Norman with other people, especially members of the opposite sex, eventually turns him into the wicked serial killer as depicted in the film.

Norman has ‘blackouts’ from a very young age. After recovering from these blackouts, he is left with no memory of what had happened. During the blackouts, Norman suffers from depersonalization and this is when his alter personality takes over. His other personality is that of his protective mother who is saving him from any and every harm that can befall him. According to the medical sciences, these personality disorders occur because of a repetitive traumatic past, but cannot be classified as an illness if the victim has been under the influence of any drug. Norman Bates has never been shown taking drugs on screen. This overtake by the alter personality happens most during any sexual encounters. Because his mother kept preventing from girls that she didn’t approve of, whenever Norman gets intimate with a girl, his mother’s personality takes over. This is the blackout that Norman experiences. Often Norman, or the mother, ends up killing the other girl or the harmful person and Norman is left with no memory of the unfortunate events. Norman is seen having memories where it is him killing his father. What had happened was Norman killed his father when the mother personality took over.

Norman is sent to a psychiatric facility where he could get the proper help. In the meantime, Norman’s mother gets married. After Norman gets released, he is furious on learning about his mother’s marriage. He looks at his stepfather as the other man who has come between his and his mother’s special bond. Norman, or rather the mother, kills his mother’s new lover. Freud’s psychoanalysis manages to provide the perfect explanation for this. His mother’s actions had fueled a distrust in him about the only person he truly cared for and the person who would keep him safe from any harm. Norman ends up taking his mother’s life, but his illness prevents him from accepting his mother’s death. He mummified his mother’s dead body and kept it in the house.

Even though Norman’s mother was actually gone, she wasn’t truly gone from Norman’s life. Even in the future, whenever Norman got intimate with any woman, the mother personality would take over. And every murder would be followed by other murders in order to take care of any loose ends. And thus, the fearsome manager of the Bates Motel was born as a result of too much motherly affection.