What do you know, really?… You wake up every day of your life and you know perfectly well that there’s nothing in the world to trouble you….” Humans have faith in a certain religion without concrete evidence, and Uncle Charlie attempts to convince Young Charlie to have faith in him because of her lack of evidence and context. Uncle Charlie interrogates young Charlie: “You think you know something, don’t you? You think you’re the clever little girl that knows something. These questions Uncle Charlie asks her parallel Hitchcock’s own wonderings about epistemology and also Catholicism: the act of questioning why one “knows things” relates to the inevitable doubt surrounding the religion or worldview one was born and raised in.
After this mental exchange of knowledge, Uncle Charles begins a sort of “epistemological rant,” attempting to convince young Charlie of her own obliviousness to the context of the situation. When Uncle Charlie asks young Charlie, “what do you know,” she never explicitly responds, but the simple action of placing his gifted ring on the table causes him to realize that she is aware he is a murder suspect. Previously, young Charlie had jokingly mentioned that she and her Uncle Charlie were so mentally connected, they could be “telepathic,” or “twins,” and their connection is clear in this scene.
Shadow of a Doubt raises epistemological questions reflecting Hitchcock’s endeavor to understand how humans “know what they know.” These questions are especially portrayed in the scene between young Charlie and Uncle Charlie at the bar.
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