Maternal “Usher”: Bloch’s Psycho and the Blood-Stained Goddess of Death

Abstract

Although Robert Bloch’s Psycho receives frequent mention in horror criticism, it generally goes unexamined. Instead, most writers merely list Bloch’s work alongside other significant treatments of the serial killer theme like Thomas Harris’s Silence of the Lambs. This tendency to simultaneously recognize and ignore Bloch’s work is unfortunate. Psycho remains a strong example of plotting and characterization, particularly as Bloch makes Norman Bates a uniquely uncanny presence with his mysterious mother obsession. No less a critic than Stephen King praises Psycho for its naturalistic setting and its development of the theme of the antihero (Danse 84). Bloch, in fact, develops the antihero in unparalleled psychological detail, linking him back to his Gothic antihero, sister-obsessed predecessor Roderick Usher. In this chapter we will explore how the antiheroic psychological journeys of Norman and Roderick are linked by the mother as the Terrible Goddess archetype. These issues are made more explicit when, near the end of the novel, Lila Crane investigates the Bates house and makes the important discovery of “the incongruous contents of Norman Bates’ library,” including books on “abnormal psychology, occultism, [and] theosophy” (200).