This scene in Psycho features Marion and is after she has been attacked in the shower. This particular shot is an extreme close up of one of her eyes and represents the vulnerability of Marion. Robin Wood wrote in his 1965 book, ‘Hitchcock's Films’ that the shower was supposed to wash away all the guilt that Marion was feeling because she was going to return the money but instead it ended up washing away her life. We see this just before this shot, when the camera tracks the blood going down the drain. Marion being naked in the film also attracts the male gaze, as discussed by Laura Mulvey. Killing off the main character that audiences identify with sets the precedent for the unexpected. The majority of the shower scene is a fast montage; however this shot is part of an extremely slow montage which is done to allow it to sink in with the audience.
Sound also plays a huge part in the emotion of the scene because the extra diegetic music that had been used to intensify the scene has finished and leaves only the diegetic sounds of the running water. I think that this intensifies the scene in a different way as the camera zooms out of her eye.
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