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		Hitchcock Themes & Motifs Motif list from Hitchcock's Motifs by Michael Walker Summary list of themes and motifs
Michael Walker's list of motifs Hitchcock's Motifs, by Michael Walker (Univ. of Amsterdam Press, 2005) provides extended discussion, from a psychoanalytical perspective, of recurring elements in Hitchcock's films. Below is a condensed version of Walker's list of "key motifs": Bed Scene - couples and beds - beds and the police Blondes and brunettes - Blondes versus brunettes - blond iconography Cameo appearances Children Confined spaces - bathrooms and washrooms - confinement and concealment - cages and bars: fears of imprisonment The corpse Dogs and cats Doubles Entry through a window Exhibitionism / voyeurism / the look Food and meals - food and marriage - food and sex - food and murder - food and guilt - chickens and eggs Guilt and confession - Catholic overtones - transference of guilt - guilt, confession, and the police Handcuffs and bondage Hands - male hands / female hands - held wrists - damaged hands - holding hands Heights and falling Homosexuality - gay undercurrents - homosexuality, espionage, and the look Jewelry - greed and status - female desire - female beauty / male power Keys and handbags Lights The MacGuffin Mothers and houses Portraits, paintings and painters - modern art Public disturbances Spectacles Staircases Trains and boats / planes and buses Water and rain			A summary list of recurring elements: "absurdist geography" "banality of evil" betrayal birds blank stare blondes Catholic iconography decorum, social order disguise doubling, Doppelgangers, twins evil erupts in ordinary surroundings exchange of guilt eyes falling, dangling fantasy vs. reality, illusion the family fetishism film and reality, film as metaphor food, eating the "gaze" guilt handcuffs, restraint, bondage homosexuality imagination logic vs. intuition love loyalty making someone over masculinity maturity mirrors mothers, "Momism," Oedipal conflict obsession passion police, authority figures religious notions: guilt, repression, suffering, redemption secrets sex and death shadows suffering and its value suspicion travel, movement through space trust windows, curtains women, femininity voyeurism, "scopophilia"
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