AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, Volume 5, Number4. October 2021                                Pp.172- 179
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol5no4.13

Full Paper PDF

The Psychological Makeup of Scottie’s Character in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo  

Kifah (Moh’d Khair) Ali Al Omari
Department of English Language and Literature
Faculty of Arts
The Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan
Corresponding Author: k.m.alumari@hu.edu.jo

Baker M Bani-Khair
Department of English Language and Literature
Faculty of Arts
The Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan

 

Received: 9/23/2021                         Accepted:  10/18/2021                     Published: 10/29/2021

 

Abstract:
This paper aims at studying the psychological makeup of Scottie’s character in Vertigo (1958), a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and usually considered one of his masterpieces. The paper emphasizes the importance of analyzing Scottie’s character from a psychoanalytic point of view, especially the images, dreams, and schizophrenic duality of his personality. The significance of the study lies in its attempt to resolve the argument about Scottie’s story. Some critics consider this story a fictional dream that resulted from the conflict that Scottie suffered from in the past in intense psychological trauma. On the other hand, the story is a complex murder story planned by an evil character called “Gavin.”  To resolve this conflict of opinion, this paper tries to explain the complexity of Scottie’s surface and analyze it according to some psychoanalytic theories and concepts such as Freud’s theory of the Unconscious, and the idea of fantasy, and the dream work. The researchers conclude that considering Vertigo a dream is one of the ways that help to resolve the conflict about Scottie’s character and the film as a whole.
Key Words: agoraphobia, Alfred Hitchcock, fantasy, psychoanalysis, Vertigo

Cite as:   Al Omari, K. A., & Bani-Khair, B. M. (2021). The Psychological Makeup of Scottie’s Character in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies 5 (4) 172- 179.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol5no4.13

References
Fabe, M. (2009). Mourning Vertigo. American Imago, 66, (3), 343-367.

Freud, S. (2000). Beyond the Pleasure Principle. In Ivan Smith (Ed.), Freud- Complete Works, EPUB, 1919-1930.

Freud, S. (2008). Interpretation of Dreams (third edition). New York: Seven Treasures Publications.

Heather, H. (2001). Hitchcock Vertigo and the Tragic Sublime. RAE-Revista de Administração de Empresas, 42, (4), 46-56.

Hitchcock, A. (1958). Vertigo. Los Angeles: Paramount Pictures.

Jung. C. (1964). Man and His Symbols, New York: Doubleday & Company Inc.

Maxfield, J. (1990). A Dreamer and his dream: Another way of looking at Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Film Criticism, 14, (3), 3-13

Rivkin, J. & Ryan M. (1998). Psychoanalysis and psychology. In Julie Rivkin and Micheal Ryan (eds), Literary Theory, An Anthology (pp. 389-504). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Simon, W. G. (1983). Hitchcock: The Language of Madness. In Walter Raubicheck & Walter Srebnick (eds.), Hitchcock’s Rereleased Films: From Rope to Vertigo (pp. 109-115). Michigan: Wayne State University Press.

Spoto, D. (1983). The Dark Side of the Genious: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. Canada: Little Brown and Company.

West, A. (1991). The Concept of the Fantastic in Vertigo. In Walter Raubicheck & Walter Srebnick (eds.), Hitchcock’s Rereleased Films: From Rope to Vertigo (pp.163-174). Michigan: Wayne State University Press.

Wood, R. (2002). Hitchcock’s Films Revisited. New York: Columbia University Press.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Reddit
Email
StumbleUpon
Digg
Received: 9/23/2021 
Accepted: 10/18/2021    
Published: 10/29/2021  
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4216-7194
http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol5no4.13

Dr. Kifah (Moh’d Khair) Ali Al Omari was born in Amman, Jordan, on June 6, 1970. He earned his BA in English at The University of Jordan, Amman in 1991, his MA in English Literature from the same university in 1995, and his Ph.D. in English Literature from The University of Texas at Arlington, USA in 2006. He works now as an associate professor of English literature at the Department of English Language and Literature in the Hashemite University, Jordan. His research interests include nineteenth and twentieth-century American literature, detective fiction, modern theories of literary criticism, and cultural studies. He has more than fifteen published articles in international refereed journals.  ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4216-7194

Dr. Baker Bani-Khair is currently an associate professor of English literature at the Hashemite University, Jordan. He has published several articles on different aspects that mainly deal with Gothic Literature, cultural studies, and Film. His Film research interests are varied and multifarious, but he especially focuses on the 1950s and 1960s American films and history.