Norman Bates

Norman Bates is a fictional character created by writer Robert Bloch as the central character in his novel Psycho. The character was based on real-life killer Ed Gein. Bates was portrayed by Anthony Perkins in Alfred Hitchcock's seminal film adaptation of Bloch's novel. Perkins' performance is so iconic it seems to have become the basis for much of the myth of the modern serial killer. Bates was later played by Vince Vaughn in Gus Van Sant's 1998 remake of the Hitchcock classic.

Biography

Bates suffered severe emotional (and, it is suggested, sexual) abuse as a child at the hands of his mother, Norma Bates, who preached to him that women and sex were evil. The two of them lived alone together in a very unhealthy state of emotional dependence after the death of Bates' father. When Bates was a teenager, however, his mother took a lover, making him insanely jealous. He murdered them both with strychnine and preserved his mother's corpse. Bates developed dissociative identity disorder, assuming his mother's personality, repressing her death as a way to escape the guilt of murdering her.

Bloch summed up his personalities in his stylistic form of puns: As "Norman" Bates, the little boy, he was dominated by his mother, and had to do what she told him. As "Norma" Bates, he dressed in her clothes, mimicked her voice, and killed anyone who threatened to come between her and her "Norman," especially attractive young women. As "Normal" Bates, he was a (barely) functioning adult who could run the hotel and keep peace between the other two personalities.

He was finally arrested after he murdered a young woman named Mary Crane (called Marion Crane in the film) and Milton Arbogast, a private investigator sent to look for her. Bates was declared insane and sent to an institution, where the "mother" personality completely took hold; he completely became his mother.

Characterization

The characterization of Bates in the novel and the movie differ in some key areas. In the novel, Bates is in his mid-to-late 40s, short, overweight, homely, and more overtly unstable. In the movie, he is in his early-to-mid-20s, tall, slender, and handsome. Reportedly, when working on the film, Hitchcock decided that he wanted audiences to be able to sympathize with Bates and genuinely like the character, so he made him more of a "boy next door." In the novel, Norman becomes Mother after getting drunk and passing out; in the movie, he consumes no alcohol before switching personalities. Perhaps the most significant difference between the novel and the movie is that, in the novel, Mary Crane is "Mother"'s first victim; in the movie, Bates kills twice as his alternate personality before murdering Crane.

While he entered the public consciousness as a villain (albeit one with some sympathetic qualities), he developed throughout the film's sequels into not only the series' protagonist, but also as a tragic victim of mental illness.

In other media

In the sequel to the original film, Bates (once again portrayed by Perkins) was released from the institution 22 years later, seemingly cured of his multiple personality disorder. However, a series of mysterious murders occur, as well as strange appearances and messages from "Mother", and Norman is unable to hold his grip on sanity. The mysterious appearances and messages turn out to be a plot by relatives of one of Norman's (or Mother's) victims to drive "Normal" Bates insane again; the murders turn out to be caused by Norman's real mother -- the sister of Norma Bates -- who, of course, shares the family history of mental illness. In the end, Norman kills her and embalms her while assuming her personality.

In the second sequel, Norman continues to struggle, unsuccessfully, against "Mother's" dominion, but in the end attacks her corpse violently, attempting to break free of control, and is again institutionalized.

In the final sequel, however, he had been released from the institution, and married one of the hospital's nurses. When his wife became pregnant, however, he lured her to his mother's house and tried to kill her; he wanted to prevent another of his "cursed" line from coming into the world. (The film implies that Bates' mother suffered from multiple personality disorder and passed the illness onto him.) He relented at the last minute, however, when his wife professed her love for him. He then burned the house down in an attempt to free himself of his past.

In the pilot episode of the failed TV series Bates Motel, Bates, who was never released from the institution, befriended Alex Kelly, a fellow inmate who murdered his stepfather, and willed ownership of the titular inn to him before dying of old age. As the pilot never developed into a series and bears almost no relation to previous novels or films, it is considered non-canon.

Bates also died in the book Psycho II, Bloch's 1982 sequel to his novel.

Gus Van Saint's shot-for-shot remake Psycho] has comic actor Vince Vaughn in the role of Norman Bates. In this version, he is portrayed as a slightly creepy, homely man in his late-thirties/early forties, somewhat akin to Bloch's original vision of the character. The role is one of Vaughn's rare roles as a serious actor.

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