Themes Of Voyeurism In Peeping Tom

Focusing on a twenty year old obsessed with death and suicide who falls in love with an eccentric almost-eighty-year-old woman, Harold and Maude is a somewhat unconventional romantic comedy widely regarded as a cult classic. This movie’s use of suicide and other sensationalized ideas from Psychology is jarring to say the least, but its Psychological principles are not limited to those. There are many everyday aspects of Psychology immortalized through this film that would hardly make one bat an eye. In the movie, twenty year old Harold lives, mostly, with his mother. During the time he is not living with his mother, he is faking suicide for her attention, bringing home a hearse as his first car, or attending funerals, presumably for fun. Harold’s quirks seem to at least somewhat

The reader immediately thinks of Mark Kinney and so does Susan McConnell. Right after her mom reads to her it a clinical description of psychopaths.

Hitchcock uses many techniques throughout the film “Rear Window” to convey suspense. The major theme of the film regards Jefferies voyeurism. His intrigue in the everyday lives of his neighbours is viewed as intrusive and morally wrong on principle. However, without this voyeuristic tendency the crime committed by Thornwald would never have been solved. Thus, the audience is lead through emotional turmoil in questioning whether it is wrong to invade someone’s privacy, or just and heroic to solve a crime. We see the climax of the film when Lisa and Stella venture out of Jefferies apartment to investigate the murder of Mrs Thornwald. This leads to a confrontation between Thornwald and Jefferies. These scenes build suspense through the use of detachment, the use of ‘split-screen’, ‘red-herring’ plot devices, lighting, music and diegetic sound.

Larson utilizes imagery to exemplify Holmes’ character and actions to the audience. He describes Holmes’ reaction to a friend’s sister’s death to give the reader an idea of the cold inhumanity he possesed. Even though “Holmes told Ned how sorry he was” about her passing, yet “in his eyes there was only a flat blue calm” like that of a “lake on a still August morning” (123). Larson presents this imagery to give the reader a clear view of Holmes’ point of view on death. When he reacts with such a “flat blue calm,” the reader can clearly see that he did not posses even the slightest bit of sincerity. This serves to help the reader see the surface, and allude to what lies beneath. Larson further proves his inhumanity with the portrayal of Holmes’ murder of his pregnant fiancée, Julia. Holmes promised he would marry her, but with the condition that she had to allow him to execute an abortion. He then “held the cloth” coated in chloroform “over her nose and mouth” and within seconds “her eyes fluttered and rolled upwards” followed by “the inevitable, reflexive disturbance of muscles, like a dream of running” (148). Larson uses words like “flutter” and “rolled” to show the reader that her consciousness fled from her with no objection from her being noted. This is to

“The thing is - fear can’t hurt you anymore than a dream.”(Golding, 116). Ralph’s opinion on fear is stated on this quote. Ralph is a character from William Golding’s esteemed book, Lord of the Flies.

Kathryn Merteuil, the primary antagonist in Cruel Intentions, is the master at manipulating both men and women. She is the most popular girl at her school and bases the entirety of her self-worth on her perception that everyone either wants her or wants to be her. In order to maintain her appearance, Kathryn binges and purges and has a heavy cocaine addiction. Although well liked and popular, Kathryn holds no stable relationships and is easily upset and irritated when things do not go her way. Although this film’s focus is not Kathryn’s mental health diagnosis, Kathryn’s actions and unstable emotions are arguably that of a patient with Borderline Personality Disorder.

“He was just so agro,” she told viewers,” I will never ever want to see Brenton again’ he said,’ I’ve got the foulest temper, I cannot control myself, I will kill him.” (Australian Story, 2010) Not too long after the accident, Leigh Senior sent the Chaplin’s a letter, which gave them a glimpse into his state of mind. “Your families a real concern to the community. We don’t want anything to do with you people and never have. So just leave us alone.” (Australian Story, 2010) Soon after, people in the community began putting up signs with murder and killer lives here written on them. Unfortunately this was not where their suffering ended, because on one horrific night Leigh Senior appeared on the Chaplin’s property with two knives in his hands. In a mad rage he stabbed all of the Chaplin’s, except Brenton, who was his original target, and then left their home. The next day the community of Harcourt had lost two more members, Wendy Chaplin (Brenton’s mother) who had been stabbed to death by Leigh, and Leigh himself, who was found hanging from a crane. Unfortunately this is not the only heartbreaking tragedy that was originally caused by drink

Richardson produced, directed and captured all the footage himself. The end result is a multitude of powerful one-on-one interviews, archival footage of patients, and candid long takes. Richardson cuts himself out of the interviews, and edits together strikingly frank sound bytes to showcase his subjects talking about death and the affect of the law. His use of archival footage primarily captures his patients when they were healthy, and provides a striking contrast as they seriously discuss death towards the end of their lives. His use of candid long takes captures some of the most poignant moments of the film, including the final minutes of one man’s life after taking the lethal drugs. The camera is a spectator in the room, as the man accompanied by his family; all face his personal decision to die together. All of these different footage types work together to provide emotional weight to an already troubling subject.

This brings up one of the themes of the story, we are afraid of what we don’t understand. The Protagonist was afraid of the old mans eye, he describes it as blue with a film over it. This indicates that the old man was blind in that one eye. It is natural for us humans to be afraid of what we don’t understand, it is so then understandable that the protagonist was afraid of the eye. If the protagonist took time to understand the reason why the was the that it was, he might have not killed the old man in the at all. We can learn from this and realize that we are not all made the same and some people my have abnormalities that others are creeped out by. If we take time to learn about one another and not jump to conclusions then the world would be a better place.

Finally, the reader is introduced to the character around whom the story is centered, the accursed murderess, Mrs. Wright. She is depicted to be a person of great life and vitality in her younger years, yet her life as Mrs. Wright is portrayed as one of grim sameness, maintaining a humorless daily grind, devoid of life as one regards it in a normal social sense. Although it is clear to the reader that Mrs. Wright is indeed the culprit, she is portrayed sympathetically because of that very lack of normalcy in her daily routine. Where she was once a girl of fun and laughter, it is clear that over the years she has been forced into a reclusive shell by a marriage to a man who has been singularly oppressive. It is equally clear that she finally was brought to her personal breaking point, dealing with her situation in a manner that was at once final and yet inconclusive, depending on the outcome of the legal investigation. It is notable that regardless of the outcome, Mrs. Wright had finally realized a state of peace within herself, a state which had been denied her for the duration of her relationship with the deceased.

The effects from the change in tone, created by Mary Harron, result in another completely different reaction from the audience. The reaction from the audience is to smile upon the main character Patrick Bateman and be amused by his slips of insanity. In Ellis’ novel the reaction from the audience during Bateman’s torturous performances are viewed as horrendous and demonic, nothing to make the reader amused.

And the husband’s vulnerability is shown is shown in his hostility to the blind man, whom he rightly suspects of having a psychologically more intimate relationship with his wife than he, with all his emotional blindnesses, is able to have.

The narrator of the story suffers from heightened senses which makes the narrator despise the clouded eye of his roommate. Due to his condition, he is driven to the point of plotting the murder of the cloudy eyed man. However, the narrator argues that since he planned the deed so meticulously, he could not be crazy and that “madmen know nothing” and he was no madman. There is reason to believe he is lying about the state of his sanity because the narrator does end up killing the man to rid himself of the evil eye. Affected by his anxieties, the narrator begins to hear what he believes to be the heartbeat of the man he has murdered. The heartbeat did not create a sense of regret in the narrator, rather “it increased [his] fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.” The unreliable source of narration is due to the mental illness which allows for the narrator’s judgment to be misconstrued. Guilt of conscience is the main theme and allows for the overall character arch of the narrator as his heightened senses, or more realistically, his anxieties, are the cause of his confession. Although the narrator had killed the man, he was not evil. The narrator was not in the right mind to take action and immediately had the guilt weigh heavy on his mind, causing it to slowly collapse. Nevertheless, the narrator, for these reasons, remains unreliable and mentally

Tom Wingfield has a dual role in The Glass Menagerie. The first Tom is the narrator, who introduces his second self, the character. In his fifth soliloquy, Tom the narrator indicates that time has detached him from the drama, "for time is the longest distance between two places" (Williams 1568). In the closing soliloquy Tom recounts how he lives and re-lives the story in his memory, though he is detached from the participants in the original affair. Like his father, "a telephone man who fell in love with long distances," (Williams 1523), Tom has fallen in love with the long distance that is time.

The murder of John Douglas illustrates how the playwright is punctuated at times with strong, sudden scenes to keep you on edge. Someone