Black Swan is a psychological thriller featuring a ballerina called Nina Sayers.

She is a young dancer working for a prestigious NYC ballet company. She has dreams

of someday becoming prima donna. Although talented, yet she is very reserved and

others regard her as a “shy, frigid little girl”. As the ballet company opens for a new

season, her director chooses her to play the lead role as Swan queen in an ambitious

adaptation of “Swan Lake” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The role requires that Nina

play both the black and white swans. Her innocent, almost child-like personality

makes her a perfect white swan; however, she has trouble getting into the character of

the white swan’s dark and seductive counterpart. The film shows her slow descent

into madness as the pressures of the role weigh down on her. [1]

Nina Sayers looks like has dissociative identity disorder for me at the beginning,

because of the Black/White Swan Personas. On one hand, Nina has the White Swan

persona because of her innocent and fragile personality. On the other, she has the

Black swan persona who has violent confrontations with others, including herself. But

most of people on internet said what Nina Sayers actually has is schizophrenia.

Because schizophrenia do not have multiple personalities. “Delusions are the most

common psychotic symptom in schizophrenia; hallucinations, particularly hearing

voices, are apparent in about half to three quarters of people with the illness” [2]. And

approximately 3.5 million people in the United States are diagnosed with

schizophrenia and it is one of the leading causes of disability, the incidence is around

one percent. Which means every one hundred Americans, there is one person have

schizophrenia (The United States population is 325,112,004 until November twenty-

eight 2016) [3]. “Three-quarters of persons with schizophrenia develop the illness

between 16 and 25 years of age. The disorder is at least partially genetic.”

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 At the last part of the movie, Nina hurt Lily by a piece of glass in the dressing

room because Lily said she will play black swan for Nina. And during the time she

play black swam on the arena, she fantasizes herself became a real black swam (black

plumage on her arms and her arms shallow on the wall became wings). After the coda

part, Nina realized the person she hurt was not Lily, is herself. The ballerina whose

name is Lily is real person in the movie, but Nina’s opponent Lily (black swan) is not

real, it is Nina Sayers’ delusion. But Lily can be considered as another side of Nina.

Nina got forcibly kissing when she begging Thomas to let her play the Swan

Queen, then Nina bite Thomas. Thomas saw a rebellious Nina, he changed his mind

suddenly and decided let Nina be the Swan Queen, “get ready to give me more of that

bite”, “this time is I seduce you, but I want you seduce me”. Thomas tried to guide

Nina to explore her own potential, that inspired Nina’s desires. But surprisingly, Nina

released her pent-up desires on “touch herself” and sexual hallucination with her

opponent—Lily. Nina’s complex personality have been epitomized on her complex

erotism. The sexual notion of human normally limited in regular heterosexual or

homosexual, but itself is anfractuous. Personal erotism can be based on he/she like

older or younger, human or others, single or group sex, with climax or without

climax, private or in public, gusty or premeditated, also can be defined as the

preference to specific movement, feeling or posture[4]. In the ballet Swan Lake, one

ballerina play two personas destined Nina’s double personality.

Secondary, Nina’s compelling mother also contribute to Nina’s schizophrenia.

Under the high pressure from her mother, Nina became a girl who is fearful,

submissive and cautious; as her mother said, she is “my sweet girl”. Because her

mother affected Nina’s life from all aspects, her dance has perfect technique but no

overflowing. Repressed life denotes sexual depression, a person who has long terms

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 sexual depression defiantly cannot be overflowing with her enthusiasm. So the bite in

Thomas office changed his mind---- give Swan Queen to Nina, he feels Nina lost

herself during that movement. Repressed desire always need a breach, that is not hard

to understand why Nina has bitterest requirement for her dancing. “Body is not only

the prerequisites of desire, also the essential medium of desire” [5]. Nina showed her

desire to be the Swan Queen unabashedly, but keep her body corporal desire(erotism)

in dark, just like Black Swan and White Swan is one person, the desire to be divided

by two parts definitely cannot overcome the awareness about self-consciousness and

self-actualization that is why Thomas told Nina that the only thing stop her is herself,

it is time let it go, lose herself.

In the movie, every times Nina showed her dark side, there is always have

neighing or flapping of wings in accompaniment (or dub); at the same time, plot

always about some provocative seductive behaviors. In the whole movie, Nina did not

truly have sex with anyone, either flirt with Thomas, tumbled passionately with Lily

in her delusion, or console herself in the morning, all of these sexual behaviors are

fired by illusions which provoked by her object of desire (Thomas, Lily, etc.). all of

them are the abandonment of rationality and overindulgence of desire, full with

loneliness, helplessness and dispiritedness. In her life which crossed with fantasy and

reality, the things she ferreted out of her back skin is black swan plume, and her also

became swan leg which overgrown with black plume; the cruel, alluring and glamour

Black Swan on arena with thirty-two round cabriole fouette, showed a black swan

who teared-off the shy, frigid cover.

Anyway, Nina’s hallucinations and delusions makes paranoid schizophrenia a

characteristic diagnosis. However, I did not saw any treatment had been used in the

movie, I even not sure Nina is died or not. According to the logic from regular movie,

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 after a main character found himself/herself or accomplished a greatest thing with a

bloody trauma on his/her body, this person will die anyway. But from the perspective

of medicine, base on the size of trauma, total blood she lost and what murder weapon

she used (only a tiny piece of glass), Thomas should have enough time to call an

ambulance and sent her to hospital. Theoretically, Nina still alive, but she defiantly

has not been cured; and probably she became person with dissociative identity

disorder from a person with schizophrenia. Because she can switch to Black Swan

model from White Swan model and switch back again, she got two personalities. But,

it is also can be possible the treatment is herself, she cured herself by teared-off the

shy, frigid cover, found the real her, the real Nina.

I know a person who had schizophrenia before, he is my father’s coworker, a

narcotics police in China. He was involved in a gunfight with local drug cartel, he

killed several drug dealers by a Norinco type 81 assault rifle. After that day, he always

felt someone are following, spying on him and trying to kill him (he warry about

revenge from drug dealers, although most of them were executed and rest of are in

jail. Because dealing drug is felony in China), and he also fear to talk with people.

Only medicine could help him to restrain his emotion and the local psychologists he

met was not really helpful. Then his family members sent him to a Taoist temple.

Something interesting is he was cured after lived one year in that temple with bunch

of monk (Taoist priest). I do not think my suggestion could be useful in his pursuing

base on some psychologists did not cured him. But some theoretical suggestion I

could give the him in that time are communicate with others and control his emotions

by himself. Social interaction with someone who cares about him is the most effective

way to calm his nervous system and relieve stress. Find someone he could connect

with face to face, someone he could talk to for an uninterrupted period of time. Can be

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 his family members or best friend, such as his wife or my father. Also understanding

and accepting emotions could make a huge difference in his ability to manage stress

and balance his moods.

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 reference page

[1] Abnormal Psychology: Extra Credit: Film Analysis of Black Swan. Qian

Chen.

[2] Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder). Mental Health

Center. [Link]

personality-disorder?page=2

[3] U.S. population 2016. Worldmeters. [Link]

population/us-population/

[4] 严泽胜.朱迪巴特勒：欲望、身体、性别表演[J]. 国外理论动态,2004,(04)

[5] 朱宏达. 破茧之舞——探析《黑天鹅》女主人公的双重性格. 2013-03-14.

[Link]

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