Norman Bates - Character Overview

Character Overview

Both the novel and Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film adaptation explain that Bates suffers severe emotional abuse as a child at the hands of his mother, Norma, who preaches to him that sexual intercourse is sinful and that all women (except herself) are whores. After Bates' father dies, Bates and his mother live alone together until Bates reaches adolescence, when his mother takes a lover, Joe Considine (named Chet Rudolph in Psycho IV: The Beginning). Driven over the edge with jealousy, Bates murders both of them with strychnine. After committing the murders, Bates forges a suicide note to make it look like Norma killed her lover and then herself. After a brief hospitalization for shock, he develops dissociative identity disorder, assuming her personality to repress her death and escape the guilt of murdering her. He inherits his mother's house — where he keeps her corpse — and the family motel in fictional Fairvale, California.

Bloch sums up Bates' multiple personalities in his stylistic form of puns: "Norman", a child dependent on his mother; "Norma", a possessive mother who kills anyone who threatens the illusion of her existence; and "Normal", a (barely) functional adult who goes through the motions of day-to-day life. "Norma" dominates "Norman" much as she had when she was alive, forbidding him to have any friends and flying into violent rages whenever "Norman" feels attracted to a woman. "Norma" and "Norman" carry on conversations through Bates talking to himself in his mother's voice, and Bates dresses in his mother's clothes whenever "Norma" takes hold completely.