Uncanny
Freud’s Concept of the Uncanny 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. Freud uses E.T.A. Hoffman’s short story, “The Sandman”, to explain the idea of repression of infantile complexes. The story centers around the character of the Sandman, who steals the eyes of children. Freud states that the fear that the character Nathaniel feels towards the Sandman has more to due with an infantile castration complex than with the actual fear of losing his eyes. In Freud’s theory he states that the “Study of dreams, phantasies and myths has taught us that a morbid anxiety connected with the eyes and with going blind i
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1067
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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