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Where Madeleine represents a romantic, otherworldly ideal, Midge stands for its opposite. The bespectacled Midge is practical, competent, realistic, and well adjusted. An artist by training, she applies her skill to prosaic ends, creating advertisements for women’s undergarments. Throughout the film, she attempts to keep Scottie’s feet on the ground. First, she tries to change Scottie’s mind about giving up his detective job and works on helping him overcome his acrophobia. When he begins his job trailing Madeleine, Midge attempts to unmask the improbability of the situation. Her constant attempts to make Scottie discuss the case reveal her desire to ground the mystery in reality and his unwillingness to do so. Scottie considers Midge’s treatment of Madeleine’s world to be a kind of blasphemy, and it becomes clear to Midge that she will find no entrance into that world. It is significant that the last shot of Midge is of her retreating down the hall of the sanatorium. She has been unable to bring Scottie out of his catatonic state and back to reality. He is now firmly entrenched in the world of illusion, beyond the reach of the “real world.”
