Hitchcock uses a threat to a core value of society and the fear that life isn’t so perfect to scare his audience. Hitchcock scares the audience into believing Charlie could correct in the fact that “people like us had no idea what the world was really like”. Charlie’s madness may mirror what a perfect life may truly feel like.

In the end, the detective points out how life “seems to go crazy now and then. At the same time, however, there is an aspect of horror in the similarity between Charlie and what having the perfect life is like. The ending scene has a haunting eulogy that proves he blended in and was perceived as the perfect American man.

Uncle Charlie is the symbol of a malicious threat to the American family because of how seamlessly he fits into one.

Hitchcock plays on the viewer’s fear of disturbance in the perfect American family which was a core value when the film was made. James McLaughlin describes it as “maliciously ambiguous” hinting at a double-sided view of the film. Alfred Hitchcock’s horror film, Shadow of a doubt, causes the audience to experience fear through a final scene with multiple interpretations.

Shadow of a doubt hitchcock analysis