Black Swan: A Case Study of Nina Sayers

In Darren Aronofsky’s psychological thriller Black Swan (2010), Nina Sayers is a female in her mid to late twenties with a career as a ballerina in a renowned New York City Ballet company. The film portrays Nina Sayers in her efforts to achieve perfection through an upcoming performance as the Swan Queen in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. This role encompasses two characters: the seductive, wicked Black Swan, and the innocent, sweet White Swan. 

As she strives towards artistic precision and an ideal performance Nina’s personality splits into two parts, that of the Black Swan and the White Swan.

As Nina’s experiences become increasingly violent and fragmented, she is ever more plagued by hallucinations of violence, panicked through obsession and paranoia, and drawn to self-mutilation that culminates in an apparent suicide attempt. Juxtaposing these progressions, Nina’s artistic performance climaxes in a performance that is, in her own words, “perfect”. Yet it is this very strive for perfection that accelerates her descent into madness as the pressure of the role weighs down upon her.

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In order to correctly assess Sayers, a review of her medical history must first be performed. When the movie begins, there are no known or observable health concerns, abnormalities, physical illnesses or disadvantages apparently present within Sayers. But as the film progresses, Nina begins to display a host of symptoms such as self-mutilation, delusions, hallucinations, obsessive behavior etc. In order to not stray off track, only an overview of Sayers main symptoms will be discussed.

As the film progresses, there are various lesions and abrasions on Sayers which cannot be attributed to anything in her current daily environment. Although she frequently reports that she has no recollection of how the wounds came to be. But from the film’s portrayal we can likely infer that these wounds are self-inflicted. When her mother notices these wounds on her skin she remarks that she thought Nina had gotten past those behaviors. From this it can be inferred that Nina has a history of compulsive scratching on her back when she was younger. In the climax of the film she deals herself a grievous wound in her stomach during one of her psychotic episodes.

Nina vehemently believes that her understudy Lilly is trying to manipulate her and steal her role as the swan queen although when there is no evidence to support this belief. She also believes that Lily is having sexual affairs with the program director in order to steal her role as the swan queen. Overall, Sayers is convinced that various people are intentionally out to take her role from her or as she refers to it her chance to be “perfect”.

At some point Nina begins to see her face on Lilly and others. Nina’s first psychotic episode happens when she experiences a night out of partying and drugs (possibly ecstasy, or a derivative of MDMA) with Lilly. After the party she has vivid hallucinations in which she has sexual relations with Lilly. However, the film clarifies that it is a hallucination since when Nina confronts Lilly the next day Lilly asserts that she left the party with another man. Her second Psychotic episode occurs when she is in her house and her legs painfully warp at the knees and black feathers are physically protruding from her skin before she faints and collapses from a concussion. 

Her third psychotic break occurs during opening night when she discovers Lilly in her dressing room preparing to dance her role as the black swan. Dressed as the black swan Lily claims that Nina is unfit for the role and she will take over the performance Nina and Lily have a violent confrontation which ends with Nina impaling Lilly with a shard of broken glass. However, Nina soon discovers that her confrontation was an illusion when she speaks with Lilly who is chipper to see her which prompts her to notice a bleeding wound on her own abdomen. Overall Sayers experiences a myriad of auditory, visual, and tactile hallucinations.

Works cited

1. Aronofsky, D. (Director). (2010). Black Swan [Film]. Fox Searchlight Pictures.
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9. Southwell, M. (2013). Mad Dance: Mythology and Mental Illness in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. Journal of Popular Culture, 46(2), 320-338. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpcu.12019
10. Worthen, W. B. (2018). Experiencing Perfectionism in Ballet Dancers: The Role of Emotion Regulation Strategies, Perfectionistic Strivings, and Perfectionistic Concerns. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 12(3), 347-361. https://doi.org/10.1123/jcsp.2017-0046