Black Swan Interpretation on Two Critical Lenses

Kevin Mei

Prof Stewart

English Theory

12/7/14

Black Swan Looked by Feminism and Freud

Black Swan (2010), written by Mark Heyman, John J. McLaughlin and Andres Heinz, and directed by Darren Aronofsky is a film about a ballet dancer –Nina Sayers, who suffers a nervous breakdown after getting the lead role in the modern remake of the classical ballet piece Swan Lake. Nina, striving for perfection, relates so much to the character of the opera that she becomes obsessed with following the plot of the opera, in the end of which, the swan queen is supposed to die.

It is possible to analyse the film from many different angles, each presenting a different side of the story. In order to reveal new different aspects of the film, the film Black Swan (2010) will be analyzed from the feminist perspective and Sigmund Freud’s point of view. I have chosen these two literary ‘lenses’ because the film is about a woman as a main character, and the story is about Nina’s escalating neurosis. That is why it is possible to interpret the film in the above-listed ways, both relevant to the film’s plot.

In order to be able to analyze the story from Sigmund Freud’s perspective, it is necessary to look more closely at the following aspects: Nina’s dreams, Nina’s relationship with her mother, and finally –Nina’s sex life. In the following paragraphs, a possible Freudian interpretation follows.

The film opens with a dream. Nina Sayers sees herself, dancing beautifully as the swan queen, being seduced by an evil black swan sorcerer. One can deduce this dream as a prophecy, but that would be very un-Freudian. According to Sigmund Freud, dreams are fulfilments of a person’s wishes. Therefore, from the beginning of the film it is certain that Nina’s greatest wish is get the leading role in the new opera piece.

Another relevant notion, defined by Sigmund Freud is the pleasure principle. This refers to the innate longing of a person to such things as dominance, sex, food etc., dictated by the id –therefore, subconsciously. It is clear that Nina’s struggle to be the best subsides all expectations: not only is she committed in practicing her ballet moves, but she is also willing to immoral, socially-unacceptable things to be the swan queen. She is willing to confront and hurt her mother and to kill a person just to play the lead role. Therefore, Nina’s id takes over the control of her actions. And it is not only Nina who is gullible to the pleasure principle: Thomas and Lily are also lead by pleasure. Thomas has sexual relations with nearly all the ballet dancers, it seems, and Lily is the manifestation of pleasure and seduction in essence, as she seems to seduce everyone around her, she smokes, drinks, takes drugs –shortly, does everything to achieve constant pleasure. Maybe that is why Nina is attracted to Lily and has the hallucination of having sex with her.