Paper Example on Jason Voorhess

Introduction

Jason Voorhess is a serial killer and the primary antagonist of the horror film Friday the 13th. He is a superhuman enthusiast with a greedy appetite for murder. As such, this masked monster nature led to him slaughtering numerous people due to a crazy yearning to get vengeance against those who had intruded on his home in Camp Crystal Lake. Jason is a deformed murderer who sought retribution for his mother, Pamela. He had witnessed her being executed. Jason possessed massive power and had an irresistible resilience that made him almost invulnerable (Cunningham et al.). Jason was a monster caused by his mother because he witnessed her being beheaded due to killing the people who were responsible for his death, and as a result, this prompted Jason to retaliate.

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Unique Child

Jason can be described as a unique child from the rest. He had mental disabilities and facial deformities that resulted in his mother isolating him from the rest of society. Pamela would not allow Jason to attend school and, in its place, tried to tutor him personally. Jason’s mother was very protective of him. Pamela served as a cook and demanded the counselors to watch her son every time. One night, Jason got tired of being ridiculed by his peers and tried to demonstrate himself by going to swim in the lake. The counselors were too busy and did not realize he had left. Jason drowned in the lake but managed to swim on the other side. However, everyone, including his mother, knew he was dead. Pamela then killed two of the counselors in cold blood one year after Jason drowned. Eventually, Pamela was killed, and Jason witnessed her murder (Cunningham et al.).

When Jason was living off the land, he grew into a powerful man. Watching his mother die made him insane, and this resulted in him adopting Pamela’s deadly battle. It has been purported that his mother resurrected Jason through some form of dark magic. While he was on the other side of the lake, he had reanimated but had not made any effort to reunite with his mother. Nonetheless, he witnesses his mother’s death, and this triggered an insatiable hunger for revenge (Gramuglia). Jason was further driven to avenge his mother and continue with her work of ensuring that Camp Crystal Lake was closed (Cunningham et al.). As such, he began hunting down and murdering everyone who set foot in the camp, which was the beginning of his reign of terror.

Strength and Weakness

Pamela was Jason’s strength and weakness during the course of the franchise. She initially killed for him, and Jason went on to kill for her as well. When Jason supposedly ‘died,’ Pamela experienced a breakdown, which led to her experiencing Jason's auditory hallucinations, where he continuously asked her to murder the drunken horny counselors. They caused him to drown in Crystal Lake. As a loving mother, Pamela did what she was asked by his son (Cunningham et al.).

Thus, it may be depicted that Jason’s motivation for the killing was grounded on pleasing his mother and not connected to anything internal. Similarly, when his mother committed the first murder, it was because she was heartbroken. One of the most challenging things to live through is losing a child. Also, people grieve differently. However, Pamela chose a forceful way of dealing with the loss of Jason (Gramuglia).

Two months after his mother’s death, Jason mysteriously rose from the lake and was determined to take revenge against his mother’s killer. He was driven purely by murderous desire. Jason tracked down Alice Hardy, who had killed his mother and murdered her in her home. He then went back to Crystal Lake, constructed a shack, and kept the rotting severed head of his mother as a horrific foundation (Cunningham et al.).

Attachment

Jason’s attachment to his mother can be regarded as complex and has unstoppable psycho-sexual energies. He commits murders mercilessly due to the premature ending of the relationship he had with his mother. The occasion that started the entire incident was due to the counselors making love and thus not watching Voorhees as Pamela always wanted. As such, Jason was deprived of engaging in sexual desires due to his immaturity and his hydrocephalic nature. These were what resulted in his death and established in motion an act of recurring revenge (Gramuglia).

Jason underwent psychodynamic traumas after witnessing his mother's death. The brutal killing of anyone's mother is sufficient to traumatize anyone. Furthermore, in this case, she was beheaded. In the case of Jason, his mother's death particularly emphasizes her ineffectiveness. She initially proved to be unable to guard Crystal Lake, which was their home, thus failing to play the role of Jason's father, who was regularly and evidently absent. Besides, Pamela's death also stressed her castrated state as a woman. She is acephalic, and a close analysis shows that she goes to the grave on the interpretation of this persuasive figurative and precise castration. Therefore, this is too much for Jason to handle. The beheading of his mother becomes the singular traumatic event on which Jason's essence centers. Her mother may not have already been a psycho-sexual prerequisite for Jason, but she indeed becomes one after she was beheaded. In the movie, Jason is the uncontrollable, deadly woodsman and is also shown to keep his mother's head in a shrine in his broken-down cabin. Pamela's head was surrounded by votive candles and became an object of worship (Cunningham et al.). She had been accurately objectified. Therefore, Jason's mother had become his fetish is not entirely unanticipated and even foreseeable.

Supernatural Connection

Pamela and Jason also had a supernatural connection. It was also incorporated to make Jason a monster from the beginning instead of creating a careless and unpleasant world. Moreover, Pamela's backstory analysis shows that she was a victim of abuse from her spouse, and she opted for violence to guard her and her unborn son. Thus, this gives more layers of mortality to a character that could be related in various ways. Tactlessly, the aspect gets surpassed by the strange way in which Jason is handled. Initially, it appears as though the voice Pamela hears when pregnant is purely due to the psychological damage she experienced when she suffered in her marriage. However, later on, it begins to seem as though it was actually Jason who was urging her to commit murder while he was in utero. After his birth, it is noted that Jason enjoys binding and torturing animals that might be wandering in the neighborhood (Gramuglia). One may further deduce that this was predicting the types of the massacre he would attain in his adulthood.

Conclusion

The aspect of Jason being a monster, and it being caused by his mother, has been explored. When Jason witnessed his mother being beheaded, it prompted him to revenge for her death as well. Also, it has been noted that Pamela was quite protective of Jason. Pamela was also the strength and weakness of his son. She underwent a breakdown when Jason was killed. This caused her to experience Jason's auditory hallucinations unceasingly, asking her to kill the drunken horny counselors who left him to drown. Pamela did what she was told due to the intense love she had for his son. Furthermore, Jason wanted to please his mother, hence committing his first murder. It has further been seen that Pamela underwent psychological damage when she suffered in her marriage. She even killed her husband, and analysis has shown that Jason may have been the one who urged her to do so while he was still in utero.

Works Cited

Cunningham, Sean S et al. Friday The 13Th. Paramount Pictures, 1980.

Gramuglia, Anthony. "Pamela Voorhees: The Dark Legacy Of Friday The 13Th's Original Killer". CBR, 2019, https://www.cbr.com/pamela-voorhees-dark-leagcy/.