Strangers on a Train

Glasses on a woman in Hitchcock films are far more than an indicator of eyesight. From Pamela in The 39 Steps, to young Anne in Shadow of a Doubt, to Miriam in Strangers on a Train, glasses on a woman are an emphatic assertion of intellectual prowess, independence, and most of all, the gaze. The gaze, traditionally held by men to look upon women, now repudiates women’s conventional role as objects to be seen, or instruments to be used by men. Miriam’s glasses are a symbol of her authoritative personality and her fearlessness to challenge Guy and the male patriarchy. She is a phallic woman who can blatantly speak her opinions, laugh at her husband, and make a fool out of him behind his back.

In the film, Bruno’s murder of Miriam at the carnival is shown through the distorted reflection of Miriam’s glasses, which fall to the ground when Bruno seizes her neck. As Bruno squeezes the last breath out of Miriam, she falls backwards, toward the glasses. After she disappears from the frame, Bruno’s figure fills up the lens. Showing the murder play out on the lens of Miriam’s glasses changes the glasses from an instrument used to see to an instrument to be seen. Moreover, the broken left lens of the glasses symbolizes how Miriam’s unapologetic gaze is now broken, and with it, her power above men and her threat to male dominance. The framing of the murder through Miriam’s glasses reminds the audience of how her gaze made her culpable, and ultimately sanctions the murder. Showing the murder through the reflection of Miriam’s glasses emphasizes the grave consequences for women who challenge the patriarchy; Bruno’s looming figure in the end is the reassertion of patriarchal society over the women’s gaze, and the triumph of the retaliation of male castration anxiety.