Part 1
- Freud begins looking into the
realm of the "uncanny" through the use of aesthetics, but in his
sense aesthetics is understood to be not only a visual theory but also the
"qualities of feeling". The feeling of the "uncanny"
relates to what is frightening and what "excites fear in
general". He makes the valid point that not every person can have the
same idea of what is 'uncanny' but his goal is to find in what ways this
feeling can be evoked from people, so he could better understand the
feeling of fear and what could cause it.
- The term "unheimlich"
or what is unfamiliar reflects that new experiences have the possibility
of creating the feeling of the 'uncanny'. He makes the point that
"something has to be added to what is novel and unfamiliar in order
to make it 'uncanny'." This shows that sometimes there is no fear in
experiencing something new, but to have the fear of the "uncanny”
there has to be something even more obscure that brings out the sense of
fear.
- A sense of the
"uncanny" could come from "doubts whether an apparently
animate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object
might not be in fact animate". Some odd feeling or sense of
misunderstanding of the object or being throws off the balance of truly
understanding the life or use of something. He tells the tale of a student
named Nathaniel who believes in the spirit of the sandman to the point
where a man approaches the house and Nathaniel convinces himself that this
man is the sandman coming for him. Then this boy believes a doll to be
real because of its life like qualities and becomes infatuated with her.
Soon he is crushed to discover this being is actually a doll and she is
ripped apart in front of him. Finally, when he is with his intended
betrothed, falls into a fit of madness from his own past deceptions and
attempts to kill her.
- This all reflects intellectual
uncertainty of something that the mind can play into what a person thinks
is real or wants to believe is real. Freud delves deeper into the subtexts
of the stories and connects it to the fear of going blind or the fear of
being castrated; losing a vital part of yourself in the ideas of
reproduction
Part 2
- Within the second search of the
"uncanny" Freud begins to break down theme of the
"double" in narratives. These connections could be with
"reflections, shadows, guardian spirits, and the belief of the soul
and with fear of death". This concept of the "double" can
manifest itself within someone's ego development, makes them aware of
their "conscience" and then the person becomes fixated on things
within their own head that might not actually be happening. So the mind
projects outward something that is foreign instead of the foreign being
projected onto the being.
- He later elaborates on the
"self-regarding feeling, a regression to a time when the ego had not
yet marked itself off sharply from the external world and from other
people". It could be like the helpless feeling someone could have
while in a bad dream. It occurs from the double or the repetition of
something over and over again so it begins to, once again, manifest itself
within someone’s mind and take over. He states that it could be ...
"a compulsion powerful enough to overrule the pleasure principle,
lending to certain aspects of the mind..."
- Freud begins to tell a story of
how a man had wanted to create a form of repetition for him, sitting in
the same room for a medical purpose, and was prevented to do so and wished
something ill upon the person preventing him from his norms. That person
had fallen ill, and this coincidence deeply afflicted the man and gave him
dread.
- Freud breaks down his study to
two points which elaborate more on how people reflect inward on their
anxieties to push them outward and apply their own thoughts and
experiences to create something that frightening or uncomfortable.
- "That
every affect belonging to an emotional impulse, is transformed into
anxiety, then among instances of frightening things there must be one
class in which the frightening element can be shown to be something
repressed."
- "This
class of frightening things would then constitute the uncanny; and it
must be a matter of indifference whether what is uncanny itself
originally frightening or whether it carried some other affect."
- Another "unhemlich"
thing that could cause the "uncanny" is a persons relationship
with death. He elaborated that it hasn't been yet decided that death is
inevitable or that it is a regular event that is avoidable. The
uncertainty of this as well as the unknown can create the
"uncanny". The thoughts of death and the state as well as death
and religion can play into a person’s relationship with death and how it
would affect them. Freud calls death a "primitive feeling" that
comes from repression.
- Fiction and magical things such
as witches, magic and so on could be "uncanny"; it applies the
alternative to the world that is already known to the general masses. The
possibility of higher more powerful creatures and beings existing could
bring a sense of "uncanny". The possibility that something or
someone from an imagination could possibly exist.
Part 3
1. As
stated in part two, the fairy tales and fiction could bring the sense of
“uncanny” to a persons mind. Upon this fiction could reanimate death, and bring
back what has been gone. Freud also mentions the “uncanny” affect of silence,
darkness and solitude.
2. The
“uncanny” could be a result from the “actual repression of some content thought
and a return on this repressed content, not a cessation of belief in reality”.
He relates “uncanny” experiences to what has happened to a person in their
childhood that could affect them in adulthood.
3. The
point is made to the visual aesthetic that “representation could coincide with
the realities we are familiar with or departs from them in what particulars
(the author or creator) pleases.” When relating to art or writing, the creator
can use the tool of representation to help bring out the sense of the “uncanny”
through language, visual or textual, that tells enough of a narrative to affect
the viewer through the psychological play
