Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt

After seeing Shadow of a doubt one of the things that came to my mind is that Teresa Wright’s portrayal of young Charlie must be one of the first modern feminist heroines. Charlie is put in feminist nightmare world, the submission to domestic tyranny and live the same oppressive life that mother lives. Charlie is feeling trap impatient with her routine in this typical American family portrait, her father that doesn’t care in anything beside his detective books, a complaining and depend mother.

When uncle Charlie comes to visit the Newton family, young Charlie welcomes him as a person who will chance her family, she later discovers that he is a notorious murderer of widows. She turns to blackmail and force him to leave, she must kill her uncle to save her own life.

The film shows a dualistic approach to sexual difference, women are trapped in domestic nightmares that men creates. The domestic roles in the movie represent a unhappy entrapment and loss of identity, at one point she even says that been married is forgetting that you are you.

The only other roles for women in the film are define by death, a woman either becomes a widow ( like Mrs. Green, uncle’s Charlie next victim) or become a victim of male violence (like young Chalie). A unmarried women and a widow share a certain freedom (freedom that uncle Charlie seems to hate). This independet status can only exist in one of the two victim role, this freedom comes at a terrible cost, violence and death. The widows, are free from the dominat male oppression of her marriage, but put themselves in a dangerous position by seeking romance in men like uncle Charlie, who is a murderer.

The exchange of rings between uncle Charlie and young Charlie may be interpreted as a dense symbolism that niece and uncle end the film married, and she is therefore his widow after pushing himm to his death meaning that she might have lost her life as another victim of her uncle, death symbolizing the total lost of self in marriage (like her mother said). The film deals with incest ( Charlie and her mother seem in love with uncle Charlie) as a way to show the smothering closeness of family relationships.

A dual role appears between uncle Charlie and Roger, Charlie’s younger bother, that is presented as a spoiled baby of the family ( as uncle Charlie was) and may grow into a murderer like his uncle.

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