Freud: The Uncanny
A. Definition: What is the uncanny?
a) the class of frightening things that leads us back to what is known and familiar.
b) German word for uncanny:
i) heimlich, first definition = I, a: belonging to the house; friendly; familiar; I, b: tame (as in
animals); I, c: intimate, comfortable; i.e: secure, dometic(ated), hospitable.
ii) heimlich, second definition = concealed, secret, withheld from sight and from others;
secretive, deceitful = private.
iii) what from the perspective of the one who is "at home" is familiar, is to the outsider, the
stranger, the very definition of the unfamiliar, the secretive, the impenetrable.
c) Opposite of Heimlich:
i) unheimlich I = unhomey, unfamiliar, untame, uncomfortable = eerie, weird, etc.
ii) unheimlich II (the less common variant) = unconcealed, unsecret; what is revealed;Æ what is
supposed to be kept secret but is inadvertently revealed.
iii) Freud’s concept of the inadvertent slip of the tongue that reveals a hidden truth.
iv) "Unheimlich is the name for everything that ought to have remained secret and hidden but
has come to light." Unheimlich thus becomes a kind of unwilling, mistaken self-exposure.
d) The word heimlich thus has a meaning that overlaps with its opposite, unheimlich; the semantics
of this word come full circle.
e) Freud's thesis: unheimlich, the uncanny = revelation of what is private and concealed, of
what is hidden; hidden not only from others, but also from the self.In Freudian
terminology: the uncanny is the mark of the return of the repressed. (See p. 217)
Sedgwick: The Veil:
Feministic Critic Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick suggests that all veils in literature are used to hide
truth or cover something shameful, but she also suggests that the veil actually functions almost as a
mirror that reflects back all our own indiscretions and recklessness. Therefore, when one lifts the veil,
he/she sees an image of him/herself in the thing or person that the veil covers. After the veil is lifted,
most characters fall to ruin because they cannot handle a visual, public display of their struggles. She
also argues that whatever the veil hides is actually a necessary and acceptable part of life, but because of
societal constraints and expectations, we force people to hide the truest part of themselves.
Furthermore, she suggests that women especially are forced to be blanks and must await someone else
to form their cultural identity—society places a veil over them, so to speak. We as humans don’t know
their true character until someone reveals it: “It is only after experience has inscribed some of these
blanks with character that the figures' true identity is ‘discovered,’ that then it is made known by a
retracing of recognized traits from other faces, signally from portraits...
(http://www.engl.virginia.edu/enec981/Group/ami.virgins.html#sedgwick).
Freud, Totem and Taboo:
Dealing with those things that are most private to humans; Freud argues that these are the things that
are most sacred to us as well. Take The Untouchables in Indian society—part of the lowest caste,
literally no one will touch them, yet they are viewed in a supernatural, almost sacred light. "Privacy"
and "Intimacy" that is inherent in bourgeois ideology. Therefore Freud can associate it with the "private
parts," the parts of the body that are the most "intimate" and that are simultaneously those parts subject
to the most concealment
Freud's particular angle is that on reading anthropology he frequently remarks the similarities between
the behaviour of his psycho-analytic patients and that of "primitive" peoples. The girl who will not sign
her name for fear of it being stolen from her, the boy who is fascinated by rabbits, but also terrified by
them, the woman who will not go down Smith Street because she has an ex-friend called Smith are all
exhibiting behaviour which is irrational and abnormal in our society, but normal in much earlier forms
of society.
We talk of "taboos" as if they were just banned areas and forbidden subjects, as in "Politics are a taboo
subject at family reunions" or “GPA’s are a taboo subject in lunchroom conversation.” But the original
concept is much more complex: at the very least it combines the idea of the "sacred" with that of the
"unclean". Jews and Muslims find pigs unclean, but not sacred. Taboos can be general or individual, but
generally they are neither – they pertain to a particular clan. Taboo in its Polynesian form is connected
with mana, a kind of mystical, transferable power.
Although Freud sometimes seems to accept functional explanations for the existence of taboos, he is
more often keen to disavow them. Take, for example, the special case of incest. Vulgar functionalism
might see this as a mechanism to avoid "inbreeding". But as an explanation this gets nowhere. The
insistence on exogamy – on marrying and breeding outside a group – actually makes reproduction
difficult. In any case there is no concept of "inbreeding" and no reason to understand its disadvantages.
Freud considers an account of the development of world-views which would render the primitive
irrelevant to the modern.
Incidentally, an original definition of totem and developed it to explain contemporary views of
landscape: “A totem is a class of material objects which a savage regards with superstitious respect,
believing that there exists between him and every member of the class an intimate and altogether
special relation . . . . The connection between a man and his totem is mutually beneficent “
Laura Mulvey’s The Gaze
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What is "the gaze" exactly? -- describes the act of looking; began as the study of the
objectification of women in visual texts.
How does it impact women in particular?
What are some of the issues involved in discussing "the gaze"?
 the objectification of women-- seen as objects
 internalization of the gaze, changes women's perceptions of themselves and makes them think
of themselves as objects
 men as the dominant group have been the looker (the subjects; women the objects)
 A text may reflect the language of partriarchy by being bound up in the idea of gender
differences that all patriarchy is founded on. Women are seen as Other, as an object, not a
subject. In a way she represents the unconscious of the male because she is always the
object he is looking at and never is able to speak for herself.
WOMAN AS IMAGE, MAN AS BEARER OF THE LOOK
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Split between male, active gaze which looks and female passivity which is looked upon. Women
are on display in film and seen as objects of desire.