BLACK SWAN: Persecution & Guilt Mean You Can’t Have a Self
Psychotic delusion takes Nina over in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. The culprit is guilt. Terrible guilt about having a self. A separate self. Her very own. To Nina, this means going against her mother’s wishes. So, if she even wants that, if she feels desire, if she has the slightest inkling to try to be her own person, the most horrible persecutory feelings possess her. “It’s My Turn” repeats itself in Black Swan. But whose “turn” is it? Her mom’s? Or Nina’s? Nina’s turn is impossible for her to believe or embrace. So, the fight between “white and black” is out to destroy her.
Nina’s Fight: White Versus Black
Black Swan’s first scene tells us what makes Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) so terribly troubled that she descends farther and farther into psychosis. It’s much more severe than “black and white” thinking. It’s a split in her psyche; right down the middle. “White” is Nina as an innocent, virginal little girl. Forced to be “happy” with her Mommy. “Black” is all wrong. It’s: Sex. Desire. A Self. Danger. “Black” is the fear that feeds Nina’s delusions. This comes to light in her nightmare:
She’s dancing “on toe”, beautifully, in the spotlight, alone on stage, serene, until a man approaches. A threatening man, in black, while she’s in white. They dance an intense and increasingly frenetic dance. A seductive dance. The man transforms into a terrifying devil with horns and bird feathers. Nina is traumatized and alone. Her arms weakly flutter, trying to fly away.
The Black Swan is desire. Not only sexual. Desire Nina must keep hidden. Being a woman and having a self are not allowed! And the reasons she can’t have a self at the age of 26 are the keys to Nina’s psychosis.
Guilt: Mommy’s Sacrifice for Nina
Nina’s mom, Erica (Barbara Hershey), gave up the ballet corps when she got pregnant with Nina. Now, she’s terribly possessive and lives through Nina’s successes. And, she’s envious, too. This fuels Nina’s guilt about having what her mom can’t (couldn’t) have. Nina is completely convinced it’s because of her. Her fault. The fact that she was born robbed her mommy of Erica’s deepest wishes. Does she deserve to have what her mom didn’t? Does she even deserve to have a life?
This is Nina’s deepest unconscious struggle. It’s what drives her into psychosis. Yes, Erica does, in fact, contribute to Nina’s psychotic break. But Erica’s role is not the #1 catalyst. Nina’s guilt is. Has her mom made her feel guilty? Clearly. When Nina stays out late night after night, rehearsing her role as Swan Queen with Thomas (Vincent Cassel), Erica is concerned (and jealous). And, she does say to Nina: “I just don’t want you to make the same mistake I did. Oh, I don’t mean that (referring to Nina’s birth). I mean the career.” “What career?” “The one I gave up to have you…”
Of course, that makes Nina feel terrible. But really, it’s the way Nina’s guilt eats away at her inside. The persecuting voice in her mind tells her she can’t betray Mommy.
She’d be a “bad girl.”
So. Is the hostile, stern, angry face she sees so often in her mom the whole picture? Is her mom’s “constant sobbing” late at night real? Are the black, scribbled, haunted-eyed pictures she sees her mom obsessively painting there at all? Or are these hallucinations of her troubled mind in Black Swan?
Nina is tormented by her mom’s sacrifice, jealousy, and possessiveness of both Nina’s body and her soul. But, even more so, by the guilt that tells her she must always be who her mom needs her to be. Nina can’t take ownership of her body and mind. She must be “Mommy’s Sweet Girl.”
Nina’s Role: Mommy’s “Sweet Girl”
“Mommy’s Sweet Girl” is Nina’s most demanding role. Her most important on in Black Swan. It’s to be her only role. That’s why Thomas Leroy’s version of the Swan Queen (both White and Black Swan) sends Nina straight into psychosis.
We watch Nina and her “Mommy.” At 26, she still calls her that. Their pink grapefruit. The pink stuffed animals that fill her bedroom. It’s the room of a little girl. And, to celebrate being “chosen” as Swan Queen, Nina must eat and love the pink and vanilla cake her mom buys for her. “Our favorite.” It’s always “ours, us, the two of us.” The same. No differences. No separateness. No!
And, if she says, “Not too big,” her mom says, “Just this once.” And, if Nina protests, “Mom, my stomach is still in knots,” her mom gets upset, devastated: “OK, then it’s garbage,” and starts to throw it out. Of course, Nina has to apologize, be “Mommy’s Sweet Girl,” so that they can hug and Mommy can say she’s so proud of her. So that Mommy can feed her icing off her finger, and Nina stays in character and says, “It’s so yummy.” And they both can giggle like happy little girls.
These experiences eat their way into Nina’s mind. Deep into her unconscious. Where they fester and burgeon into monstrous guilt if she’s anything different than childlike, opposite her mother’s controlling, saccharine, sugary sweetness. Nina knows what Erica Sayers has sacrificed for her.
The persecuting voice in her head tells her, “It’s the least you can do to pay her back. Otherwise, mommy will get angry.” If she isn’t a sweet girl, she’ll lose mommy. And then, something scary. Bad. Evil. Confusing. (Even Desired? Wouldn’t that be the worst thing of all?) might happen.
Persecution: No Womanly Desires Allowed!
Nina badly wants to be chosen as the Swan Queen. She’s desperate to prove to Thomas that she can play both the White Swan and Black Swan in his version of Swan Lake. He knows she can dance the White Swan. But the Black Swan? No. He doesn’t think so. And, he torments Nina with his criticisms and doubt.
Can she prove it to him? He pushes her. She feels something in herself. An urgency. Confused desire. But. She can only copy someone else, like Beth (Winona Ryder), who seems like the woman Thomas chose. She sits at Beth’s mirror and imagines taking over for Beth. She steals her lipstick. Nina has no identity of her own; that’s not been allowed. She goes to Thomas wearing Beth’s lipstick. An old man on the subway makes kissing motions with his lips and masturbates. Or is it a hallucination? Nina’s already split, splitting more, in conflict about any sexual expression.
Thomas continues his torture. He says he already chose another dancer. But he won’t let Nina go, “You thought you could change my mind. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have come here all dolled up.” No. She didn’t wear Beth’s lipstick to seduce him; she wore it to be Beth. He grabs her and kisses her. Nina is shocked. Scared. Violated. Confused. She bites. She can’t be sexual, can she?
He recoils, “I can’t believe you fucking bit me.” To Thomas, though, this is the sexuality that’s hiding behind the virginal White Swan. It’s what Nina’s afraid of. He chooses her to be the Swan Queen. She calls her mommy. “He chose me, mommy.” But. She can’t be a woman. No. No. No. No. No.
The scratch on Nina’s back is becoming worse. She wipes off blood. Blood is red. Not pink. Nina’s hands around her nails are bloodied, too. Sinister music plays. She’s ripping off her skin around her nails. But this is another hallucination. She’s torn in two. Trying to tear herself out of that “sweet girl skin.”
Thomas says: “Perfection isn’t all about control, it’s about letting go, losing yourself. Surprise yourself so you can surprise the audience.” But Nina wants to be perfect. To her, “perfect “is controlled. So. Nina’s terrible confusion mounts. Her kind of “perfect” isn’t the Black Swan.
“I have a homework assignment for you. Go home and touch yourself. Live a little.” In her pink bedroom, surrounded by pink stuffed animals, Nina touches herself. As she starts to get excited and have an orgasm, she sees her mom sleeping in the chair, and she abruptly stops. Panicked. It’s another hallucination, but in her disturbed mind, her mom will not allow this. She cannot be anything but a little girl. Belonging to her mommy. Nina always has to cover up her real feelings.
She hears Mommy sobbing softly as she paints abstractly from photos of herself and Nina. They are all mixed up together. Is it her turn to become a woman?
No! Nina had better not think that.
“It’s My Turn!” “It’s My Turn!”
Lily (Mila Kunis) asserts, “It’s my turn!!” Lily is Nina’s free self, dark, dangerous, not allowed! This is the self she later tries to kill. The self that threatens Nina. That she’s jealous of. That mommy would be envious of if she let the Lily part of her truly come alive. If Nina didn’t see “It’s my turn” as “bad.”
Yes, Nina does want freedom. She wants to be like Lily. Sexual. Free. Not controlled. Like Thomas tells her to be. Like the Black Swan, who is a threatening version of sexuality. The version that plays its part in Nina’s internal battle.
In an unusual flash of anger, Nina takes Lily up on her offer of dinner or drinks. It’s a first-time rebellion. Lily pulls Nina into those dark impulses that Lily lives. Gets her high on ecstasy, dancing disco, making out with Andrew, who thinks she’s beautiful, but knows nothing about ballet. She tells him that Swan Lake is about a girl who gets turned into a swan, and to get free, she needs someone to fall in love with her. But he goes for the wrong girl, and she kills herself. He says, “So, it’s a sad story.” She replies, "It’s beautiful, really.” Here is part of Nina’s problem. Death can seem the only “freedom” to a severely traumatized child, who can’t bear the sadness or anger necessary to have a self, her own desires, not her mother’s. To own her body and life.
After her night out, Nina slams the door to her room, yelling, “It’s called privacy.” In a drugged fantasy, she’s having passionate sex with Lily in her bed. She hallucinates Lily with Black Swan wings tattooed on her back, going down on her, exciting her. But suddenly, Lily mockingly looks up. “Sweet girl.” And, Nina hears mommy crying. Her split between Mommy’s little girl and a woman self is extreme.
Rebellion isn’t freedom. And, if you aren’t really free, you end up with more conflict, persecution, and guilt. It’s the conflict that leads Nina deeper into psychosis...
Nina’s Descent into Psychosis
After her night out with Lily, Nina begins to feel angrier. She breaks her ballerina music box and throws all her stuffed animals down the trash chute. But this isn’t safe.
Nina is in a terrible state of mind.
Lily isn’t Lily. “Lily” is part “wished-for” self. Part taboo self. Part persecutory delusion. “Lily” is dangerous. “Lily” goes against Mommy. “Lily” humiliates her. Seems to want to take away her role. Nina’s in a fight with “Lily.” Black Swan versus White Swan. Innocence versus Desire. Danger! “Lily” must be killed. “Lily” must be dead. Lily is Bad. Bad. Bad. Nina must be Mommy’s sweet girl.
She begs Thomas. Lily can’t be her alternate. “Please don’t choose her. She wants my role. Please believe me. She’s after me.” In Nina’s mind, Lily is. She’s seeing reflections of herself that aren’t making the same movements. Her other self. She hears people laughing at her. She sees Thomas and Lily making passionate love. And Thomas growling and turning into a man with a monstrous face. She runs.
Underneath her psychosis is the most awful feeling, embodied in the broken Beth: “Perfect? I’m not perfect. I’m nothing.” Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. This is Nina’s self-hate speaking. Self-hate for her wish to be someone else. For her to attempt to be perfect, her desperate need to be loved. For her guilt at being born and robbing mommy of a life and career. And, never feeling that she’s enough to make up for it.
Nina hallucinates Beth with holes in her face, sitting at the kitchen table and staring at her. This is Beth, her mommy, and herself. Empty, empty women. Empty, self-loathing women. And she sees all of the paintings flash before her. Sad, depressed, angry, despairing, women with black eyes. With holes for eyes. Hungry women. Screaming, “My turn, my turn, my turn.” She hears her mommy sobbing and sobbing.
And then Nina hallucinates the bones in her legs and feet, cracking. The scratches are emerging again on her back. Painfully, she pulls something out of her skin that looks like a little tree. Something in her is trying to emerge and grow. But it’s a self that has been stunted and kept all dried up. Nina screams. She can’t walk on her broken Mommy’s puppet legs. She’s feeling things. Where did “sweet girl “go?
Feeling Something Almost Kills Nina ...
But. Nina’s determined. The show must go on. She must dance her role. And, becoming Swan Queen, she sees her feet as webbed. She hears the audience laughing at her. She sees Lily stroking the penis of the prince. Hears Lily mocking her virginity, innocence, and confusion. Lily, who holds herself above Nina in Nina’s mind. Because, in Lily, she sees everything she’s not. Next to Lily, Nina feels like nothing.
After Nina falls onstage, humiliated, she hallucinates Lily in her dressing room. Hears Lily saying, in a condescending way. “How about if I dance the Back Swan for you?” “Leave me alone!!!” And now Nina is consumed by her persecutory, delusional fantasies. In her hallucination, she pushes Lily to the ground; Lily is choking her, yelling, “It’s my turn. It’s my turn.” Lily is the Black Swan part of her, the woman who wants to be free to have her own desires. In conflict with Mommy’s “sweet girl.” But. The only way to be free is to sacrifice herself to death. To kill the Black Swan...
That’s why death seems so beautiful. But. It’s not that simple. Which part of her does she kill? White or Black? She can’t be both. So, only in moving towards the death of the White Swan can Nina let herself go into true sexual desire. Just like Thomas told her to do. And, as she does, she becomes the Black Swan, growing wings so large that only Nina can see. And. The audience cheers.
Nina runs to Thomas and gives him a passionate kiss in front of all the other dancers. Thomas chuckles and exhales. He thinks he has transformed her.
“Great job, 15 to the last act.”
In her dressing room, Nina sees blood beginning to ooze on her White Swan costume. Shocked. She realizes. It’s herself she stabbed. The Black Swan inside her. Not Lily, who, now, warmly, not an enemy, bursts through the door of her dressing room: “Holy shit, you blew me away.” Slowly, Nina realizes Lily is not dead. Blood is coming through the white feathers that she’s wearing. The shard of glass still in her own belly.
Nina remembers Thomas’s words: “You tasted your dream only to have it crushed. Your heart is broken. Your life force is fading. The blood drips. The black Swan stole your love, and there’s only one way to end your pain. You’re not fearful, but filled with acceptance, and you look down at Rothbart and then at the prince and then, yes, at the audience, and then you jump …”
And now, the final act over, Nina lies on the mattress after her jump. Everyone runs to her, and Thomas yells, joyfully, “Can you hear them? Can you hear them? They love you. They love you. My little princess. I knew you had it in you… Come on, let’s take your bow.” Lily, right there, too, sees that Nina’s bleeding. And Thomas, horrified, cries out, “Go get some help. What did you do? What did you do?”
Nina innocently looks up at him, in a state of bliss. “I was perfect. It was perfect. Thomas. I felt it.” Is this the first time she has ever felt anything real? But at what a horrible cost? And, the crowd yells, “Nina, Nina, Nina.”
The self who had to be nothing because of Nina’s guilt finally felt something. Even her mom in the audience saw it. Yes. Nina felt something. And it belonged to no one else. Only her. It was her turn. But. Was it? Feeling something shouldn’t almost kill her.