sigmund freud essay the uncanny

The Uncanny

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

“Screen Memories”

“The Creative Writer and Daydreaming”

“Family Romances”

Part 1, “Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood”

Part 2, “Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood”

Part 3, “Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood”

Part 4, “Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood”

Part 5, “Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood”

Part 6, “Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood”

Part 1, “The Uncanny”

Part 2, “The Uncanny”

Part 3, “The Uncanny”

Key Figures

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Summary and Study Guide

The Uncanny , published in 1919, is one of the most famous of Sigmund Freud’s essays. This is not only because many of his most foundational ideas had their genesis here but because the essay pertains to aesthetics and popular culture, making it both accessible and gripping for a broad readership. The Uncanny is a good example of Freud’s predilection for drawing on aesthetics to support his arguments, and thus a useful introduction to the ideas of this vastly influential thinker. It is also in The Uncanny that Freud sets out some of the most radical tenets of his thought: the primacy of the unconscious and the recurrence of repressed material from childhood.

The Uncanny is also a seminal text in the canon of literary criticism, and an extremely useful codex for any student of literature. Freud’s ideas about literature strongly inform almost any example of contemporary literary criticism that one reads. Although he claims at the beginning of the title essay that he “rarely” dabbles in aesthetics, literature is foundational to Freud’s theories of the structure of the human psyche. There are few texts that so compellingly make the case for literature as a route into the deepest parts of the self. Freud’s basic premise in the essay is to define the uncanny as any experience that reminds us of earlier moments in our psychic development, both individually and as a species.

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The Uncanny is a collection of essays that culminates in Freud’s essay of the same name. The first three essays in the collection, “Screen Memories,” “The Creative Writer and Daydreaming,” and “Family Romances,” are brief, and develop Freud’s theories about the connection between infantile development and creative ability. “Screen Memories” establishes the idea that many childhood memories are fictions. “The Creative Writer and Daydreaming” finds a synergy between children’s play, adult imagination, and creative writing. Finally, “Family Romances” elucidates the psychosexual fantasies constructed in the mind of the developing infant.

Freud builds on these brief essays in his essay “Leonardo Da Vinci and a Memory of this Childhood.” The essay is broken into six sections. It opens with Freud claiming that Da Vinci is exemplary not only for his achievements, but for his capacity to sublimate rather than repress his libidinal drives. Parts 2-4 explicate a bizarre childhood memory Da Vinci recorded in his notebooks of being hit on the mouth by the tail of a vulture as a baby. The fifth section focuses on Leonardo’s relationship with his father and its impact on Da Vinci’s work and spiritual beliefs. Freud closes the essay by claiming that Da Vinci was an obsessional neurotic whose capacity to sublimate was inexplicable via psychoanalysis. Freud argues that psychoanalysis can clarify the character but not the origin of Da Vinci’s genius.

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Freud’s essay, “The Uncanny,” is divided into three parts. In the opening section, Freud defines his central concept of the uncanny through an examination of the etymology of the term’s German translation, unheimlich . The second section considers Jensch’s reading of E.T.A. Hoffman’s short story “The Sandman,” which is foundational to Jensch’s definition of the uncanny, and Freud’s elaboration of it. The final section of Freud’s essay works through the effect of the uncanny in both literature and real-life case studies.

The first part of “The Uncanny” opens with the declaration that the psychoanalytic paper will concern itself with aesthetics. Freud has investigated the underdiscussed realm of literature’s unpleasurable effects, which include the uncanny. He proceeds with an analysis of the semantics of the terms heimlich (or “familiar), and unheimlich . Freud then takes up the only previous examination of the uncanny, Ernst Jentsch’s 1906 publication On the Psychology of the Uncanny. Jentsch’s definition of the uncanny involves a fear of the unfamiliar, and the experience of intellectual uncertainty. Freud will critique both aspects of Jentsch’s definition.

In the second section of “The Uncanny,” Freud reviews an example of uncanniness in the story “The Sandman,” by E.T.A. Hoffmann , which was originally drawn by Jentsch. Whereas Jentsch considers the most uncanny element of the story to be Olympia, the lifelike doll, Freud argues that the source of the uncanny is the eponymous Sandman, a bogeyman said to tear out children’s eyes. Freud claims that the protagonist’s recurrent fear is traceable to this childhood fantasy, behind which lies an unresolved castration complex. The castration complex is the early childhood fear of retribution from the same-sex parent for unconsciously desiring the opposite-sex parent.

In this section, Freud also examines the theories of Otto Rank and Schelling, as they pertain to the concept of the uncanny. Rank’s notion is that the double is created to preserve the ego from the threat of death. Schelling’s notion is that the uncanny is the appearance of something that should have remained hidden. Freud claims that latent in both theories is the fear of death, which was resolved by what he calls “primitive” societies by animistic beliefs in the power of the mind to manipulate matter. At the close of the section, Freud links this fear induced and inducing doubling to the return of repressed psychic material. The uncanny is about remembering what we would prefer not to recall. For example, being buried alive is uncanny because it recalls the familiar, or “the phantasy of […] intra-uterine existence” (15).

In the final section of the essay, Freud promises to allay the reader’s doubts through clinical examples. For the remainder of the essay, Freud offers examples of the uncanny that involve a repetition of the same thing, linking repetition compulsion as represented in literature to the symptoms displayed by his patients. Fairytales and instances of the dead coming back to life in Snow White and the Bible are not uncanny. Thus, Freud concludes, there is more to the definition. An uncanny effect is produced, he asserts, when repressed infantile complexes are revived by some experience in the adult’s life. Infantile complexes are intimately connected with animistic beliefs.

Finally, Freud returns to a discussion of the uncanny in literature. Storytellers “take advantage” of their readers’ “superstitiousness” to “control the current of their feelings” (19).Silence, solitude, and darkness are trademarks of the uncanny that relate to the infantile morbid anxiety “from which the majority of human beings have never become quite free” (20).

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"Freud and the Literary Imagination"

I. General Structure of the Essay

II. Definition of the Uncanny

-- Freud will take issue with both of these propositions. -- Study of the German words, heimlich and unheimlich (canny/homey; uncanny/unhomey). heimlich , first definition = I, a: belonging to the house; friendly; familiar; I, b: tame (as in animals); I, c: intimate, comfortable; i.e: secure, domestic(ated), hospitable. heimlich , second definition = concealed, secret, withheld from sight and from others; secretive, deceitful = private . -- Note the dialectic of these meanings, summarized on p. 200: 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. -- The term heimlich embodies the dialectic of "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 (see p. 200). However, in Freud's understanding the "heimlich" will also be something that is concealed from the self . unheimlich : as the negation of heimlich , this word usually only applies to the first set of meanings listed above: unheimlich I = unhomey, unfamiliar, untame, uncomfortable = eerie, weird, etc. unheimlich II (the less common variant) = unconcealed, unsecret; what is made known; what is supposed to be kept secret but is inadvertently revealed . -- Note the implicit connection of this notion of the unheimlich to Freud�s concept of "parapraxis," the inadvertent slip of the tongue that reveals a hidden truth. Schelling�s definition (p. 199): "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. In psychoanalytic terms, it provides a surprising and unexpected self-revelation . Freud concentrates on the unusual semantics of these 2 terms: heimlich I = known, familiar; unheimlich I = unknown, unfamiliar heimlich II = secret, unknown; unheimlich II = revealed, uncovered For a diagram of the complex semantic dynamics and oppositions Freud associates with these terms, click here . The word heimlich thus has a meaning that overlaps with its opposite, unheimlich ; the semantics of this word come full circle. -- 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 "Uncanny" 217)

III. E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Sandman" and the Psychoanalytic Elements of the Uncanny.

1) Freud stresses the uncertainty of whether the events the narrator relates to us are real or imaginary; for uncanny fiction, this ambivalence will become decisive. (This is Freud's version of Jentsch's "intellectual uncertainty.") 2) For Freud the source of the uncanny is tied to the idea of being robbed of one's eyes. Why? Here Freud turns to the experience of the psychoanalyst: In dreams, myths, neurotic fantasies, etc. loss of the eyes = fear of castration. In "The Sandman" Coppelius, the "bad" father, interferes with all love relationships. He is the powerful, castrating father who supplants (kills) the good father who first protects Nathaniel's "eyes." 3) The uncanny thus marks the return of the familiar in the sense of our psychic economy (in which nothing is ever lost or wholly forgotten). It is the castration complex as part of our infantile sexuality (genital phase) that is re-invoked by the fear of loss of the eyes in this story. What is uncanny here is thus the return of something in our psychosexual history that has been overcome and forgotten. -- Freud's first thesis: The uncanny arises due to the return of repressed infantile material. 4) Other examples of this: The double ( doppelganger ); its source is the primary narcissism of the child, its self-love. In early childhood this produces projections of multiple selves. By doing this the child insures his/her immortality. But when it is encountered later in life, after childhood narcissism has been overcome, the double invokes a sensation of the uncanny = a return to a primitive state. 5) But Freud also relates the double to the formation of the super-ego. The super-ego projects all the things it represses onto this primitive image of the double. Hence the double in later life is experienced as something uncanny because it calls forth all this repressed content: -- Alternative meanings for this form of the double: a. it represents everything that is unacceptable to the ego , all its negative traits that have been suppressed; or b. it embodies all those utopian dreams, wishes, hopes that are suppressed by the reality principle, by the encounter with society . (See "Uncanny" 211-212) This aspect of Freud's theory will become important for our interpretation of Hofmannsthal's "A Tale of the Cavalry." WHY IS THE DOPPELGANGER THE PARADIGM OF THE UNCANNY? -- It represents a psychic �nodal point� with multiple implications, meanings, sources, etc. AMBIVALENCE: The Double Doubled �The fact that an agency of this kind [the super-ego] exists, which is able to treat the rest of the ego like an object--the fact, that is, that man is capable of self-observation --renders it possible to invest the old idea of a �double� with a new meaning and to ascribe many things to it --above all, those things which seem to self-criticism to belong to the old surmounted narcissism of earlier times. But it is not only this latter material, offensive as it is to the criticism of the ego, which may be incorporated in the idea of a double. There are also all the unfulfilled but possible futures to which we still like to cling in phantasy, all the strivings of the ego which adverse circumstances have crushed [. . .].� �The Uncanny� (211-12; emphasis added) (This aspect of Freud�s theory will become important for our interpretation of Hofmannsthal�s �A Tale of the Cavalry.�) Freud's general thesis: The uncanny is anything we experience in adulthood that reminds us of earlier psychic stages, of aspects of our unconscious life, or of the primitive experience of the human species. a. castration b. double c. involuntary repetition; the compulsion to repeat ( Wiederholungszwang ) as a structure of the unconscious. d. animistic conceptions of the universe = the power of the psyche. It sees itself as stronger than reality; e.g. telepathy, mind over matter. These are common conceptions of primitive life. The uncanny arises as the recurrence of something long forgotten and repressed, something superceded in our psychic life = a reminder of our psychic past.

IV. The Uncanny in Literature, in Narrative Fiction.

A. Freud is not entirely satisfied with his own conclusion. Not everything that returns from repression is uncanny. Return of the repressed is a necessary condition for the uncanny, but not a sufficient one. Something else must also be at play here in order to create the experience of the uncanny. B. To understand this, Freud returns to the study of fiction for help. Here we find the 2 sources of the uncanny, its relation to the psychic past, confirmed: 1) uncanny = revival of repressed infantile material = part of individual psychic reality; 2) uncanny = confirmation or return of surmounted primitive beliefs of the human species , such as animism, etc. C. But Freud asks why our experience of the uncanny in our real-life experiences and in fiction are different. His answer (we know it already!) = fantasy is different from reality because it does not undergo reality-testing. -- Therefore, events that would be uncanny if experienced in real life are not experienced as such in fiction. Fairy tales, for example, give many instances of uncanny events that are not experienced by the reader as uncanny. Why? The readers adjust their sensibility to the fictional world . (See "Uncanny" 227) In other words, since uncanny events seem "normal" in the fairy-tale world, and we adjust our expectations to the "normal" state of this fictional reality, we as readers do not gain a sense of the uncanny. Or, we might say: since the characters in the fictional world of fairy tales do not see fantastic events as unusual or uncanny, but take them as a matter of course, the reader also is not led to find these things out of the "ordinary" (for the depicted world). -- Fiction only creates an uncanny effect if the author makes a pretense to realism ; if we as readers believe that real, actual conditions are being narrated. -- The experience of the uncanny in literature depends on the discrepancy between real events and fantastic occurrences in the fictional world. The author promises truth and verisimilitude, but then breaks this promise . (See "Uncanny" 227) -- We, as readers of the fiction, must share the perspective of the character who experiences the uncanny event in the fictional world . See "Uncanny" 229, the example of the severed hand. -- In Hoffmann's "The Sandman," the narrator makes us look through the spy-glass Nathaniel buys from Coppola/Coppelius, the demon optician. (See "Uncanny" 205-206).

V. Summary of the Qualities of Uncanny Fiction

A. Focus is on one central character = the anchor character ; events, people, etc. in the fictional world only have significance in relation to this character. It forms the hub, or center of all events. B. External events are seen through the perspective of the anchor character and colored by his or her psyche; they are projections of the psyche of this fictional character. C. The text thus takes on the quality of a dream text, with manifest and latent content. The real and the fantastic (Freud's required ambivalence) form a unity in the consciousness of the anchor character. This lends some of the events the shimmer of the symbolic because it is undecidable whether they are real or imagined. D. Stylistically, uncanny fiction requires a fusion of objective and subjective narrative styles . We commonly find a realistic frame, which reads like a report or a newspaper article, which is suddenly ruptured by fantastic events. But this rupture is also related with the accuracy and detail of objective narration. E. The reader's perspective must be that of the anchor character ; events must be perceived through his/her eyes, filtered through the psyche of this character. Only when all of these conditions are met is the experience of the uncanny transferred from the domain of the fictional world to the receptive experience of the reader.

The Uncanny

One hundred years ago, sigmund freud wrote his paper on ‘the uncanny’ (das unheimliche). by jamie ruers, one hundred years ago, sigmund freud wrote his paper on ‘ the uncanny ’ (das unheimliche). his theory was rooted in everyday experiences and the aesthetics of popular culture, related to what is frightening, repulsive and distressing..

The paper tackles the horrific concepts of inanimate figures coming to life, severed limbs, ghosts, the image of the double figure (doppelgaengers) and lends itself to art, literature and cinema.

Essay In Two Parts

Freud’s essay is written in two parts. The first part explores the etymology of the words ‘heimlich’ and ‘unheimlich’ (or ‘homely’ and ‘unhomely’, as it directly translates into English), their uses in the German dictionary and how these words are used in other languages. This must have been an unimaginable challenge for the translator!

In the second part, Freud begins to tackle people, things, self-expressions, experiences and situations that best represent the uncanny feeling.

Freud’s paradigm example is the short story of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s ‘The Sandman’ , a tale that parents would tell their children to encourage them to go to sleep. The story goes that the child must be asleep for the Sandman to put sand in the child’s eyes – if they are not asleep, the Sandman will take out their eyes. The protagonist is a boy named Nathaniel whose fate eventually does fall to the Sandman, losing not only his sight but his sanity, then his life. Freud asserts that the removal of the eyes alludes to an infantile fear of castration, but the castration complex is masked by a fear of losing a different sensitive organ: the eyes. This same theme is present in the tragedy of Oedipus.

Doppelgaenger

Freud also touches upon the notion of ‘the double’ or, as it is better known, the doppelgaenger, first explored in the psychoanalytic literature by Otto Rank in 1914. Freud writes that doppelgaengers can be found in:

Mirrors, shadows, guardian spirits, with the belief in the soul and the fear of death. The idea of the eternal soul allows us an energetic denial of the power of death. This was the first double of the body. From having been an assurance of immortality, it becomes the uncanny harbinger of death. (p. 235)

“Uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and old-established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of repression.” Sigmund Freud

Freud writes:

We can understand why linguistic usage has extended das Heimliche into its opposite, das Unheimliche; for this uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and old-established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of repression. (p. 241, SE XVII)

Through this process, we can see that the nature of the uncanny is entirely subjective, based upon our own experiences but haunts each of us to varying degrees.

By Jamie Ruers, Freud Museum Researcher

Buy The Uncanny by Sigmund Freud from the museum shop now.

Examples of the Uncanny

The Uncanny in Art

Waxwork dolls, automata, doubles, ghosts, mirrors, the home and its secrets, madness and severed limbs are mentioned throughout The Uncanny, influencing painters and sculptors to explore these themes and blur the boundaries between animate and inanimate, human and non-human, life and death.

Podcast: Freud in Focus 2

Posted in Museum Blog by Jamie Ruers on September 18th, 2019. Tags: The Uncanny

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what is the title of the first piece in the photograph in the blog on the uncanny in your website? (i.e. the sculpture of the life-size man lying down, death). thank you !

It is the Death Mask of the Wolf Man, Sergei Pankejeff.

Hi! Fascinating post! Hoffmann’s ‘The Sandman’ has proven in my experience to be especially good for analysing the familiar yet somewhat unknown presences we might encounter in our lives. What in your opinion are good examples of the Uncanny in literature?

Thanks for your message! My favourite example is The Double by Dostoyevsky. The story begins with the protagonist who finds himself compelled to confront a familiar figure he sees in the distance, who turns out to be himself. This is an unbearable experience and the whole story continues with many twists and turns (I won’t ruin it!). I think it’s not only a good example of doppelgaengers but this is a familiar scene for most people in dreams. This then becomes a nice example of the uncanny nature of dream scenes and nightmares. Do you have any other recommendations yourself, Isabelle?

Does anyone else have a favourite example of the uncanny in literature? Please join in the discussion!

Very interesting subject! Do you have examples of the use of The Uncanny in television shows?

Almost all, if not all, episodes of “The Twilight Zone”. One I would suggest is “The Living Doll”, it features a talking, sentient doll named Talky Tina. I won’t spoil the ending though.

Hi, I’m currently looking at examples of the uncanny in gothic literature, for example its occurrence in the iconography of the haunted house – looking specifically at The Haunting of Hill House. I was wondering, what translation of Freud’s Das Unheimliche do you quote in this article?

Hi Lucy! We use the Standard Editions for quoting Freud. For the full reference: Freud, S., Standard Edition XVII (1917-1919), “On Infantile Neurosis and Other Works” (trans. Strachey, J) You can find the full citation and details here. Hope this helps!

Hi! I am currently writing my dissertation on the psychodynamics of Jacobean Revenge drama and am due to start an MA in Victorian Studies so I have some literary suggestions. Middleton’s Changeling is a great example of ‘doubling’ and the castration anxiety described in the article, especially in reference to eyesight. The Duchess of Malfi by Webster features some very interesting uses of wax work limbs and its very very creepy! The uncanniness of automatons is also used in Decadent literature a lot, especially Rachilde’s Monsieur Venus.

Fascinating information!! To my mind, an excellent example of the uncanny appears in F. Scott Fitzgerald’ s story, “One Trip Abroad.” This story has been particularly admired for Fitzgerald’s effective adaptation of the Doppelgänger device. Obviously, I highly recommend this story. Laura Rinaldi

Hi! This is the most understandable passage about the idea of the uncanny. I’m still reading Freud’s article about the uncanny though, and now i’m on the ‘double’ section. So, i’m writing my undergraduate thesis using the uncanny theory by Freud and taking H.P Lovecraft short stories as the main source for the analysis. Btw, i use 2 of Lovecraft short stories, Whisperer In The Darkness and At The Mountain of Madness which i think it would be good using this theory since the whole idea of the uncanny is ‘all that is terrible, arouses dread and creeping horror, whatever excites dread.’ So, do you think that most of Lovecraft works (especially those two short stories) are suitable for “the characteristics” of the uncanny? And if you were me, how would you analyze a literary work using the uncanny theory?

Thanks in advance!

What about the story of ‘the Nutcracker’ then? That is about toys and other objects coming alive!

Hi Gerda. That is a great question! The modern popularised versions of the Nutcracker (Tchaikovsky’s ballet or TV/Films adaptations) are in fact watered down versions of the original tale! Interestingly, the original ‘Nutcracker’ was written by E.T.A. Hoffmann, who also wrote ‘The Sandman’ which Freud analyses in his Uncanny essay. The original story was actually rather uncanny full of references to death and castration; mice have their tails chopped off and the dolls come alive when the protagonist, a little girl named Marie, cuts her arm and begins to have fever dreams from the blood loss (perhaps this is an allegory for the loss of her childhood…?). Throughout, Marie finds it difficult to differentiate between her fever dreams and reality. The story ends with one paragraph – sorry, a spoiler here – as Marie falls in love with the Nutcracker and goes to live with him in the Marzipan Kingdom forever. I’m sure wonderful papers have been written about why Marie stayed in the fantasy world 🙂

This is a welcome set of posts and comments. It seems to me that we are about to engage with the uncanny in the way the Freud would have hoped – facing the call to all embrace the reality of the all the things our “developed” judeo-christian-informed academic circles have rendered superstition and unscientific. Some hypotheses and questions arise for me. This could be a time of awakening for organisations, individuals and society at large, as we turn and face the emergence of the unconscious in the age of AI. The Chthonic turn, the hermetic gaze and the masonic philosophical position will have to find a new home side by side with the Judeo-Christian world view. It may also be seen as an ancestral healing of the legacy of the various Inquisitions led by the Vatican in centuries past that wiped out epistemologies rooted to the earth and non-human ways of Being. May open a new perspective on climate peril, collapsing democracies and a host of other discontents of our (un)civilisation. Lots of questions…..

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Oxford University Press's Academic Insights for the Thinking World

Explaining Freud’s concept of the uncanny

British Journal of Aesthetics

Founded in 1960, the  British Journal of Aesthetics  is highly regarded as an international forum for debate in philosophical aesthetics and the philosophy of art. The Journal is published to promote the study and discussion of philosophical questions about aesthetic experience and the arts.

• By Mark Windsor
• April 17 th 2019

According to his friend and biographer Ernest Jones, Sigmund Freud was fond regaling him with “strange or uncanny experiences with patients.” Freud had a “particular relish” for such stories.

2019 marks the centenary of the publication of  Freud’s essay, “The ‘Uncanny”.  Although much has been written on the essay during that time, Freud’s concept of the uncanny  is often not well understood. Typically, Freud’s theory of the uncanny is referred to under the heading of “the return of the repressed.” But Freud also offered another, more often overlooked, explanation for why we experience certain phenomena as uncanny. This has to do with the apparent confirmation of “surmounted primitive beliefs.”

According to this theory, we all inherit, both from our individual and collective pasts, certain beliefs in animistic and magical phenomena—such as belief in the existence of spirits—which most of us, Freud thought, have largely, but not totally, surmounted. “As soon as something  actually happens  in our lives,” Freud wrote, which seems to confirm a surmounted primitive belief, we get a feeling of the uncanny. Not only must the phenomenon be experienced as taking place in reality, however, it must also bring about uncertainty about what is real. As Freud put it, the phenomenon must bring about “a conflict of judgement as to whether things which been ‘surmounted’ and are regarded as incredible may not, after all, be possible.”

Consider some examples. Apparent acts of telepathy and precognition can appear to confirm belief in the omnipotence of thoughts. Waxworks and other highly lifelike human figures can appear to affirm belief in animism—the doctrine that everything is imbued with a living soul.

A remarkable illustration of Freud’s theory can be found in  Carl Jung’s autobiography . In 1909, during a meeting between Jung and Freud, Jung “had a curious sensation,” as if his “diaphragm were made of iron and were becoming red-hot—a glowing vault.” “And at that moment,” Jung wrote, there was such a “loud report” that came from the bookcase that was standing next to them that he and Freud “started up in alarm, fearing the thing was going to topple over.” Jung said to Freud: “There, that is an example of a so-called catalytic exteriorization phenomenon.” “Oh come,’” Freud replied. “That is sheer bosh.” “You are mistaken, Herr Professor,” said Jung. “And to prove my point, I now predict that in a moment there will be another such loud report!” Jung wrote that no sooner had said these words “than the same detonation went off in the bookcase.”

“To this day I do not know what gave me this certainty.” Jung wrote. “But I knew beyond all doubt that the report would come again. Freud only stared aghast at me.”

Following the incident, Freud wrote a letter to Jung advising him to keep a “cool head.” Freud was first inclined “to ascribe some meaning” to the noise. But he subsequently made some investigations, and numerous times had observed the same noise coming from the bookcase, yet never in connection with his thoughts. “My credulity,” Freud wrote, “or at least my readiness to believe, vanished along with the spell of your personal presence.”

Freud’s theory of surmounted primitive beliefs provides an explanation for why Freud experienced the sounding bookcase uncanny. It also provides an explanation for why the event had a different effect on Jung. For Freud causal connection between Jung’s thoughts and the noise was impossible. For Jung, it merely affirmed his belief in the reality of the “catalytic exteriorization phenomenon.”

Can this theory of Freud’s be used to explain all uncanny phenomena? This does not seem likely. For a start, one may have qualms about Freud’s characterisation of primitive beliefs. It also does not seem plausible that in order to experience something as uncanny one must first have held and then surmounted a belief in its reality. What if I had never believed in the existence of ghosts, does that mean I cannot experience a ghost-like apparition as uncanny?

Can these problems with Freud’s theory be overcome? That is a task for another occasion.

Featured image credit: “Early morning in NZ” by Tobias Tullius. Public domain via  Unsplash .

Mark Windsor holds a PhD in history and philosophy of art from the University of Kent, and is currently employed as a lecturer in aesthetics at the New College of the Humanities. He has articles published or forthcoming in the  British Journal of Aesthetics ,  Philosophy and Literature ,  Estetika , and  Tate   Papers .

His article, ' What is the Uncanny? ', was included in the  2018 Best of Philosophy collection .

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Freud The Uncanny Summary

Summary & analysis of the uncanny by sigmund freud.

In Sigmund Freud’s seminal essay “The Uncanny,” he delves into the enigmatic concept of the uncanny and its profound impact on human psychology and literature. Freud’s exploration revolves around the uncanny as a state of simultaneous familiarity and unfamiliarity, which engenders a sense of discomfort and unease within individuals. 

The Uncanny | Summary

The essay by Sigmund Freud is divided into  three  sections. The essay progresses from an introductory overview of the uncanny to a detailed exploration of its manifestations and underlying psychological mechanisms. By analyzing the uncanny, Freud aims to uncover deeper insights into the human psyche and its relationship with art.

Within each section, Freud provides a  comprehensive analysis  of the theme at hand. He draws on psychoanalytic concepts, case studies, literary examples, and his own observations to support his arguments. Freud’s writing style is characterized by a precise and  analytical approach , employing intricate vocabulary and theoretical frameworks to elucidate his points.

Throughout the essay, Freud demonstrates a  logical progression  from one argument to the next, showing the interconnectedness of the various themes. He links the fear of death to the presence of doubles, highlighting how the uncanny emerges from the disruption of identity boundaries. He also connects the uncanny to the workings of the unconscious, emphasizing how repressed desires can resurface and contribute to the uncanny experience.

Towards the end of the essay, Freud concludes his exploration of the uncanny by summarizing the key points made and  reflecting  on the broader implications of his findings. He offers insights into the psychological and artistic significance of the uncanny and its impact on human experience.

  The principal argument of this essay revolves around the uncanny’s association with the fear of death . He posits that the uncanny emerges when the familiar becomes infused with the realization of mortality and the unknown aspects of existence. This unsettling encounter with the uncanny stems from the primal fear of confronting one’s own mortality and the mysteries of what lies beyond life.

Freud also explores the concept of the double or  doppelgänger  as a manifestation of the uncanny. The presence of a doppelgänger, a replica of oneself, disrupts the distinction between self and other. This blurring of identity engenders a feeling of eeriness and unease. The uncanny nature of the double arises from its ability to evoke anxieties related to  identity dissolution  and the  disintegration of the self .

Furthermore, he delves into the connection between the uncanny and the  unconscious mind.  He argues that the uncanny emerges when repressed desires and forbidden elements of the psyche resurface and manifest in unsettling ways. These  resurgences  can occur in dreams, fantasies, or irrational beliefs, unleashing the uncanny experience. The uncanny thus becomes a conduit for exploring the  hidden depths  of the unconscious.

The Uncanny, Section 1 | Analysis

In the opening section of Freud’s essay, he provides a succinct  overview of his hypothesis , which centers on the existence of a distinct psychological phenomenon known as the “uncanny.” Freud posits that this uncanny feeling is characterized by a sense of unease and discomfort, differentiating it from conventional fear. It arises when something once familiar reemerges unexpectedly and imposes itself upon us in an unwelcome manner.

Implicitly assuming the reader’s familiarity with key psychoanalytic concepts, Freud’s initial exposition can be initially daunting for novices to his work. Nevertheless, this section offers valuable insights into Freud’s assumptions and  methodological approach , particularly regarding the application of psychoanalysis to cultural and artistic phenomena.

It is important to note that “The Uncanny” was published  later in Freud’s career,  in 1919, when the foundational principles of psychoanalysis were already well-established. At this juncture, Freud felt confident in expanding the purview of psychoanalysis to encompass cultural and anthropological inquiries.

As a psychoanalyst, Freud holds a profound interest in art due to its intrinsic connection to fantasy, the instinctual, and the irrational. He contends that art serves as a medium through which our unconscious manifests itself in the form of images, symbols, and signs. While in other works Freud emphasizes the personal expression of an artist’s wishes or  repressed memories , in the essay, he treats art, particularly literature, as a collective and  universal repository  for humanity’s fears and suppressed memories.

This perspective on art aligns with Freud’s utilization of language and linguistics as a means to elucidate  shared cultural beliefs.  Freud contends that seemingly innocuous phrases often harbor meanings and connections between ideas or emotions that once resided in our minds but now lie dormant—latent and yet undeniably present. Here, a linguistic analysis unveils the intricate interplay between the word  “unheimlich,”  meaning uncanny, and its antithesis,  “heimlich,”  denoting familiarity, relatedness to the home, and simultaneously, secrecy and danger. German speakers employ these words instinctively, without pondering their connection, as they intuitively grasp the  emotional resonance  and interconnectedness between them.

His linguistic investigation doubles as a survey of nineteenth-century German literary works, encompassing renowned authors such as  J.W. Goethe  and  Friedrich Schiller , as well as lesser-known figures like Jeremias Gotthelf, Berthold Auerbach, Karl Gutzkow, and Johann Pestalozzi.

The essay exhibits Freud’s characteristic  argumentative style,  wherein he subtly intertwines broader cultural and psychological arguments within the study of an extreme or isolated case. While traditional aesthetics have predominantly focused on the positive effects engendered by art, such as beauty and grandeur, Freud diverges by centering his inquiry on horror, discomfort, and anxiety. By scrutinizing a phenomenon situated at the fringes of  artistic acceptability or aesthetics , often associated with genres struggling for recognition, like horror, Freud aims to shed light on a fundamental aspect of the  symbiotic relationship  between art and our psychic lives.

This  rhetorical strategy  mirrors Freud’s psychoanalytic writings, which frequently blur the demarcation between “neurotic” cases and the human condition at large, as well as the line between health and illness. Freud adeptly veils whether his observations exclusively pertain to the “ morbidly anxious ” or “neurotic” individuals, or if they encompass  psychic processes  experienced universally by all human beings. In a similar vein, Freud coyly claims immunity to the uncanny while relying on his own experiences as evidential support. 

In essence, Freud’s opening section concisely introduces the central hypothesis while weaving together themes of  cultural analysis, linguistics, literature, and psychoanalysis.  It sets the stage for a deeper exploration of the uncanny and its profound implications for artistic and human experience.

The Uncanny, Section 2 | Analysis 

In the second section of Freud’s essay, he embarks on a  comprehensive exploration  of the uncanny, drawing upon various examples and phenomena to construct his theory. Freud deftly  dissects the uncanny experiences  and effects that have long captured the imagination of readers and viewers, resonating with their innate fears and anxieties. He astutely observes that these motifs, such as the helplessness in dreams, the animation of inanimate objects, encounters with doubles, and the return of the dead, continue to captivate audiences within the horror genre.

Freud demonstrates his mastery of psychoanalysis by weaving together elements from existing theories while offering his unique insights. While borrowing  Jentsch’s concept  of the uncanny and embracing  Schelling’s notion  of the return of the hidden, Freud goes beyond these perspectives to delve into the depths of his own psychoanalytic practice. He reveals that the roots of the uncanny lie in the  recesses of our memories, desires, and fears —traces from infancy or earlier stages of human existence that have been repressed or overcome.

Central to Freud’s argument is the uncanny’s peculiar feeling of  familiarity,  which distinguishes it from mere fear. This  sensation , he posits, is a form of  recollection , a stirring of memories that were once thought irretrievable. For instance, the animation of dolls triggers a reminiscence of our childhood belief in their lifelike qualities, when we possessed the conviction that we could exert control over the animate spirits inhabiting the world. Similarly, the fear of losing one’s eyes harkens back to the childhood dread of castration, a universal experience among male children when confronted with their burgeoning sexuality. Freud unveils how the uncanny represents the recollection of our time in the womb, manifesting as the  terrifying prospect of being buried alive.

Moreover, Freud skillfully interweaves the development of humanity with the psychological development of children. He illuminates the striking parallels between the beliefs held by children, neurotics, and “primitive man,” notably the  narcissistic belief  in the  omnipotence  of one’s thoughts. By drawing these connections, he indicates that the uncanny, while predominantly associated with neurotics, is, in fact, an  intrinsic aspect  of human consciousness.

As Freud’s argument unfolds, readers may initially find his conclusions challenging to accept. However, it is worth noting that his analysis of  E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “The Sand-Man”  has been widely regarded as definitive. Freud perceptively dissects the intricate interplay between the story’s familial dynamics and the unsettling Olympia episode, elucidating how Nathaniel’s narcissistic love for a character devoid of personality encapsulates the  traumatic experiences  of his past. He suggests that Hoffmann may have been driven by  personal experiences  to craft a chilling tale or to intentionally employ the uncanny as a  narrative device.

Freud expertly combines his psychoanalytic expertise with  literary analysis , skillfully navigating the realm of the uncanny. He offers a rich  tapestry of insights , unveiling the hidden layers of our  psychic lives  and shedding light on the intricate interplay between repressed memories, childhood fears, and the universal allure of the uncanny. Freud’s profound observations not only deepen our understanding of the uncanny phenomenon but also emphasize the enduring relevance of his psychoanalytic approach in exploring the  complex depths of human experience.

The Uncanny, Section 3 | Analysis

In the third section of Freud’s essay, he delves into the exploration of the  creative employment  of the uncanny by authors and the implications it holds for  artistic expression . Freud acknowledges that the uncanny, with its ability to evoke profound emotions and tap into the depths of the human psyche, has a significant role in literature and art.

Freud proposes that the primary source of the uncanny in literature is the presence of  repressed desires  and  fears  within the reader’s own unconscious. He argues that works of fiction serve as  powerful stimuli  that awaken these latent emotions, thereby eliciting a response that is both unsettling and captivating. By unraveling the underlying psychological mechanisms at play, Freud provides valuable insights into the intricate dynamics between the artist, the work, and the audience. He highlights the motif of the  “double,”  where characters encounter their doppelgängers or encounter mirrored versions of themselves. The concept of the  double triggers  an unsettling sensation, as it challenges the  stability of identity  and blurs the boundaries between the self and the other.

Freud also explores the  role of repetition  in creating an uncanny effect. He argues that repetition, particularly in the form of recurrent themes, symbols, or patterns, intensifies the sense of the uncanny. The repetition of certain elements evokes a feeling of familiarity while simultaneously breeding unease and ambiguity. Additionally, he emphasizes the significance of the  “omnipotence of thoughts”  in generating the uncanny. He suggests that the ability of thoughts and fantasies to influence reality, blurring the line between imagination and actuality, contributes to the uncanny experience. 

He also illustrates the interplay between the conscious and unconscious aspects of the creative process. He suggests that artists, often unconsciously, tap into their  own repressed emotions and desires,  infusing their works with an uncanny quality. This notion sheds light on the profound connection between the artist’s  personal experiences  and the universality of the uncanny in artistic expression.

Freud’s analysis underscores the  transformative potential of art . He argues that literature, through its evocation of the uncanny, provides a means for individuals to confront their deepest fears and desires in a controlled and symbolic manner. In this way, the uncanny becomes a vehicle for  catharsis  and  self-discovery , allowing individuals to grapple with their innermost conflicts and anxieties.

By unraveling the enigmatic nature of the uncanny, Freud deepens our understanding of the profound impact of art on the human experience. “The Uncanny” stands as a testament to Freud’s pioneering exploration of the subconscious and its profound influence on our understanding of literature and human psychology.

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The "Uncanny"

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What is the Uncanny? || Definition & Examples

"what is the uncanny": a literary guide for english students and teachers.

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What is the Uncanny? Transcript (Spanish and English Subtitles Available in Video. Click HERE for the Spanish Transcript)

By Ray Malewitz , Oregon State University Associate Professor of American Literature

4 August 2020

What scares us? What keeps us up at night after we watch a horror movie or has us rushing to lock our doors after reading a scary novel? If we run through a catalog of stock horror characters, we might come up with an easy and obvious answer to this question: we are afraid of things and people we don’t understand.

We all can probably agree that the creatures in the Ridley Scott movie Alien are terrifying, and this is largely due to the fact that they don’t look or act like us (they pop out of our stomachs, after all!)

This tendency to view “alien” others as evil or frightening is, of course, often itself evil and frightening, as countless stories from history and literature remind us. But this depressing tendency isn’t what I want to get into today.

Instead, I want to discuss a different (and, to my mind, more interesting) kind of fear, one that is generated by things that are NOT unfamiliar to us. I’m thinking here of things that have been with us since our childhoods, like dolls, for example, or clowns, or televisions. What is it about these old familiar things that, under certain circumstances, raises the hair on the backs of our necks?

uncanny_image_clowns.jpg

Sigmund Freud takes up this question in a 1919 essay “The Uncanny,” and his thoughts on the subject are still useful 100 years later. In this lesson, I want to sketch out his definition of this special kind of fear and then show you how you might apply it to your own readings of literature.

 Freud begins his essay with a strange observation.  The word for uncanny in Freud’s native language of German is “unheimlich,” which means not from the home.  In other words, not familiar. This definition seems to repeat what I just said about alien others—we fear that which is not from the home. But Freud also notes that unheimlich (or uncanny) has, in certain situations, been used to mean something hidden inside the home that was never meant to come to light.

This is very strange, as it suggests that the meaning of unheimlich and heimlich, or uncanny and canny, overlap.  Like the word buckle, which can mean to break apart or to come together, uncanny thus means itself and its opposite at the same time.  Weird, right?

To resolve this paradox, Freud turns to his general theory of the self and asks what might be hidden within us that suddenly comes to light and frightens us.  As you may already know, Freud was absolutely obsessed with changes that take place in our minds as we move from childhood to adulthood.  When we are children, Freud suggests, we are fiercely devoted to our mothers, because they nurture and protect us. Anything or anyone who gets in the way of this devotional love becomes, in our irrational baby minds, a threat that should be eliminated—even if that threat happens to be our father.

What I’ve just described is a version of Freud’s famous Oedipus complex, in which a male child, echoing the actions of the tragic Greek king Oedipus, wants to kill his father and marry his mother.  Freud isn’t suggesting that our adult rational selves want to carry out these actions—Oedipus, after all, is so horrified by his actions that he blinds himself when he discovers what he has done.  Instead Freud is suggesting that the self we once were as a child still remains within us, hidden underneath our new rational, adult self.

And sometimes, like the alien in Scott’s movies, that hidden self pops out. As he writes, “Nowadays we no longer believe [in childish fantasies], we have surmounted such ways of thought; but we do not feel quite sure of our new set of beliefs, and the old ones still exist within us ready to seize upon any confirmation” (241).

So now we’re getting somewhere!  The uncanny seems to be related to beliefs we once held when we were children that we’ve repressed or covered over or hidden away to become adults.  We cover over these beliefs because, of course, those beliefs are wrong and we don’t want to be wrong.  We want to be grown up.  We want to be rational people with proper attitudes about the world. (Clowns aren’t scary, Ray, stop behaving like a child!)

And this process of maturation, of giving up our childish things, takes a lot of time and effort on our part.  It would be absolutely horrifying to imagine, as adults, that our child-self had a better understanding of the world than we do. This, for Freud, is the uncanny—it is the dread we feel in situations in which our childish fantasies and fears appear more real and more true than our adult worldviews.

If we have this idea in mind, the difference between familiar things that delight us and familiar things that terrify us start to make sense.  In the movie Toy Story, the talking dolls on screen are funny and sympathetic characters because they are written within a genre that makes it ok for them to come to life.  I don’t go to a Pixar movie and expect reality. In the realist setting of horror, however, those same dolls become terrifying to adult audiences.

uncanny_dora.jpg

Along similar lines, if I were a child, I might imagine, say, Dora the Explorer as someone who is actually inside of my tv asking me for advice on her travels.  As an adult, well, that would also be pure terror (right? You—right there, yes, I’m talking to you!)

uncanny_the_ring.jpg

Both of these examples suggest one final necessary property of the uncanny—realism.  Fairy tales and children’s cartoons cannot be uncanny, because those genres never ask us to believe that what we are watching relates in any way to our reality.  “The situation is altered,” Freud writes, “as soon as the writer pretends to move in the world of common reality… He takes advantage, as it were, of our supposedly surmounted [or overcome] superstitious-ness; he deceives us into thinking that he is giving us the sober truth, and then after all oversteps the bounds of possibility.”

Freud’s phrasing might sound confusing, so let’s clear it up with a simple example.  Here’s one from the opening to Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem, “The Raven.”

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

 While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

”’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—

Only this, and nothing more.”

It is, of course, terrifying to hear an unexpected knock at your door at midnight. It would be even more terrifying and uncanny if your significant other, Lenore, had just died and you were saddled with immense grief, as we later discover is the case with Poe’s speaker. The knocking might remind you of strange noises you heard at night when you were a child that you thought were ghosts or demons.  Or it might encourage you to imagine that Lenore could return from the dead, even though your rational self knows that is impossible.

The speaker considers both uncanny scenarios after a mysterious talking raven appears, which leads the speaker to descend into madness. But before any of this happens, (and before the uncanny can therefore operate), Poe’s poem must “pretend to move in the world of common reality.” Poe does this by having his speaker insist that there is a rational explanation for the tapping. It is a visitor, he mutters to himself, “Only this, and nothing more.” In other words, Poe and his speaker here are insisting that he (and the readers along for the ride) have no cause for concern—there is a perfectly rational explanation for the strange noise at his door.

Even after the raven appears and starts squawking “Nevermore,” the speaker still maintains his faith in his rationality:

“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store

Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—

Till the dirges of his Hopes that melancholy burden bore

Of ‘Never—nevermore.”

I won’t go any further into an interpretation of this poem, other than to say that Freud’s model works quite well within it.  If you have any thoughts on how the analysis could proceed, I hope you’ll share them in the comments section in the video.  You could also, incidentally, consider how the uncanny might work in the first example I mentioned at the start of this video—the Alien movie—in which what appears on the surface to be wholly unfamiliar phenomena—aliens bursting out of bodies, for example—might actually, with a bit of thought, be understood as events our child selves were quite familiar with. And our mothers, too.

Freudian readings of literature are obviously old and problematic in a variety of ways, and they need to be reworked for the 21 st century. But as his theory of the uncanny itself suggests, leaving Freud’s ideas behind or covering them over carries its own risks, too. Reading his theory and making it relevant for our very different times can help us to gain a better insight into what we fear and, more importantly, what that fear can tell us about who we are.

Want to cite this?

MLA Citation: Malewitz, Raymond. "What is the Uncanny?" Oregon State Guide to English Literary Terms, 4 Aug. 2020, Oregon State University, https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-uncanny. Accessed [insert date].

Further Resources for Teachers

The uncanny can contribute to a variety of discussions of popular Gothic short stories, including Poe's "Ligeia" and "Fall of the House of Usher" and Henry James's novella The Turn of the Screw.

Interested in more video lessons? View the full series:

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The Uncanny

By sigmund freud, the uncanny essay questions.

In what ways is Freud's The Uncanny a typical artistic study, and in what ways is it atypical?

Freud's Uncanny is a typical study in that it contains a close reading of a well-known work of art, in this case, Hoffmann's "Sand-Man," and offers an interpretation of it, parsing the author's intentions, and examining how it achieves its effects. It takes these conclusions and makes some hypotheses about art and how art functions. Freud's reading suggests that art serves as a repository for the fears and wishes of infancy and of human pre-history, which, because they have been repressed or overcome, cannot be directly expressed and find symbolic expression in art. Freud's study is atypical in several ways, however. First, Freud does not come to literature as a student of art, but rather with a pre-made methodology and anthropology—that of psychoanalysis—which he wants to extend to art. Second, Freud does not focus on art's positive aspects, like beauty or grandeur, but rather on a single negative effect, that of anxiety or discomfort, that is usually used by artworks looked down upon as "popular," e.g., horror. And finally, Freud is less concerned with art itself than the structures of the mind that allow artistic effects to be possible.

Reconstruct Freud's linguistic analysis of the word unheimlich , or "uncanny." In light of the literary analysis, why do you think Freud relies on this dictionary definition?

Freud demonstrates that the word unheimlich is actually one of the meanings of its antonym, heimlich . Heimlich can be used to refer to anything that is familiar or cozy. It also refers to anything of or relating to the home, as in a family friend, or, in politics, a privy councilor, someone who advises a monarch on domestic affairs. It can mean something that is tame, in the sense of a domestic plant or animal. It also refers to the sense of safety that comes with being concealed or tucked away. From this latter meaning, Freud is able to extract a range of meanings that contradict the previous ones. Heimlich can mean "secret," or mysterious, and from there it also has a range of usages that connote the unknown, or danger, like "hidden" knowledge. Freud concludes that the word unheimlich contains in itself two opposite meanings: that of the familiar and the frightening. Freud's treatment of language runs parallel to his treatment of literature. He sees language as a repository for common cultural assumptions that all people find intuitively and emotionally familiar. By exploring linguistic usage, Freud believes that we can get to the origin of these assumptions.

Summarize Freud's reading of E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Sand-Man." Consider the pros and cons of his reading.

In Freud's reading of "The Sand-Man," Nathaniel suffers from an un-worked-through castration complex. As a child, he has ambivalent feelings towards his father, as a possible castrator who interferes with his capacity for pleasure, and also as his defender and a source of love. Nathaniel splits these ambivalent feelings into two father figures: the Sand-Man/Coppola and his actual father. He believes the Sand-Man murdered his father because he transfers his own wish to kill his father onto the menacing figure. The fear of castration is attached to his obsession with the loss of his eyes. As an adult, he falls in love with the doll Olympia because she is the ideal screen for his infant narcissism, which he has not worked through as a result of his trauma. His narcissism causes him to recognize in her his own feminine stance towards his father. Once again, the Sand-Man returns as a castrating figure who separates him from Olympia, in the guise of the eye-glass merchant Coppola.

Freud's reading of "The Sand-Man" has the advantage of linking the childhood episode and the Olympia-automaton episode. Though Freud acknowledges the satirical tone with which Hoffmann treats the Olympia episode, Freud doesn't address whether this substantively changes the "uncanny" aspect of it. Freud also overlooks the role played by technology in Hoffmann. Freud does not address the role of optical media and scientific measurements, and the frightening technological progress that allows Professor Spalanzani to create Olympia.

Choose three instances of the uncanny and summarize Freud's explanation for them.

Freud believes that the fear of loss of one's eyes, or of damage done to one's eyes, has its roots in the childhood fear of castration. When male infants develop a sexuality they soon begin believing that their father will castrate them to eliminate sexual competition for their mother. Freud believes that the fear of losing one's eyes is a manifestation of this fear, which has been repressed as the ego develops. Freud believes that the uncanny feeling generated by two doubles—people who look exactly alike—comes from infant narcissism, and the narcissism of primitive humanity. Primitive people, like the Ancient Egyptians, believed that the double was insurance against death, and preserved the individual. Later, the double came to embody the conscience, or a critical faculty of self-reflection. Both of these earlier beliefs have been repressed. Freud believes that fear of living dolls is a recurrence of the belief that inanimate objects can be brought to life with one's thoughts, which infants and primitive peoples have. All of these thoughts have been repressed, which is why they are forbidding and yet familiar.

Explain Freud's argument about uncanny effects in the third section. Why are potentially uncanny phenomena sometimes not uncanny?

Freud believes that one key decisive factor is whether the uncanny effect takes place in real life, or an artwork supposed to take place in real life or not. The uncanny must take place in a context we believe to be real, perceived by someone who believes themselves to be in the real world. If we consciously know that the phenomena are taking place in a make-believe world, as for example in a fairy tale, the effect won't be uncanny. Freud makes a further distinction. On the one hand are those uncanny phenomena that have their roots in earlier phases of human consciousness, like worry about whether dolls will come to life. These kinds of uncanny effects are more likely to occur in real life. On the other hand are those uncanny phenomena rooted in childhood, like limbs coming to life on their own. These effects are more likely to occur in art, since for children these kinds of fantasies are rooted completely in the mind—they never had anything to do with real experiences. Freud believes that the uncanny effect of the former is in the clash between two modes of experiencing reality, whereas in the latter, the clash is between two phases of ego development.

The Uncanny Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Uncanny is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for The Uncanny

The Uncanny study guide contains a biography of Sigmund Freud, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Uncanny
• The Uncanny Summary
• Character List

Essays for The Uncanny

The Uncanny essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Uncanny by Sigmund Freud.

• Racial Identity and the Uncanny in Season of Migration to the North
• “Handling Shakespeare and Psychiatry With Equal Facility”: On the Notion of the “Uncanny” in Satyajit Ray’s Nayak (1966) and Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957)
• The Uncanny Village: How Freud Illuminates "Young Goodman Brown"

Uncanny Modernity pp 216–228 Cite as

Document: ‘On the Psychology of the Uncanny’ (1906): Ernst Jentsch

• Jo Collins 2 &
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[In his famous essay on the uncanny, first published in 1919, 2 Sigmund Freud begins by complaining that aesthetics has hitherto not paid much attention to the aberrant and the repulsive. This complaint is also an expression of anticipatory pleasure on the part of Freud the writer, in so far as the uncanny in particular has no ‘literature’ with which to contend — but he has to admit that there is one exception, namely the essay translated below. 3 Jentsch emphasises that the uncanny arises from a certain experience of the uncertain or undecidable, and this seems intolerable to Freud. Freud decides, in other words, that the undecidable cannot be tolerated as a theoretical explanation, but it nonetheless recurs in his own essay, undecidably. 4 He also pays close attention to Jentsch’s argument about the uncanniness of automata. 5

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‘Zur Psychologie des Unheimlichen’ was published in the Psychiatrisch-Neurologische Wochenschrift 8.22 (25 Aug. 1906): pp. 195–8 and 8.23 (1 Sept. 1906): pp. 203–5 (the bibliographical references in the Freud editions do not make it clear that Jentsch’s essay is spread over two separate issues of the weekly). As far as I can tell, the German text has never been reprinted.

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Sigmund Freud, ‘The “Uncanny”’, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud , vol. 17, trans. and ed. James Strachey et al. (London: Hogarth, 1955), pp. 217–56; or in The Pelican Freud Library , vol. 14, trans. James Strachey, ed. Albert Dickson (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985), pp. 335–76. For Freud’s German text, see the Gesammelte Werke , vol. 12, ed. Anna Freud et al. (London: Imago, 1947), pp. 227–68; or the Studienausgabe , vol. 4, ed. Alexander Mitscherlich et al. (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1970), pp. 241–74.

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See Freud, ‘The “Uncanny”’, pp. 226–7 and 233. For more on Freud’s Jentsch, see the definitive study by Nicholas Royle, The Uncanny (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), pp. 39–42 and 52.

Ernst Jentsch, Die Laune: Eine ärztlich -psychologische Studie , Grenzfragen des Nerven- und Seelenlebens 15 (Wiesbaden: Bergmann, 1902); this is the series in which Freud’s Über den Traum (1901) had first appeared.

Ernst Jentsch, Musik und Nerven , vol. 1, Naturgeschichte des Tonsinns , Grenzfragen des Nerven- und Seelenlebens 29 (Wiesbaden: Bergmann, 1904); vol. 2, Das musikalische Gefühl , Grenzfragen des Nerven- und Seelenlebens 78 (Wiesbaden: Bergmann, 1911). On the uncanny in music, see

Richard Cohn, ‘Uncanny Resemblances: Tonal Signification in the Freudian Age’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 57.2 (2004): pp. 285–323.

Forbes Morlock, ‘Doubly Uncanny: An Introduction to “On the Psychology of the Uncanny”’, Angelaki 2.1 (1995): pp. 17–21.

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Jo Collins ( Teaching Assistant in Cultural Studies and English and American Literature ) & John Jervis ( Research Fellow in Cultural Studies )

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Collins, J., Jervis, J. (2008). Document: ‘On the Psychology of the Uncanny’ (1906): Ernst Jentsch. In: Collins, J., Jervis, J. (eds) Uncanny Modernity. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230582828_12

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11 “The Uncanny” of Psychoanalysis

Andrea Wasgatt

The film  Volver  and Sigmund Freud’s literary essay, “The Uncanny” share a few strong connections as far as how this feeling is demonstrated in the film. Freud explains that the uncanny is a complex term to explain, mostly due to the fact that it is an emotional effect created within a person at certain sights, sounds, or feelings unique to each individual, making the uncanny experience different from person to person. It is a feeling that may create uncertainty within a person that causes them to feel fear or uncomfortable for a reason they cannot understand. This emotional response’s cause has been linked to the German word “unheimlich”, which is summed up at the end of Freud’s essay as the “… uncanny [that] is in reality nothing new or foreign, but something familiar and old- established in the mind that has been estranged only by the process of repression… the factor of repression enables us, therefore, to understand… the uncanny as something which ought to have been kept concealed but which nevertheless comes to light” (Rivkin 429).

This concept is demonstrated throughout  Volver  and Raimunda’s mannerisms, as her secret past is uncovered further and further. At the beginning of the film, when Raimunda and her daughter first arrive home, Paco stares between Paula’s legs. Although the position that she is sitting in is a comfortable position, and should be appropriate around parents, Raimunda has some sort of instinct kick in that tells her to have her daughter sit in a less provocative position because she has some sort of “uncanny” sensation that something in the situation is very wrong. Later on, when Paco pushes Raimunda to have sex with him, she begins to cry as she listens to Paco masturbate, something that would not usually bother her. However, it can be suggested that her tears are related to her father raping and impregnating her, because of the concept of the ego and id. Since the experience of being raped was too traumatic for her to be able to handle, she repressed these memories throughout her entire life within her id, or unconsciousness. Perhaps it is Paco’s insisting physical activity, or perhaps the sound of his pants calls forth a memory of her father deep from her id without fully bringing it to the surface, which is why she cries over something that she might not be affected by otherwise.

The Student Theorist: An Open Handbook of Collective College Theory Copyright © 2018 by Andrea Wasgatt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Sigmund Freud’s “The Uncanny” Essay

In Sigmund Freud’s “The Uncanny,” he introduces a mythical creature, the Sandman, who is involved with many negative activities including stealing children’s eyes. Sandman’s story presents an imaginary plot that involves Nathaniel, Olympia, and the sandman who appears in different names of Coppelius and Coppola.

Some of the most popular issues addressed in sandman’s story are blindness and eyes. The antagonist portrays the characteristics of a sadist, whose intentions are either to remove children’s eyes, or ruin relationships. From the story, excessive reference to eyes and blindness has a significant contribution to the themes, characterization and psychoanalytic elements.

One of Feud’s first interpretations of the story compares loss of eyesight to castration. In psychoanalytic terms, eyes enable an individual to see the real world and make positive contributions to its elements. However, once the eyes are removed, an individual shifts into an environment of hopelessness, fear and paranoia. The resulting fear in blindness is comparable to the helplessness caused by castration, especially when one considers the discontinuity established.

The eyes are therefore symbolic representation of the psychosexual characteristics present among humans, with each person striving to protect and retain eyesight. Feud introduces the eyes as the fundamental organs promoting ego and self-realization. According to the story, some organs like male sexual organs and the eyes influence sexuality, confidence and esteem, by promoting conscious control of emotions and feelings.

Blindness represents the fear experienced in dreams, myths and fantasies, at which individuals’ fear of losing the eyes can only be compared to that of being castrated. Sandman’s story demonstrates aesthetic factors with the constant mention of the eyes.

In the genital phase of human development, the unborn do not have an option of choosing their sexuality, but rather take their infantile states as insurance against mortality. However, with the representation of eyes, the story re-addresses the self-reflection among humans and the fact that nothing is lost forever or forgotten. The eyes represent the visions, realities and hopes.

The story therefore reflects how these are lost once the eyes are removed and makes a direct comparison to the losses incurred after one is castrated. In the story, the eyes are sexual reflections that are based on imaginary plot of the sandman, who takes several forms, but whose intentions remain unchanged. Children are the targets in Sandman’s story, and although Nathaniel had been warned about the activities of the Sandman, he nearly lost his eyes within the first few moments of his encounter with Coppelius.

Eyes represent the ability to overcome infantile characteristics and sexuality by establishing an aesthetic value to sight. Sandman’s target to the eyes is a way of trying to relate a fearful process to known issues, and Feud interprets this by comparing it with castration. The story invokes a sense of the uncanny, since it revisits infantile states and projects the victim to a primitive state. Castration terminates love and discontinues normal reproduction processes.

According to the story, Sandman does not only remove children’s eyes, but also ruins relationships. The Sandman ruins Nathaniel’s relationship with Clara, just when the two are about to are about to marry. In a unique representation of the eyes, the story uses spyglasses, which allow Nathaniel to see in private his repressed past. Just like in castration, removing the eyes sets an individual back to an infantile state and eliminates all the aesthetics in life.

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IvyPanda. (2021, September 3). Sigmund Freud's "The Uncanny". https://ivypanda.com/essays/sigmund-freuds-the-uncanny/

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IvyPanda . "Sigmund Freud's "The Uncanny"." September 3, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/sigmund-freuds-the-uncanny/.

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Sigmund Freud

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This pioneering master of the uncanny is as relevant as ever

If the name E.T.A. Hoffmann rings a bell — a considerable if — it’s probably because of the ballet “The Nutcracker” (he wrote the story it’s based on) or because of Sigmund Freud, who makes extensive use of Hoffmann’s short story “The Sandman” in his foundational essay “The Uncanny.” Well, the holidays are upon us again, and in case you haven’t heard, Freud is back. (We have forgiven him his shortcomings as a clinician for the sake of his contributions as a philosopher — and possibly novelist.) Which is all to say that “ The Golden Pot: and other tales of the uncanny ,” a new selection and translation of Hoffmann’s stories, arrives with a sense of timeliness and relevance far exceeding anything that a work of early German Romanticism ought to be able to claim.

Hoffmann was born in Königsberg, Prussia (now part of Russia), in 1776. After his parents separated when he was 2 years old, his father left town, so Hoffmann and his mother — an extreme depressive — moved in with her mother and three unmarried siblings. By all accounts it was a deeply dysfunctional household. Hoffmann found refuge in literature, visual art and music, and excelled at all of them, though he loved music best. He made some lasting contributions to the history of music criticism, while his own compositions (dozens of operas, chamber pieces and other works) failed to make much of a mark. Peter Wortsman, editor and translator of “The Golden Pot,” writes in his studious but accessible afterword: “Music constituted for Hoffmann a kind of sacred spell and as such may have proved too holy, too precious, too ineffable to toy and tinker with. But words bore no such aura and were consequently free to fiddle with, unencumbered with self-imposed restrictions. ... Hoffmann allowed himself to take prodigious artistic liberties, wildly leaping back and forth across the border between the physical and the metaphysical, the perceived and the imagined, the accessible and the unattainable, hazarding with language the daring leaps of his musical idols, Mozart and Beethoven.”

I confess I came to this collection knowing little about Hoffmann’s life or work beyond “The Sandman,” included here and uncanny as ever. The story defies summary. It includes an automaton, a German folk monster, eerie doubles, daddy issues, sexual dread, and the ambient threat — eventually made good — of mutilation and death. You can see why Freud went for it, and why, having gone for it, felt no need to find a second example. But Hoffmann’s influence ranges far beyond Freud: Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nikolai Gogol, Oscar Wilde and Franz Kafka all seem impossible without his precedent. “The Sandman” was claimed by director Fritz Lang as an influence on his pioneering silent film “Metropolis,” by André Breton on surrealism, and by Philip K. Dick on “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,” the novel that became the film “Blade Runner.”

Karen Russell, in the foreword to a different Hoffmann collection published earlier this year by Yale University Press, admits her own belated acquaintance to his work but finds herself “continuously astonished by how far his voice has carried.” She hears echoes in Stephen King, William Blake, Octavia Butler, Joy Williams, Ursula K. Le Guin and David Lynch, and in her own work, albeit via cultural osmosis rather than direct influence. The Yale volume, “The Wounded Storyteller: The Traumatic Tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann,” is translated by Jack Zipes and lavishly illustrated by Natalie Frank. Zipes’s insistence on reading Hoffmann through the lens of biographical tragedy and contemporary trauma theory is a bit off-putting, but it’s hard to argue with the sheer beauty of “The Wounded Storyteller” as a physical object; both volumes contain “The Sandman” and “The Golden Pot,” but that’s where their overlap ends. I’m happy to own both and to move freely between them.

The title story in “The Golden Pot,” subtitled “A Fairy Tale for Modern Times” (i.e. 1814), is a novella in 12 “Vigils,” following the academic and erotic travails of a student named Anselmus, who finds himself torn between a clerical position in a government office secured by a friend and a job copying mysterious manuscripts held by the forbidding Archivarius Lindhorst, an alchemist whose alluring daughter Serpentina occasionally takes the form of her namesake. Meanwhile, the friend’s daughter, Veronica, is working love magic on Anselmus, abetted by a witch who might or might not be using Veronica as an instrument of her own campaign against the Archivarius, from whose dire clutches Anselmus must be saved — unless, of course, the witch is lying to Veronica and the Archivarius is trying to save him from her . The story, half nightmare and half cartoon, offers the reader no firm narrative ground on which to stand, no secure position from which to judge the relative “reality” of the supernatural occurrences, shifting alliances and identities, or ultimate aims of the factions, even as Hoffmann himself regularly breaks the fourth wall to offer commentary on the proceedings. I loved this story, but that observation feels separate from and almost incidental to my being in awe of it: I could list plausible comparisons all day and night (see above), but “The Golden Pot” is simply unlike anything else I have ever read.

Elsewhere we find Hoffmann more firmly grounded, but no less strange. “Mademoiselle de Scudéry” is a murder mystery set in 1680, during the reign of Louis XIV. Published in 1819, with the Mademoiselle — a real historical figure — in the unlikely role of detective, it can hardly challenge Poe’s “ The Murders in the Rue Morgue ” (1841) for the title of “first modern detective story,” but it is — again — impossible to imagine Poe’s achievement without Hoffmann’s having cleared the path. “My Cousin’s Corner Window,” written when Hoffmann was housebound and dying of syphilis at 46, is a long dialogue between two men who take turns making up stories about the people they observe in the busy market below. It’s a lesser entry in the collection, but moving in its choked-back grief for the unthinking vitality of a dailiness that has slipped forever out of reach.

“Ritter Gluck,” “Kreisleriana,” “Intimations from the Realm of Musical Notes” and “The Fermata” all evince Hoffmann’s love of music, as does “The Automaton,” which shares some concerns with “The Sandman” but directs special animus toward the automation of musical instruments. “For me,” one character says, “even the link between human beings and lifeless figures that mimic the human in appearance and movement, in actions and impulses, has something oppressive, uncanny, indeed something ghastly about it. ... [It] constitutes for me a declared war against the human spirit, the power of which shines forth all the more brilliantly the more seemingly oppositional forces are wielded against it.” See what I mean about timely? I plan to quote these lines to the next person who asks me whether I worry about being replaced by ChatGPT.

Justin Taylor, a Book World contributing writer, is the author of the memoir “Riding With the Ghost,” the novel “The Gospel of Anarchy” and two story collections. His next novel, “Reboot,” will be published in 2024.

The Golden Pot

and other tales of the uncanny

By E.T.A. Hoffmann

Translated from the German by Peter Wortsman

Archipelago. 425 pp. $24, paperback

The Wounded Storyteller

The Traumatic Tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann

Translated from the German by Jack Zipes. Drawings by Natalie Frank

Yale. 277 pp. $40