Hitchcock Meets Kierkegaard: Selfhood and Gendered Forms of Despair in Vertigo and The Sickness unto Death
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Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal
Abstract
The development of Vertigo’s main characters provides a detailed illustration of the dialectics of despair as analysed in Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death, in particular of the so-called ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ types of failed selfhood. This article shows the relation of selfhood and despair to dizziness both in Kierkegaard’s work and in Hitchcock’s film, and it examines the religious subtext of Vertigo. The dramatis personae of Judy and Scottie are analysed by applying Kierkegaard’s phenomenology of despair. They display a variety of failures to relate to their selves, like unconscious and conscious despair, possibility’s despair, despair over the earthly and despair of the eternal. Moreover, they epitomize the gendered types of despair as depicted in The Sickness unto Death: losing one’s self in relation to someone and obsessively striving for self-assertion at the cost of others.
This paper was presented at the conference State of the Arts. Kierkegaard. Literature. Theatre. Music held at the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre in Copenhagen in August 2019. I am thankful for the helpful comments and inspiring feedback from the participants.
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Front matter
- Title pages
- Preface
- Contents
- Articles
- Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
- Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
- A Christian Art? Søren Kierkegaard’s Views on Music and Musical Performance Reconsidered
- Between the Two Ethics: Why Assessor Wilhelm is not a Judge
- Narrative Variation and the Mood of Freedom in Fear and Trembling
- On Fear and Trembling’s Motif of the Promise: Faith, Ethics and the Politics of Tragedy
- The Ambiguity of Mimesis: Kierkegaard between Aesthetic Fantasy and Religious Imitation
- Know Yourself in the Mirror of the Word: Kierkegaard on Self-Knowledge
- „Mein Bestreben, das Martyrium zu verherrlichen…“ Zur Idee des Martyriums in Kierkegaards Journalen ab 1846
- Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Sources and Historical Context
- Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Sources and Historical Context
- The Faust Project in Kierkegaard’s Early Journals
- Of Clairvoyants and Mousvoyants: Kierkegaard’s Polemic against Speculative Philosophy in the “Telegraph Messages”
- Section 3: Receptions and Reflections of Kierkegaard’s Thought
- Section 3: Receptions and Reflections of Kierkegaard’s Thought
- Does Kierkegaard’s Rewritten Parable of the Good Samaritan Leave the World to the Devil? Kierkegaard and Adorno on What it Means to Love one’s Neighbor in the Modern World
- Kierkegaard and Beauvoir: Existential Ethics as a Humanism
- Double Consciousness and Despair: Exploring a Connection Between Søren Kierkegaard and W.E.B. Du Bois
- Hitchcock Meets Kierkegaard: Selfhood and Gendered Forms of Despair in Vertigo and The Sickness unto Death
- Section 4: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
- Section 4: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
- The Mutiny of the Pseudonyms in the Kierkegaardian Authorship
- Section 5: Primary Texts in Translation
- Section 5: Primary Texts in Translation
- Johan Ludvig Heiberg’s “Literary Winter Crops” and Kierkegaard’s Polemic
- Back matter
- Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Front matter
- Title pages
- Preface
- Contents
- Articles
- Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
- Section 1: Problems and Perspectives in Kierkegaard’s Authorship
- A Christian Art? Søren Kierkegaard’s Views on Music and Musical Performance Reconsidered
- Between the Two Ethics: Why Assessor Wilhelm is not a Judge
- Narrative Variation and the Mood of Freedom in Fear and Trembling
- On Fear and Trembling’s Motif of the Promise: Faith, Ethics and the Politics of Tragedy
- The Ambiguity of Mimesis: Kierkegaard between Aesthetic Fantasy and Religious Imitation
- Know Yourself in the Mirror of the Word: Kierkegaard on Self-Knowledge
- „Mein Bestreben, das Martyrium zu verherrlichen…“ Zur Idee des Martyriums in Kierkegaards Journalen ab 1846
- Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Sources and Historical Context
- Section 2: Kierkegaard’s Sources and Historical Context
- The Faust Project in Kierkegaard’s Early Journals
- Of Clairvoyants and Mousvoyants: Kierkegaard’s Polemic against Speculative Philosophy in the “Telegraph Messages”
- Section 3: Receptions and Reflections of Kierkegaard’s Thought
- Section 3: Receptions and Reflections of Kierkegaard’s Thought
- Does Kierkegaard’s Rewritten Parable of the Good Samaritan Leave the World to the Devil? Kierkegaard and Adorno on What it Means to Love one’s Neighbor in the Modern World
- Kierkegaard and Beauvoir: Existential Ethics as a Humanism
- Double Consciousness and Despair: Exploring a Connection Between Søren Kierkegaard and W.E.B. Du Bois
- Hitchcock Meets Kierkegaard: Selfhood and Gendered Forms of Despair in Vertigo and The Sickness unto Death
- Section 4: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
- Section 4: Kierkegaard’s Authorial Strategies
- The Mutiny of the Pseudonyms in the Kierkegaardian Authorship
- Section 5: Primary Texts in Translation
- Section 5: Primary Texts in Translation
- Johan Ludvig Heiberg’s “Literary Winter Crops” and Kierkegaard’s Polemic
- Back matter
- Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
