Psychoanalytic study of the main female characters’ emergence of self-identity in Black Swan and The Red Shoes

Abstract

This research is a psychoanalytic study aimed to explore the psyche of the female protagonists and their emergence of self-identity in the American film Black Swan and the South Korean film The Red Shoes. Since the two films depict the conflicts of women in different cultures, the films hence represent a portrayal of women and their conditions in the contemporary world. In addition, both films present women’s struggle through the female protagonists. In Black Swan, the female protagonist strives for profession and perfection. In The Red Shoes, the female protagonist experiences difficulties in patriarchal society. Firstly, this study views the identifying signs, symbols, and film elements as a signifier of psychological conditions, repressed identity, and gender representation. To be able to understand the protagonists’ psyches and the emergence of identity, the research employs psychoanalytic theory to study the way that the signs, symbols, and movie elements in the scenes portray the protagonists’ psychological conditions as well as the portrayal of women in contemporary society in both films. It is found that although the female protagonists’ psychological stages and the battle of their psyches result in the psychological breakdowns, their experiences greatly contribute to their self-defined identity breakthrough. The study then compares the reclaiming of subjectivity in both films that represent the struggles and conditions of women in the contemporary world. Consequently, as reflected in the two movies, contemporary women under the patriarchal ideology are still confined with their limited roles. To reclaim their self-defined subjectivity, the female protagonists in both films must break out of patriarchal ideology, conformity, and eventually sacrifice their sanity.