According to Freud the uncanny is something that evokes a sense of horror and dread because it is something that is opposite of what is common or known. He argues that it is scary because it is unknown. He goes on to say that what is unknown is not always scary but what is known is never scary. He gives us this example of the idea of the Sand Man which was very frightening for children at the time he was writing. He gave an example of a child who saw his father die and became obsessed with the idea of the sand man to the point that he was deemed a mad man. He explains this uncanny fear
"We know from psycho-analytic experience, however, that the
fear of damaging or losing one’s eyes is a terrible one in children. Many
adults retain their apprehensiveness in this respect, and no physical injury is
so much dreaded by them as an injury to the eye. We are accustomed to say, too,
that we will treasure a thing as the apple of our eye. A study of dreams,
phantasies and myths has taught us that anxiety about one’s eyes, the fear of
going blind, is often enough a substitute for the dread of being castrated. The
self-blinding of the mythical criminal, Oedipus, was simply a mitigated form of
the punishment of castration — the only punishment that was adequate for him by
the lex talionis. We may try on rationalistic grounds to deny
that fears about the eye are derived from the fear of castration, and may argue
that it is very natural that so precious an organ as the eye should be guarded
by a proportionate dread. Indeed, we might go further and say that the fear of
castration itself contains no other significance and no deeper secret than a
justifiable dread of this rational kind."
This idea of the uncanny relates to this novel because the uncanny element in this story is the fact that a child which people think of as innocent is actually a killer. That is totally an unknown quality. The fact that a child is never suspected of committing murder which is what people thought was happening. Parents had no way of even protecting their children from this threat because they were never even thinking of Eli as a threat. This would most definitely lead to the felling of inadequacy as a parent because protecting their children is seen as a parental duty.
I also looked up the idea of the uncanny, which was actually pretty interesting (even if it was a little confusing). While I didn't completely understand the concept of the uncanny, I think this article helped me understand it a bit more.
ReplyDeleteI found the part about the Sand Man particularly interesting. I found the passage from Freud's "The Uncanny" to be very interesting as well.
I think that we both related the information that we could find about the uncanny to the story in the same way. The concept definitely reminds me of Eli, and the way that she causes fear by reversing the role of adult and child.
Alix, you bring up a very valid point. One of the astonishing points of this book was, as you said “uncanny relates to this novel because the uncanny element in this story is the fact that a child who people think of as innocent is actually a killer.” Lindqvist uses this as yet another way to create feelings of terror in the town of Blackeburg. Irrational fears are a major focus point within the narrative. Consider the Russian submarine which runs aground in Sweden during part 2. Think about the near hysteria that many of Blackeburg's citizens must have been feeling at the time as the Russians were seemingly knocking on their door. In Calhoun’s essay he notes that Sweden at the time seemed to be mostly a communist state. So the fear of a potential invasion must have been all too real, probably magnified x10 over what the US felt during the Cuban Missile crisis. What I mean was at least our soil was still sovereign, Sweden of that time period probably felt the encroachment of the Soviets like a noose around their necks.
ReplyDeleteAdding an interesting facet to this undercurrent of emotion was the brutal murders which were occurring within Blackeburg. During these times of heave societal paranoia it seems that people love to take things to extremes. That is why you make such a great point, it is indeed uncanny for Lindqvist to subvert Blackeburg’s fears by writing a cause for that hysteria that was probably as far from their collective reality as possible. Uncanny indeed!
When I think of the word uncanny, I automatically think strange. For me, thats the first word that comes to mind. Upon looking it up, I was completly confused. This essay was good because it goes into deeper detail into uncommon topics like the uncanny part of the girl who everyone thought was kind and sweet turned out to be a full blown killer and a 200 year old vampire.
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