Sigmund Freud's The Uncanny

In the 2014 article The Devil in Disguise: Modern Monsters and their Metaphors, published by The Geek Anthropologist website, author Emma Louis Backe talks about the “monsters” surrounding pop culture and their hidden significance and meaning. Author Emma Backe an Anthropology and English major explains that explains that with each “monster” we see an underlying threat to human life as we know it. She states that pop culture has taken these images and made them a reincarnation of our fears. That these creatures are symbolic of incurable disease, indestructible beings, the undead, loss of humanity and extinction. Emma claims that we have moved from dismissing and ignoring these fears to confronting them in a more literal and real way. In the

Fear is in the core of every person. It is the defense mechanism that keeps us from danger. It is an unpleasant emotion internally warning us that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause us pain. In gothic literature fear is a topic that the genre is soaked in. It is one of the main elements. Authors use literary devices to make a reader feel, think, and react in a certain way. Mary Shelley and Ann Radcliffe are both prominent gothic writers, with the works Frankenstein and The Mysteries of Udolpho respectively. They are both works that are thought of as key reads in the genre and both have a pervasive theme of fear throughout. The two women portray these very well using literary devices. Both authors explore fear as a theme. Mary Shelley’s novel

The principal idea in Sigmund Freud’s interpretation of The Uncanny theory centres around the Heimlich, translating to ‘homely’ and thus, what is familiar, and the Unheimlich, which is often translated to what is ‘Uncanny’ defined as ‘what is […] frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar’ (Freud, 1919) or later described as something that is ‘secretly familiar which has undergone repression’. He extends the theory further by placing the uncanny in to two classes, those are, thoughts that have been ‘surmounted’, for example, superstitious beliefs that have been discarded but re-emerge when an event occurs that could potentially confirm these beliefs. The second class being that of the ‘repressed complexes’ such as recalling repressed trauma, most specifically from childhood, fear, and unconscious desires.

Asma states, "Monsters can stand as symbols of human vulnerability and crisis, and as such they play imaginative foils for thinking about our own responses to menace.” This means that human weaknesses and fears are represented through monstrous figures, and these fictional situations provide perspective into how we react in fearful environments. In our current society we fear many things, including but not limited to failed or corrupt governmental systems, the afterlife, the unknown, and captivity, which makes this claim valid. Although we may not realize it, these fears are embodied by the horror monsters we see in popular culture. Society shares common fears, and often times the most prevailing fear is reflected in the most popular characters at any given time. Monsters are the fictional representations of society’s dark subconscious, exploring not only why the author’s statement is accurate but what we actually fear.

Many timeless novels have impacts on our everyday culture, not only as a book, but also through music or movies. Many popular novels have multiple adaptations, which shape how we approach their interpretation, in ways we may never even notice. In some films, humans are depicted as monsters, whether through their actions, or through the thoughts of other beings. In these films we find issues with our own society, and in turn see ourselves as monsters, and look for ways we can change, for the better. One particular novel that influences this side of Hollywood is Mary Shelley's “Frankenstein”. The ways Frankenstein influences pop culture can be seen in science fiction films in which humans are depicted as monster, and “monsters” are seen as

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.

The foundation of horror genre was set by monsters that not only haunted your dreams but also conveyed rich themes found deep beneath the surface. Vampires are considered a symbol of seduction and sophistication while Frankenstein monsters represent misunderstanding, oppression, and rebellion. Some of the strongest symbolism is found in standard films of the horror genre does not come from the frequently updated relics. Utilizing fear and horror as mechanisms for subtext, social commentary, and symbolism, George Romero created a new horror genre, one that scares and shines just as much as great horror classics. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead revolutionized the once stagnant zombie film and made into something unstoppable, still to this day zombie movies rake in millions of ticket sales at the box office while remaining culturally relevant.

There are different types of monsters in the world one could be afraid of. There are those real monsters that do look like a stereotypical beast and then there are those humans that act like a stereotypical monster, in regards of being emotionally impacted. In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the scientist Victor Frankenstein who creates the monster, is actually the real monster. “Frankenstein” is a frame story where Captain Robert Walton boat gets stuck due to an iceberg and see a man in the cold, science lover Victor Frankenstein. Frankenstein then meets Walton and tells him the story of how he ended up on the iceberg. Throughout the story Frankenstein’s experiment of trying to bring the dead back to life is showcased. Unfortunately, Frankenstein's

“ People fear what they do not understand. ” In the original 1888 edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, this saying is excessively shown throughout the journey of Frankenstein himself and his creation known as “ the creature.” Fear is spreaded in this famous, gothic novel because the epitome of society is lacked by both the creator and the creation, leading to much misunderstanding with who is the real monster. In this novel, the true monster is society because the ideals indirectly presented led Frankenstein to abhor and abandon the creature, the ultimate isolation of both, and the delirious vengeance developed by the two.

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.

Monsters have proven to be more than just the fiendish appearance or the evil within such creatures – their monstrosity symbolizes, more or less, the characteristics that define mankind and/or our innermost fears. Prior to this Exploration of the Humanities course, I have interpreted monsters for what they are: heartless and destructive creatures that generate fear. However, I never bothered what the true cause of such fear is – only associating the gruesome presence with a psychological reaction of horror. But taking this class allowed me to broaden my perspective on monsters and monstrosity: humans fear the “Other” because we as individuals have an “Other” within us (subconsciously) that we are not willing to show to those in our

Psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, constructed his theory of the uncanny, in a simplified conclusion as the ability for the conscious mind to recall or find “something familiar and frightening” within his essay “The Uncanny” as shared in Literary Theory: An Anthology. The first portion of the essay serves in effort to breakdown the reasoning for the term to lend us meaning, in short he provides us with the etymology of uncanny. We learn of its German form, heimlich, is the familiar, intimate, comfortable; While with use of the prefix un-, he points out the uncanny, or unheimlich, is the obvious opposite, strange, uncomfortable, and uneased. (418)

Freud was always fascinated by just about any phenomenon, espacially of "unsuitable affect," its expression,

Freud’s concept of the “uncanny” is a highly influential and valued in psychoanalysis and literature. As Freud explains, it reveals much about his understanding of human beings as being essentially determined by their fears and unconscious desires. His interpretation of uncanny can be analyzed in two ways: linguistic and actual. In the beginning, he starts with the term “uncanny”, which is taken from German word “unheimlich”, literally meaning “un-home-like” – something unfamiliar and unknown, never experienced before. The problem is that the definition of the word and the linguistic peculiarities take half of the whole reading, so we get to the point after the second half.

Cathy Caruth’s “Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Trauma” claims that “to be traumatized is precisely to be possessed by an image or event” (Caruth 3). This idea of possession is seen in Edgar Allan Poe’s “Ulalume” through the narrator’s enigmatic journey toward his dead lover’s grave. Throughout the poem, the narrator unknowingly works to overcome the trauma that is associated with “surviving” the event of his lover dying. The narrator is seemingly able to understand the true cause of his trauma through the use of the paradoxical duality of attraction/repulsion and familiar/unfamiliar contained in the “Uncanny” as described by Sigmund Freud in “The Uncanny.” The narrator uses the information gained from his trance-like walk to realize his