The Schizophrenic Swan

The White and the Black

The film Back Swan, directing by Darren Aronofsky, is a riveting film about a young ballerina’s descent into madness as she takes on the lead roles of the Swan Queen and the Black Swan in a production of Swan Lake. Nina, a young repressed dancer with a dark and ambiguous background, slowly crumbles under the stress of her role and begins losing touch with reality. She begins having hallucinations, becoming paranoid, and beginning to literally see two sides of herself; as her dancing director puts it, “the white and the black.” And the same can be said for the film, itself. It is a truly beautiful, yet dark movie and I highly recommend it to any movie lover, especially those who enjoy the psychological thrillers. SPOILER ALERT: Do not read further if you have not seen the film because the analysis that follows tells much of the plot and ending. I invite you to watch the film and then to read on.

What is Schizophrenia?

During my freshman year of college, I became very fascinated with a mental illness called schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is defined as “a chronic, more or less debilitating illness characterized by perturbations in cognition, affect and behavior, all of which have a bizarre aspect. Delusions, also generally bizarre, and hallucinations, generally auditory in type, also typically occur,” (1). It affects approximately 1 percent of the world’s population. According to Dr. Glenn Shean, a clinical psychologist who wrote various books on schizophrenia and other mental disorders, there are ten types of schizophrenia: simple, hebephrenic, catatonic, paranoid, acute, latent, residual, schizo-affected, childhood, and chronic undifferentiated (2). All of the types vary in intensity and symptoms type, to the point where no two cases of schizophrenia are ever identical. Symptoms are too fluctuating and numerous to list without an entire book being written in the process, however some of the most common symptoms are delusions, hallucinations (auditory more often than visual), disorganized speech, disorganized behavior, lack of emotion, lack of interest, and the list goes on and on (3).

After watching the film, Black Swan, I began wondering if this was the disorder that Darren Aronofsky was trying to portray. Although schizophrenia is mentioned nowhere in the film, there was just too much correlation.

Early Symptoms

One of the first things that the audience may notice about the character of Nina is her shyness and her quiet demeanor. She does not show much emotion and often keeps to herself, feeling isolated from the other girls of her dance team. The only time she shows any emotion is when her instructor does not approve of her dancing and criticizes her. Some of the warning signs for a schizophrenic include “social withdrawal,” “inability to cry or express joy,” and “extreme reaction to criticism” (3). This is in no way definitively answers the question, does she have schizophrenia, (not everyone who has these symptoms has schizophrenia, and that can be a common misconception) however as the film continues, one begins to see how these could be early symptoms.

Hallucinations

After Nina receives the part of the Swan Queen, she is loaded with an immense amount of pressure to please her director and achieve perfection. One of the proposed causes of schizophrenia is stress (4) and when Nina has more stress, her symptoms get worse. She begins having intense visual and auditory hallucinations. Although visual hallucinations are not as common in schizophrenics, Aronofsky melds the two together into this film in a very terrifying way. Nina at first has auditory hallucinations, such as hearing whispers, and small visual hallucinations, such as seeing herself in other women as they pass her. However as the stress continues, the visual hallucinations get worse (she sees her reflection doing things she is not, sees pictures moving and talking to her) and even border on unrealistic (she hallucinates a sexual act with a woman from her dance team named Lily, and later she even hallucinates herself killing Lily). But that’s the beauty of the film. Everything seems just as it does to Nina: unrealistic, yet still apparent.

Paranoia

Another of the common symptoms with schizophrenics is delusion, and Nina very clearly shows her delusions. She constantly sees the woman from her dance troupe, Lily, everywhere she goes, and when Lily become the alternate for the Swan Queen, she is convinced it is all in a plot to overthrow her. Nina even runs up to her director and begs him not to make Lily the alternate, saying “She’s after me. She’s trying to replace me!” This is an example of “delusions of persecution – belief that others, often a vague ‘they,’ are out to get him or her. These persecutory delusions often involve bizarre ideas and plots…” (3).

Scratching

Another less known indication of schizophrenia is scratching, which is a method of bodily self-harm that some schizophrenics can suffer from (5). The first example of scratching can be seen when Nina notices scratches on her back and looks at them like she doesn’t know where they came from. Her mother then notices them and quickly cuts Nina’s fingernails, exclaiming “you’ve been scratching yourself again… it’s the role isn’t it? I knew it’d be too much pressure, I knew it.” As I was watching the film the second time, I began noticing scenes where the camera man follows Nina from behind and Nina is subtly scratching her shoulder, something I didn’t notice the first time.

The Suicide

Another symptom that can go hand in hand with schizophrenia is depression to the point of attempted suicide. According to the American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Schizophrenia, “40% of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia will have at least one suicide attempt in the course of their illness” (5). At the end of the film, as Nina finishes her performance as Swan Queen, Nina realizes that she has stabbed herself and dies as her performance ends. It could be argued that this was suicide, which goes along tragically with her character as Swan Queen, who commits suicide in the ballet, however it could be speculated that Nina didn’t realize that she had hurt herself.

Through Her Terrified Eyes

All in all, the film still continues to be a mesmeric portrayal of a girl’s fall to insanity. Whether or not Aronofsky truly had schizophrenia in mind, it is still one of the best portrayals of the symptoms that I have ever seen. All of the hallucinations are from Nina’s point of view; therefore as she is frantically wondering what is real and what is in her head, so is the audience. Furthermore his ability to startle and scare the audience puts them in Nina’s place of terror and in some ways shows unaffected people the horrors that can go with schizophrenia.