Blog Assignment #1
Roland Barthes had an idea which texts should display the creativity and style of each individual author. He believed every writer has their own form, or manipulation of conventional writing styles. One of this form is Barthes’s Hermeneutic Code, which denotes an enigma or riddle, which moves the narrative forward, while creating suspense by setting up different blocks, distractions, or obstacles. The movie starts off by a scene showing a very passionate couple, a very brief moment yet important one as it gives the back-story of two of the protagonists. Right away the audience is given its enigma or riddle as the story focuses on the female lead character named Marion Crane; the question that pops in everyone’s head is “what will happen to her, will she get hurt by her lover, or will she find her true happiness”? The story almost promises an answer is it follows Marion most of the first half of the film, when she sets off with $40,000 cash that she stole from her office, gets seen leaving town by her boss, and catches the attention of a cop while traveling. But the main delay in the movie is when she meets Norman Bates, a kind and charming motel owner, she seems to be captivated by his charm and kindness at first as she allows him to prepare dinner for her. But it’s during dinner that she realizes something is wrong with the Norman and goes back to her room where she meets her eventual doom.
Barthes also had the idea of “readerly text” in which the reader just strictly reads and “writerly text” in which the reader has the freedom to interpret the text as he/she wishes. In my opinion “Psycho” is can be seen as both readerly and writerly as some scenes are left for interpretation by the audience and some a given straightforward interpretation. Scenes like when the lead female character, Marion Crane, sets off with the money leaves the audience to think where she was going, many say she was going to her lover but it has not been clearly stated nor displayed. Also when she decides to go back, no one could be for sure if she was actually going to do it or not, even though she’s seen counting the money and what’s left of it, she shows agitation at the fact that she spent so much already, and that leads a lot to belief maybe she changed her mind and decided maybe it’s not a good idea to go back after all. Also the whole mystery about Norman Bate’s mother is left for individual interpretation which leads me to believe the film has a writerly form. However, at the end of the movie when Dr. Fred Richman explains to Marion’s sister and lover what happened, all the questions are answered and the individual interpretations are thrown out the window. Therefore I personally think the film is a readerly text form.
