Themes, symbols and motifs

Theme - Deconstruction of females
Throughout the film we see Scottie physically and mentally deconstruct Judy in an effort to recreate Madeleine and to cure his castration. For example the scene where he chooses the suit for Judy, and she says no and her grabs her by the arm and makes her wear it. He recreates the image of Madeleine, recreating the plot, and creating a spiral out of the plot. This is evidentially allegorical of Hitchcock as this is how he recreated his blonde women in his films. In an effort to cure his own voluntary 

Symbol - Spiral
The spiral represents Scottie's descent into chaos from safety. The cause of this journey, Madeleine. This is represented by her hairstyle being a spiral, how Scottie only turns right whilst following her when driving. At the centre of Scottie's obsession there is a void, like every spiral, and in his spiral Madeleine is there, she doesn't exist. Psychoanalysts say that a spiral represents moving from safety into chaos, and this is true for Scottie, he becomes obsessed and unsafe to Judy. Relating this back to Hitchcock, his ideal woman at the centre of his spiral of obsession doesn't exist, this is why both Scottie and Hitchcock deconstruct women to create another, to get to the void and make the nothing a thing.

Motif - Bell tower
Hitchcock made a full set for the bell tower, creating it from scratch. This just supports it as being a motif and meaning more than a simple plot device. The bell tower can firstly be seen as a phallic image for the representation of Scottie's masculinity. His lack of ability to climb the bell tower initially shows his lack of masculinity and sexual castration in front of Madeleine. Also, after Madeleine is threw off the bell tower, we have a birds eye shot of the spiral staircase inside the bell tower, and we see Scottie slowly trudging down, evidentially and literally descending into chaos. In the alternate ending to the film, Scottie walks out onto the top of the Bell tower, finally conquering his castrating and regaining his masculinity.