The Double
Hitchcock often used "the double" in his films as a way to represent the relationship between characters. One representation of "the double" has both characters sharing the same desire however only one of them takes action. In Strangers On A Train, Bruno carries out the plot of murdering Guy's wife, just the way Guy would like to do it. Also in Rope, Brandon Shaw and Philip Morgan kill an inferior human being just the way their teacher Rupert Cadell would like to do it. In Psycho, Marion Crane steals $40,000 and plans on running away just the way Norman Bates would like to run away from his mother. These characters are in the same situation but are completely different personalities.
Read more about this topic: Themes And Plot Devices In The Films Of Alfred Hitchcock
Famous quotes containing the word double:
“Women have acquired equal place to man in society, but the double standard has really never been relinquished; certainly not by men. Modern man’s fear of passivity or of the active woman proves to be as eternal as modern woman’s struggle to come to terms with her femininity.”
—Peter Blos (20th century)
“In a symbol there is concealment and yet revelation: here therefore, by silence and by speech acting together, comes a double significance.... In the symbol proper, what we can call a symbol, there is ever, more or less distinctly and directly, some embodiment and revelation of the Infinite; the Infinite is made to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, and as it were, attainable there. By symbols, accordingly, is man guided and commanded, made happy, made wretched.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)