The Psychological Disorders of Nina Sayers in Black Swan

The Psychological Disorders of Nina Sayers in Black Swan

PSY606 – FA0

paper ID: 196923379

In Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, the principle character is a ballet dancer who desires perfection in all of her performances. Throughout the film, Nina Sayers shows signs of losing touch with reality. She is cast in the lead role in her dance company’s production of Swan Lake, in which she must play the role of the White Swan and the Black Swan. Nina displays symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, an eating disorder, and she also is suffering through an early stage of psychosis. She begins to hallucinate that she is literally transforming in the Black Swan – the director of the production is constantly demanding that she becomes the Black Swan, that she casts aside her inhibitions and her strong desire to be perfect in order to dance the role perfectly. She begins to hear taunting laughter and voices, and becomes paranoid that her understudy is trying to steal the role away from her. Black Swan follows Nina’s psychotic breakdown as she struggles between remaining the perfect, obedient girl that she was raised to be and the side of herself she has left unexplored until her casting as the Swan Queen.

Nina has an extreme desire to be perfect – a desire that may be the stem of her obsessive-compulsive tendencies. When she is cast as the Swan Queen, she begins to feel pressure to meet the high expectations of everyone around her – her mother, her director, herself – and she begins to lose touch with reality due to this pressure. Her obsessive-compulsive disorder also causes her anorexia and bulimia, as she feels that she must do anything to achieve perfection. Thomas Leroy, Nina’s ballet studio director, believes that she can dance the part perfectly – her dancing is beautiful and precise, traits that would allow her to dance the part of the White Swan perfectly, however, the role of the Black Swan requires Nina to cast aside her desire to be obedient and...