Black Swan Hallucinations

Black Swan (2010) is a film where Natalie Portman plays the character of Nina, a passionate ballet dancer in New York City. Though Nina is conservative and pure, suiting the role as the “White Swan,” the production of “Swan Lake” also requires the role of a sensual, yet malicious “Black Swan,” the opposite of Nina’s character. As Nina attempts to perfect the role of the “Black Swan,” she suffers with major consequences. The character, Nina, in the Black Swan illustrates a clear example of schizophrenia because of the hallucinations, delusions, and the struggles with the basics of daily life.
As previously stated, Nina is constantly dealing with hallucinations throughout the film. The hallucinations begin to worsen over time to the extent of Nina believing she is transforming into a swan. As she portrays the role of the “Black Swan,” she begins to develop bird-like features such as legs and webbed feet. Feathers and wings become visible, emphasizing her darker side. In addition, during her “transformation,” she felt pain of the bird-like structures growing internally and even picked a small bone out. These visual and somatic hallucinations are the result of Nina’s determination to
Nina exclaimed to Leroy, the ballet director, “It can’t be her!... Lily, you made her my alternate… She wants my role. She’s after me! She’s trying to replace me!” Because Lily was Nina’s alternate, Nina did not feel secure with her lead role. She felt her role was being threatened and was going to be snatched away by her “vicious” colleague. Nina’s false perception of the situation was triggered by the immense level of stress she was suffering with. The obsession of being able to perfectly portray the lead role of the Swan Lake production was the cause of this, leading to high levels of anxiety. Despite the lack of evidence, Nina was convinced of her beliefs that Lily had malicious