Much Different Mother Figure example essay topic

When looking at the works of Alfred Hitchcock there are many recurring themes. Wrong man, classic Hitchcock villains, and the use of staircases are just three of the many attributes you see when watching a Hitchcock film. My favorite, however, would have to be Hitchcock's portrayal of the mother. Whether she is there for comic relief as we see in Shadow of a Doubt, or as the root of all evil as you see in Strangers on a Train and Notorious, the mothers he creates are far from ordinary.

Either their na " ive nature or pure hated for others help to link these movies to one another. Notorious, which was produced in 1945 but not released until 1946, has an extraordinary mother figure. She is a skinny frail woman with a heart of lead. She is controlling and evil at heart and seems to be the cause of all trouble yet never gets any of the blame. When they discover that the girl is working for the FBI, the mother takes matters into her own hands and convinces her son to do away with the girl. You never see her saying much, yet you can see what she is thinking as she stares with those vacant eyes of hers.

You can actually see the evil which is inside of her with one look in her eyes. She is by far one of the scariest and uncaring mothers we have seen thus far. The mother in Strangers on a Train (produced in 1950, released in 1951) has a slightly less aggressive role. Even though she is less active in what Bruno does now that he is grown, she is still the reason and cause for the way he has grown. Hitchcock sets up her control and her personality from the very first time you lay eyes on her. The camera closes in on her in the study with her son and she is giving him a manicure.

From this you know that he will do whatever she says and trust her completely. Even so, he is slightly tilted away and leaning back, giving the impression that he has something to hide from her. He thinks she will never know about, but this is not the case. She knows much more then he thinks she does, but she would rather live in this fantasy world where everything he does is perfect and nothing bad happens to them. She uses her wit and arrogance to move past what is truly happening and get back to her "reality". Shadow of a Doubt, produced in 1942 and released in 1943, is a much different mother figure then we have seen in the past.

The mother is not so much the mother as the older sister. However, the more you look at it the more motherly she gets. Charlie has all the same attachments to her as the other villains have to their mothers, yet with more respect as opposed to fear. Hitchcock uses her as the comic relief; someone the villain feels comfortable with and would never hurt. Even towards the end when she begins to think something is a miss, he doesn't ever consider hurting her. Instead, he uses her as the means of negotiation.

"If your mother was to find out it would kill her". This clearly shows the strong tie he has with the mother figure. I feel that she is as much a mother figure as all the others based solely on her connection with the villain. She cares for Charlie as if he was her son and treats him as such. Possibly even her favorite son you might say. Hitchcock uses mothers to get into the minds of his villains, giving the audience a look at what has made them the way they are or at least what has kept them from being even worse.

They are always strong women who have control over what they want. They are the means to the soul of the villain and without them the true understanding of what is going through the villains head would be unimaginable. Mothers are a very important part of Hitchcock's films and how people come to understand them.