Elements Of Uncanny In The Picture Of Dorian Gray

Sigmund Freud's studies in psychoanalysis are uncannily fore-grounded in the late romantic period. The works of William Wordsworth, Percy B. Shelley, Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley, all function as poetic preludes to Freud's 18th century field. Particularly, it is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein that creates a fictional rendering for psychoanalyst. In Frankenstein, Victor's rejection of the Monster metaphorically represents the ego's rejection of the unconscious. Following from this metaphorical paradigm, Freud's theories on narcissism, the libido theory, the doppelganger, neurosis, and the Oedipus-complex all resonate in the pages of Frankenstein. After a brief introduction to narcissism and

Unnerving, spooky, disturbing, frightful… All common characteristics of a hauntingly terrific tale by the famous Edgar Allan Poe. His story “The Masque of the Red Death” brought a grotesque taste to the horror genre throughout the 19th century with the use of literary devices. To summarize, Poe’s story discussed, in detail, the horrifying inevitability of death, which reveal the value of a device known as symbolism used by Poe in this literary work. As people are familiar with, Poe’s psychological weaknesses spurred his creativity to which he poured his problems into Gothic Literature, and he produced these unforeseen symbols as pawns of his life. In this popular short story, subtle objects are manipulated to reflect Edgar Allan Poe’s misfortunes. Symbolism is used throughout his short years of living as a narrative device for his eerie publications. Within this composition, I will be justifying how Poe’s influence on the use of symbolism constructed a disturbed and almost misleading

This essay explores the various types of art used in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. The focus is made on the three types of art: the picture of Dorian Gray, the yellow book and the actress. It examines the way Wilde chooses to develop his novel’s characters’ personalities and destinies by asking: what is the role of art

When a person experiences chills or goose bumps as a reaction to something strange or unusual, they are being affected by a sense of uncanniness. The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud endeavored to explain this feeling of uncanniness in his essay entitled “The Uncanny”. Freud’s theory focuses around two different causes for this reaction. Freud attributes the feeling of uncanniness to repressed infantile complexes that have been revived by some impression, or when primitive beliefs that have been surmounted seem once more to be confirmed. The first point of his theory that Freud discusses in the essay is the repression of infantile complexes that cause an uncanny experience.

In “The Birth-Mark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the symbols of the birthmark and the old man’s eye influence the plots of the stories. Through different ways, the characters in both stories feel compelled by these objects to do something. The main character, Aylmer, in “The Birth-Mark,” was obsessed with his wife’s birthmark which he saw as a flaw in her beauty, as well as a symbol of human imperfection, and tried to remove it. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator sees the old man’s eye as “evil” and holding mysterious powers which symbolizes the narrator’s deepest fear and his obsession where he chooses to destroy it. The characters’ interpretation of these things created conflict, and both stories are formed by the symbolic meanings that the characters attribute to those things.

The Dark Romantic texts “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe and “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne are similar and different in many ways. The similarities of the two pieces are very plentiful. To begin, obsession is a supernatural force that has taken over the main characters in each piece. The narrator in “The Black Cat” is on death row and is trying to rid the guilt he has accumulated through his wrongful acts. He has become obsessed over these actions and he says, “these events have terrified-have tortured- have destroyed me” (Poe 3). They have taken up so much of his thoughts that he no longers thinks of anything else. This similar obsession of it taking over the mind is also present in “The Birthmark”. Aylmer is obsessing over his wife’s birthmark. Thinking to himself, “At all the seasons which should have been their happiest, he invariably...reverted to this one disastrous topic” (Hawthorne 4). Nature is beautifully changing which should bring joy to Aylmer, but all that he can think about it the mark upon her face. Similarly to the narrator in the previous text, the object of Aylmer’s obsession fills his mind and becomes the only thing that he thinks about. Also featured in both pieces is the inability to distinguish fantasy and reality. The narrator in the first text cannot tell the difference between his two selves. He described the feeling as, “a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my

In both, Nathanial Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” the protagonists, Young Goodman Brown and the narrator experience a journey into the subconscious. Both stories have an overlap that blurs the boundaries of reality and fantasy. It is truly the supernatural aspects of these two stories that force the protagonists and the reader to delve into the realm of the subconscious and to scrutinize good versus evil and real versus imaginary.

This text is centered on discussing how the choice of objects in men is primarily dominated by fetish. However, the choice of analyzing men is not caused by men’s account on fetish. Even though a fetish is often is deemed to have a close connection to abnormality, men rarely feel that it is a symptom of an ailment which eventually comes with a lot of suffering. For most men, they find themselves satisfied with fetishes to the extent of praising how they make their sexual and erotic life easier. Therefore, Freud’s text is centered on analyzing a fetish as a subsidiary finding in men.

Throughout history, various works of literature compelled the readers to feel a specific way. The authors used different techniques to illustrate emotions toward their audience. Specifically, Edgar Allan Poe, author of The Fall of the House of Usher, uses literary elements, such as imagery, characterization and word choice, to portray the build up the sense of horror.

The novel Frankenstein and The Fall of the House of Usher both have the pattern of the question of what constitutes the human. This question helps in the creation of aspects of horror and the unknown. In Frankenstein the question is created with the creation of the monster. In The Fall of the House of Usher the same question is created when Roderick acts depressed almost like he is being possessed. This question is a frightening proposition because the unknown and un-human is a deeply-rooted human fear. It is this fear that makes these stories frightening.

Gothic literature often depicts narratives, characters and symbolic elements that ambiguously move between reality and transcend to the possibility of the supernatural through suspense and fear. This ambiguous shift provokes one to examine and question their morality and nature, threatening to disrupt the way each reader perceives themselves. Gothic texts such as Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde are both exceptional examples of where the shift between reality and the possibility of the supernatural raise moral questions about humanity, through suspense and fear. Both novels also explore notions of the uncanny, an experience explored by Sigmund Fraud who claims that experiences of the uncanny arise either when a

Sigmund Freud created strong theories in science and medicine that are still studied today. Freud was a neurologist who proposed many distinctive theories in psychiatry, all based upon the method of psychoanalysis. Some of his key concepts include the ego/superego/id, free association, trauma/fantasy, dream interpretation, and jokes and the unconscious. “Freud remained a determinist throughout his life, believing that all vital phenomena, including psychological phenomena like thoughts, feelings and phantasies, are rigidly determined by the principle of cause and effect” (Storr, 1989, p. 2). Through the discussion of those central concepts, Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis becomes clear as to how he construed human character.

Sigmund Freud’s says that the uncanny “undoubtedly belongs to all that is terrible- to all that arouses dread and creeping horror, it is equally certain, too, that the word is not always used in a clearly definable sense, so that it tends to coincide with whatever excites dread.”(Freud), he also says that what makes something specifically uncanny is that it is opposite of what is familiar. . Certain components of the short stories “The Lottery”, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, highlight Freud’s definition of the uncanny. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Freud’s definition of the uncanny appears continuously throughout the story, especially when the woman believes that she is the figure lurking behind the wallpaper. Also, in the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, Freud’s definition of the uncanny occurs within the mysterious plot and how the end revealed that the “winner” of the lottery had to be beaten to death with citizens of the city throwing stones at them. Lastly, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is connected to Freud’s definition of the uncanny since the story gives the reader a false sense of security, which makes the reader feel the horror and unfamiliarity that it brings

In The Uncanny, Freud discusses the different definitions and claims that various theorists have made regarding the feeling of uncanny. He defines the different factors that provoke the uncanny in humans and demonstrates how these factors elicit that strange and seemingly inexplicable feeling. Similarly, in Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock, adopts the various factors that cause the uncanny to alter Scottie’s identity and beliefs. Ultimately, when Scottie is transformed from a rational being to a psychotic obsessive, it serves to indicate the severity of Scottie’s mental instability and his detachment from reality.

In The Sandman, the weirdness of the tale could be perceived in two directions--the first being that of intellectual uncertainty and the other is that of psychoanalytical experience and namely the ideas of Freud. In order to describe the uncanny experience in Hoffmann's The Sandman and Shelley's Frankenstein it is indispensable, however, to explain and define beforehand what is the connotation of Unheimlich. In my further analysis of the uncanny, I relate the two works and stress on the obsession of the two characters which explains the weirdness in them. Moreover, I focus on the surrounding environment in the face of the society because it is pertinent to the discussion of the weirdness. The unconsciousness is also playing a major role in