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Virtual Class: Uncanny — 10 Comments

  1. In an article found on graduate.engl.virginia.edu, uncanny is derived from the German word “unheimlich”, which is considered untranslatable. Our rough English equivalent to the word is “uncanny” which itself is difficult to define. The article states that “this indescribable quality is actually an integral part of our understanding of the uncanny experience, which is terrifying precisely because it cannot be adequately explained”. From this, I assume that the definition of uncanny is something that can haunt someone. By “haunt”, I do not exclusively mean physically as by a ghost. I mean that something that leaves a negative, long-lasting impression in one’s mind. In The Hungry Woman, one can deem the act of Medea killing Chac-Mool as uncanny because it’s something that leaves a hanting impression in your mind. Most ask the question “How can a mother do that to her own child?” or even state “I could never do that”. This also relates to the term “abject”, as killing one’s own child is often seen as taboo and most are in fear of ever being put in that position.

    Works Cited: http://graduate.engl.virginia.edu/enec981/Group/chris.uncanny.html

  2. I found this definition of uncanny interesting: “the uncanny is an experience that is familiar but at the same time foreign for an individual. It is a situation that evokes emotions that a person may have felt before but leaves the person unsure of when, where or in what context those emotions were felt.” This definition is similar to the idea of deja vu in which someone feels like a particular incident has occurred before. According to this definition, uncanny is a sensation that deals with the human psyche, which is a very gothic idea. Oftentimes, the gothic deals with the psychological fears of human beings. It makes these fears come to life, and feel real which ultimately strikes fear in many. Similarly the uncanny makes things that seem impossible feel real to us, which can be very scary.

    works cited:
    “Definitions:Sublime, Uncanny, Gothic”. English 120: The Gothic Imagination. Feb. 21, 2014. http://gothic.voices.wooster.edu/class-summaries/

  3. I read about Sigmund Freud’s interpretation of the definition of “uncanny”. While most people find the word to be the same as “terror” or “horror”, Freud has his own take on it. An uncanny experience would be something like deja vu, not necessarily to fear.He divided the definition into two different classes: those taken by repression and those taken by demonstration of the truth of officially difficult beliefs.
    David Morris adds that Freud defines uncanny by deriving it from the inner self so it defeats the purpose to separate from it.

    Citing:
    Hammer Andersen, Carsten, Lars Christensen, and Mads Orbesen Troest. “”The Gothic Novel”.” “The Gothic Novel”. Aalborg University, 26 June 1998. Web. 21 Feb. 2014

  4. The uncanny is a sense of horror associated with the familiar becoming unfamiliar. Though sometimes (or even often) we are frightened by the unfamiliar and horrifying, it is doubles or something opposite of comfortable familiarity. An example would be the feeling of deju vu. It is at once familiar, as we feel we have experienced something before and unfamiliar (because we know we have not)and therefore unsettling. It’s a feeling of a double or a return to something that has been repressed. Freud defines it as “creating an uncanny atmosphere resulting from a confrontation with the unheimlich, meaning, with something that is withdrawn from our knowledge, with something heimlich-with our unconsciousness” (Reuber). Chac Mool’s murder by Medea contains some sense of the uncanny in two ways: first, Medea is uncertain whether Chac Mool is a ghost or really alive at the end of the play. Secondly, it evokes the feeling of uncertainty in us as a reader. Taken literally, Medea didn’t actually kill Chac Mool, but merely drugged him or that she is insane and hallucinating his presence, or the third possibility is that he is a ghost. As Reuber writes, “According to Freud, intellectual uncertainty only plays a minor role in the experience of the uncanny. However, this phenomenon plays a crucial function when defining possible sources of the uncanny in literature” (Reuber).

    Works Cited
    Reuber, Alexandera Maria. Haunted By the Uncanny-Development of a Genre from the Late Eighteenth to the Late Nineteeenth Century. August 2004. Dissertation.

  5. Jerrold E. Hogle states that “The device [Freud] isolates for rendering the symbolic disguises for such drives in fiction can also be employed, as Frankenstein has revealed, for configuring quite familiar and basic social contradictions engulfing middle-class individuals who must nevertheless define themselves in relation to these anomalies, often using creatures or similarly othered beings to incarnate such mixed and irresolvable foundations of being” (6). “This way our contradictions can be confronted by, yet removed from us into, the seemingly unreal, the alien, the ancient, and the grotesque” (6). The uncanny is familiar, yet not. It is both alluring, yet repulsive. As with “abject/abjection” I see how these terms can bring both the Gothic and Chicano elements together.

    Works Cited:

    Hogle, Jerrold E. “Introduction: The Gothic in western culture.” The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction. Ed. Jerrold E. Hogle. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 1-20. Print.

  6. From past classes and readings that I have done on the uncanny, my general understanding on the word and theory was always that it is the presentation of multiple perspectives one particular topic or thing. But how were these perspectives portrayed? Often times they were showed through reflection. It could have been an internal reflection, but more often than it was physical portrayal of one: the actual act of seeing something that is real but unreal because it is merely a representation of what you know. A different perspective because it could be the way a protagonist see a situation or the way others may view it. However, these reflections do not just propose multiple perspectives but serve as a chance to reveal the truth. In his article. “Gothic Sublimity,” David Morris states this theory of terror is derives “from something external, alien, or unknown but–on the contrary–from something strangely familiar which defeats our efforts to separate ourselves from it” (307). That is what strikes me as something being uncanny. It is what you know so well, but refuse to accept therefore it becomes frightening, thus making it Gothic in the sense that you are trying to thrust your fear into the unknown, where it resurfaces again and again.

    Works Cited:

    Morris, David B. “Gothic Sublimity.” New Literary History 16.2, The Sublime and the Beautiful: Reconsiderations (1985): 299-319. JSTOR. Web. 21 Feb. 2014. .

  7. In “The Concept as Ghost: Conceptualization of the Uncanny in Late-Twentieth-Century Theory” Annelen Masschelein analyzes the persistence of the Gothic concept of the uncanny, developed by Sigmun Freud, in theoretical literary discussions. Citing theorist Mieke Bal, the author examines the prevalence of this term which is useful to understand contemporary works for, as she states, such narrative modes help ” articulate an understanding, convey an interpretation, check an imagination run wild, enable discussion on the basis of common terms; they help perceive absences or exclusions”. The uncanny can be defined as the anxiety and fear that arises when the familiar, the ordinary is changed and becomes unknown and hauntingly different. This transformation can cause severe apprehension in the viewer who is forced to realize latent sentiments and ignored truths. Masschelein explains that for the Austrian psychiatrist, the uncanny marks a “return of the repressed or [an] apparent confirmation of surmounted, primitive beliefs…”. Therefore, the uncanny is relevant when reading gothic literature because it might explain the perpetual presence of the other in this genre. The other might embody those primal feelings we do not want to consciously acknowledge.

    Works Cited:

    Masschelein, Annelein.”The Concept as Ghost: Conceptualization of the Uncanny in Late-Twentieth-Century Theory” . Highbeam Business. March, 2002. Website.

    http://business.highbeam.com/4373/article-1G1-84213188/concept-ghost-conceptualization-uncanny-latetwentiethcentury

  8. Uncanny
    adjective
    1.
    having or seeming to have a supernatural or inexplicable basis; beyond the ordinary or normal; extraordinary: uncanny accuracy; an uncanny knack of foreseeing trouble.
    2.
    mysterious; arousing superstitious fear or dread; uncomfortably strange: Uncanny sounds filled the house.

    I was able to find this definition, on Dictionary.com, the second definition seems to suit the needs of this Gothic class. As it evokes the feeling of fear and unease.

    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/uncanny

  9. Uncanny is a term that has its gothic elements. The definition of uncanny, coming from the Merriam-Webster, says that a strange or unusual in a way that is surprising or difficult to understand. It also says that it is being beyond what is normal or expected: suggesting superhuman or supernatural powers. “The Uncanny” by Sigmund Freud states “what is uncanny is frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar.” He goes on to say how naturally not everything that is new and unfamiliar is frightening, however; the relation is not capable of inversion. The term uncanny produces the feelings of dread and horror. The article states how “apparent death and the re-animation of the dead have been represented as most uncanny themes”, which plays into the similarities of the gothic.

    Works Cited: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~amtower/uncanny.html
    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/uncanny

  10. The word uncanny seems to be something ominous yet unexplainable. Wikipedia lists the closest explanation to uncanny as being “the opposite of what is familiar”. Also when the word is searched for in google it is defined as something “strange or mysterious, esp. in an unsettling way.” Along with the definition the example was “an uncanny feeling that she was being watched”. I found this example to be perfect because it regards many of the novels we have been reading about in class. Lastly on thefreedictionary.com it lists uncanny as being “peculiarly unsettling, as if of supernatural origin or nature; eerie.”
    Sources
    http://www.thefreedictionary.com/uncanny
    ‎en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny‎
    Google Search