Understanding the Uncanny in Freud’s The Uncanny
The uncanny is not easily definable; the term can be adequately explored a myriad ways without ever successfully achieving an all-encompassing definition. Freud’s explanation of the uncanny focuses on contradiction and the re-emergence of hidden primordial fears. Taking Freud’s ideas farther, the uncanny strikes such horror in literature, as well as in real life, because it more succinctly encompasses gothic elements than any other one gothic theme. Any element of the gothic incites fear based on the understanding that a distortion of the familiar or the real is made horrific because of its dangerous similarity to that with which we are comfortable. Playing on this formula, Freud, in his text, gives examples to support the notion that the uncanny may encompass such themes as the gothic object, doubling, gothic nature, and domestic abjection.
In The Uncanny, Freud brings up a number of uncanny contradictions, beginning with the fact that the German word Heimlich (homely) can be used interchangeably to mean unheimlich (un-homely.) Heimlich, which represents that which is familiar and comfortable as well as that which is concealed and kept hidden, becomes uncanny (literally unheimlich) when it is used to mean that which was meant to remain secret and has come into the open. Further, Freud explores contradiction with his exploration of E.T.A. Hoffman’s story “The Sand-Man.” In this work, the doll Olimpia produces an uncanny effect because of a certain ambiguity over whether or not she is alive. Freud argues that this sense of the uncanny derives not from a childhood fear of dolls awakening into life, but rather from a childhood desire for this phenomenon. Olimpia’s circumstance is made uncanny by the impossible realization of our childhood wishes in reality. What we, as children, most wanted comes to pass in adulthood as Hoffman’s Nathaniel interacts with the doll Olimpia.
This example leads us to Freud’s next argument: that the uncanny is produced by a re-expression of surmounted primordial fears. As reasoning, intelligent adults, one is well aware of the fact that dolls are inanimate. Though life-like, one would never actually come to life. The intellectual uncertainty expressed by Freud over whether or not Olimpia lives produces a sense of the uncanny not so much because of the uncertainty itself, but rather because a surmounted primordial fear (in this case the belief that dolls may come to life) returns and is given expression, leading the protagonist to question whether or not the fear was really surmounted after all.
To further describe the uncanny, Freud employs numerous stories and examples from both material and physical realities. Many of these stories are made uncanny because of their relation to other prominent themes within the gothic. More than any other gothic element, the uncanny seems to work in partnership with these themes, producing terror by propagating yet another contradiction: making what is familiar unfamiliar.
In Freud’s description of Hoffman’s “The Sand-Man,” he unwittingly is faced with a gothic object: the “evil eye.” Emerging from childhood tales, the Sand-Man is said to steal the eyes of those naughty children who remain awake when told to sleep. Nathaniel, faced with repressed memories of seeing the Sand-Man in childhood, comes to terms with the past as he re-encounters the Sand-Man as an adult: now cloaked as an optician. As the story progresses, Nathaniel is tricked into purchasing an “evil” eyeglass that inspires madness within him. This gothic object heightens a sense of the uncanny by projecting on others our own fears. In Hoffman’s narrative, Nathaniel becomes the terror that haunts his existence though he is loathe to admit evil in anyone but his childhood foe. Freud argues that the evil eye represents envy and a fear that our emotions are betrayed by our looks. He claims that what is actually feared is other’s intention to harm, inspired in part by this envy.
In addition to the gothic object, Nathaniel’s transformation highlights another gothic theme: doubling. Hoffman’s “The Sand-Man” is further made uncanny by the doubling or repetition of the Sand-Man. The Sand-Man is seen in the lawyer Coppelius, the optician Coppola, and eventually in Nathaniel himself as his evil eyeglass makes him become what he would most fear.
The themes of gothic nature and domestic abjection can also be seen in The Uncanny. Freud’s exploration of implied psychoanalytical meaning behind each instance of the uncanny, as well as the understanding that situations are made uncanny by the return of the repressed past, help to incorporate these themes. Gothic nature, a setting that is somehow made scary when nature is turned dark, foreboding, and isolating, proves uncanny because a familiar setting is turned unfamiliar. Further, Freud associates the uncanny quality of darkness with man’s fear of the womb. In this instance, what is uncanny (unhomely) is what Freud would call “the entrance to man’s old ‘home’” (p. 151). This fear, he claims, derives from an infantile anxiety most people never wholly overcome. Freud’s psycho-sexual analysis relating darkness to the womb hints of domestic abjection. An abject object, an object that seems perversely opposed to itself, can be seen in Freud’s portrayal of the female, namely the female mother, as a birthing ground of experiences that are feared and never wholly overcome.
While the uncanny is not easily defined, Freud presents a strong case for its meaning by exploring its use of contradiction and the return of an unwanted, repressed, animistic past. Without intending to, Freud further defines the uncanny by portraying its fear-inducing effect through its relationship with other prominent themes in the gothic: namely the gothic object, the idea of doubling, gothic nature, and domestic abjection. By analyzing the uncanny as a transformation of the familiar to the unfamiliar, as well as by exploring the hidden psycho-sexual meaning Freud draws from gothic themes, the true meaning of the uncanny is further drawn out. More than any other gothic element, the uncanny encompasses what is meant by gothic and what we are afraid of.
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