Summary: The Significance Of Birds In Psycho

The trend setting 1960’s horror film called Psycho highly focuses on a reference to birds in the scene of Marion and Norman in the parlor. The first birds that one witnesses are the owl hanging on the wall along with another large bird on the wall. Also you see a perched crow or raven that sits right above the chair where Marion had been offered to sit by Norman. Next to her sits a lamp on a table that has small little songbirds around it. Across from her sits Norman where the bigger birds are placed. For the duration of this scene there are numerous references of birds that tell us more about what is going on than the characters themselves. The relevance of birds in this film help us make connections that tell us things that are not shown clearly, but are symbolized clearly in the film. …show more content…
More specifically horror films. According to The Films of Alfred Hitchcock by Robert A. Harris and Michael S. Lasky, Hitchcock stated that “Psycho is a humorous film, the darkest of black comedies to be sure, yet humorous nonetheless”(217). Hitchcock enjoyed making these types of film, and especially this one in particular. Alfred Hitchcock is a man that like to play with the audiences emotions. “The violence in the scene is what keeps people interested, and just the suspense of anticipating it is enough to keep our adrenaline flowing”, Hitchcock says (217). Hitchcock seems to enjoy putting the audience through a rollercoaster of emotional suspense in this film. In this entire film Hitchcock does a lot more than make the film suspenseful. He adds a lot of symbolism as well as imagery that is hidden within the scenes. In one scene particular is where it happens for the most