Attack #6: Dan Fawcett is discovered killed by birds at 1:00:36
Arguably, the most fascinating of all the bird attacks. Though only the aftermath is ever shown, it is the victim and the severity of bird aggression that beg a closer look.
This is the first fatality of course, but why Dan Fawcett? A single individual & a character only referred to indirectly? Let's consider Dan for a moment.
Likely, Dan Fawcett is a man Lydia has known for years. When Lydia goes to see Dan, her behavior entering Dan's house gives no indication that there's a Mrs Fawcett anywhere in the picture.
But Hitchcock does give a connection between Lydia & Dan...
The porcelain cups.
Hitchcock quietly, but deliberately, spends considerable time - while Mitch speaks with the officer - showing Lydia picking up broken cup pieces after her living room attack (see attack #5) giving generous time to note Frank's portrait above the piano.
What immediately precedes Lydia discovering Dan is her noticing broken cups in Dan's front room. At the very least, the cups signify that Dan & Lydia have something in common. Dan's wife may have bought those cups before Dan lost his spouse as well.
Broken cups no longer viable - broken marriages ended from a death?
Farmer Fawcett - like Lydia- raises chickens. A bird hidden in this film & a bird famously associated with cowardice.
Let’s take this involved scenario one step at a time.
Likely, Dan Fawcett is a man Lydia has known for years. When Lydia goes to see Dan, her behavior entering Dan's house gives no indication that there's a Mrs Fawcett anywhere in the picture.
But Hitchcock does give a connection between Lydia & Dan...
The porcelain cups.
Hitchcock quietly, but deliberately, spends considerable time - while Mitch speaks with the officer - showing Lydia picking up broken cup pieces after her living room attack (see attack #5) giving generous time to note Frank's portrait above the piano.
What immediately precedes Lydia discovering Dan is her noticing broken cups in Dan's front room. At the very least, the cups signify that Dan & Lydia have something in common. Dan's wife may have bought those cups before Dan lost his spouse as well.
Broken cups no longer viable - broken marriages ended from a death?
Farmer Fawcett - like Lydia- raises chickens. A bird hidden in this film & a bird famously associated with cowardice.
Let’s take this involved scenario one step at a time.
1) Dan was most certainly attacked some time after the assault in Lydia’s living room and, in all honesty, probably around the time Lydia became aware of Mitch & Melanie being intimate.
2) What precipitated Lydia’s living room attack was the notion of bedroom & intimacy and her opposition to it. Not opposition to intimacy itself, but the fear of Mitch's intimacy leading to Lydia being abandoned.
3) Those intimate notions were definitely on Lydia’s mind as she went to sleep. So how does this concern Dan Fawcett? If you'll follow the clues, they point a clear finger at Lydia's unmet desires for an intimate life with Dan Fawcett.
Unmet can mean any of four scenarios:
A) Lydia desires Dan, but hasn't indicated her desires to him.
B) Lydia has been dropping hints which Dan has not recognized.
C) Lydia's made her desires known & Dan has flat out rebuffed them.
D) Dan has feelings for Lydia but both parties are too cowardly to act on it.
Option D is interesting to consider as both parties are associated with their chickens: a bird & obvious symbol for cowardice,
D) Dan has feelings for Lydia but both parties are too cowardly to act on it.
Option D is interesting to consider as both parties are associated with their chickens: a bird & obvious symbol for cowardice,
Option C is the least likely option. Nonetheless, one can easily hear Lydia Brenner quietly weeping to herself alone in her bed that night whispering: "Why aren't you here with me, Dan?!?"
As thoughts - or even sounds - of Mitch finding new love hit Lydia, her thoughts become angered. Anger possibly at hearing Mitch but, more cogently, anger at Dan Fawcett for not fulfilling the role Lydia wanted him in.
Anger that would emerge in her now riled thoughts: "You should be here with me, Dan!"
Anger that would emerge in her now riled thoughts: "You should be here with me, Dan!"
However, having drifted into sleep, the truly authentic, frighteningly dark & wrathful feelings of Lydia's subconscious emerge.
Too dark for Lydia to admit in any waking state, she would likely - in her sleeping state - give expression to her true feelings of indignant rage & merciless retribution.
Punishment for Lydia's personal circumstance of widowhood remaining unremedied will now fall on Dan Fawvett for keeping her there: "Damn you Dan Fawcett! Damn you for leaving me like this! Can't you see!"
Too dark for Lydia to admit in any waking state, she would likely - in her sleeping state - give expression to her true feelings of indignant rage & merciless retribution.
Punishment for Lydia's personal circumstance of widowhood remaining unremedied will now fall on Dan Fawvett for keeping her there: "Damn you Dan Fawcett! Damn you for leaving me like this! Can't you see!"
All these thoughts become externalized & realized as we'll see returning back to Dan's place...
4) We clearly see Dan Fawcett was killed in his bedroom. So, let's examine the scene.
First we have a seagull. So, the attack comes from Lydia & has to do with Lydia's public concerns. In this case, her remaining a widow in a community undesired by the men of Bodega Bay.
Oddly positioned across from the seagull is a display of mounted birds tipped over not unlike the one in Norman Bates' parlor.
If the living birds from The Birds represent real qualities & feelings of Mother, then dead birds would most likely represent unreal or idealized qualities of Mother. Qualities that do not or cannot exist, one might see them as "dead" qualities mirrored by the dead state of the birds.
In Norman's case, all his birds represent a Mother that Norman protects, fawns over, remains faithful to and is genuinely concerned for. Consider Norman's statements of pity, affection & defense for Mother.
Well, a boy's best friend is his mother.
Well, a son is a poor substitute for a lover.
Who'd look after her?
She'd be alone up there.
Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=psycho
Who'd look after her? She'd be alone up there.The fire would go out... If you love someone, you don't do that to them, even if you hate them. You understand, l... I don't hate her.
A madhouse?... Have you ever seen the inside of one of those places?... My mother there? But she's harmless. She's as harmless as one of those stuffed birds.
Making this connection, a clear way to interpret those mounted birds on Dan's table is that Dan Fawcett had idealized notions of woman or, in Lydia's case, Mother. Dead notions that Lydia either disagreed with or simply could not meet in the eyes of Dan Fawcett.
An irrational judgment on Lydia's part against Dan? Let's keep examining.
We know the attack in general came from Lydia on some consciously observable level. Hence the gull is the first, isolated visible bird.
From here, a new bird, a new aspect of Mother is introduced.
First, we had the Seagull: Lydia's conscious ideas of her public life.
Second, the Sparrow: Smaller in scale and so smaller in scope, they represent Lydia's conscious ideas of her personal or private life. Life in her home, under her roof.
And now, thirdly, the Crow: Lydia's subconscious ideas, desires, feelings.
The Crow is what Lydia disapproves of most intensely, too intensely for polite society. So intensely that, like the rest of us, she has her denial imprison these dark currents in her subconscious.
The crow, the black bird which represents the black recesses of Lydia’s subconscious mind. But what could Lydia possibly want from Dan?
Just look what that crow is lying on: Dan's bed. Dan himself is against the wall away from his bed. One look at the extended wing pointed towards Dan in a gesture of invitation and seeing Lydia’s sexual desire for Dan becomes easier to see.
Now put all this together. The Seagull on the dresser: a symbol for Lydia's sorrow. Her dashed hopes. A conscious understanding of her being a widow bereft of a man with whom to share a bed.
Lydia's subconscious desire for Dan is the Crow. Itself on the bed beckoning to Dan with an unreciprocated outstretched wing. Dan Fawcett is never in the same image with these birds.
Dan Fawcett, like his opportunity for Lydia, is dead. Likely Dan never saw in Lydia what Lydia wanted him to see. Looking at Dan's room, one can almost hear that sentiment echoing in Lydia's voice: "Why the man has no eyes in his head!"
Returning to the Seagull on the dresser out of reach of the bed, just as Dan's body is. Seeing it all, the Seagull hangs its head in doleful sorrow.
Now compare that seagull with the conversation Lydia will have while in bed in the next scene. Lydia will talk with Melanie about missing her deceased husband Frank. In view of such placements in Dan Fawcett's bedroom, is the interpretation laid out here too far afield?
The crow, the black bird which represents the black recesses of Lydia’s subconscious mind. But what could Lydia possibly want from Dan?
Just look what that crow is lying on: Dan's bed. Dan himself is against the wall away from his bed. One look at the extended wing pointed towards Dan in a gesture of invitation and seeing Lydia’s sexual desire for Dan becomes easier to see.
Now put all this together. The Seagull on the dresser: a symbol for Lydia's sorrow. Her dashed hopes. A conscious understanding of her being a widow bereft of a man with whom to share a bed.
Lydia's subconscious desire for Dan is the Crow. Itself on the bed beckoning to Dan with an unreciprocated outstretched wing. Dan Fawcett is never in the same image with these birds.
Dan Fawcett, like his opportunity for Lydia, is dead. Likely Dan never saw in Lydia what Lydia wanted him to see. Looking at Dan's room, one can almost hear that sentiment echoing in Lydia's voice: "Why the man has no eyes in his head!"
Returning to the Seagull on the dresser out of reach of the bed, just as Dan's body is. Seeing it all, the Seagull hangs its head in doleful sorrow.
Now compare that seagull with the conversation Lydia will have while in bed in the next scene. Lydia will talk with Melanie about missing her deceased husband Frank. In view of such placements in Dan Fawcett's bedroom, is the interpretation laid out here too far afield?
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