The Uncanny

My reading of Freeland this week prompted me to look back at Freud's essay on the uncanny. There's a lot going on there, and he seems to be turning the notion of the uncanny as pronounced by Jentsch completely on its head. He investigates the word and its origins, noting that it trends towards an ambivalence, descending from something initially familiar to something unfamiliar and perhaps concealed (and dangerous). His reading of Hoffman's Sandman story is interesting, though in typical Freud fashion he finds a particular neurosis to blame for the kid's problems. Though I must say he does argue fairly well for it. He connects the fear of the Sandman to the fear of losing one's eyes, and subsequently, to the castration complex. Again, not surprising given Freud's love of this stuff. He tries to trace the uncanny back to childhood complexes, involving a bit of the doubling and loss of the self. I thought the most interesting stuff concerned the recurrence of situations that he discusses. It seems like much of his work concerns the idea of deja vu. Of course, he reduces this to a repetition/compulsion within our minds, so that we become lost in this uncanny recurrence of events. I think he places emphasis here too on the idea of fate and coincidence. It would seem as if Freud is driving towards the fact that we fear a loss of control in our lives. I loved his dive into the distinction between literary and real (experienced) uncanniness. His argument that the uncanny is much easier to produce and understand through fiction is understandable, and it does seem as if the true uncanny doesn't happen quite as much in real life. His essential argument, that the uncanny is produced by the revival of repressed infantile complexes or the confirmation of primitive animistic beliefs, is interesting because he tries to cover himself by not reducing everything to a neurosis or a complex. Or, more basically, the experienced uncanny might trend towards more of the complexes, while fictional uncanny concerns more of the primitive beliefs (and omnipotence of thoughts he discusses).

There's a lot to unpack in Freud, but I wanted to get some of that out there because I think Freeland wrongly dismisses his view. She claims that he is too reductive - that everything reduces to a psychological abnormality. And I agree, it kind of does, because it either involves a repressed complex or an old belief that we've cast out which comes back into the fray. Yet, he still makes a distinction between fictional and real uncanny horror, and Freeland seems to miss it completely. She opts for what she calls a "fear of dark metaphysics." I think Freud's account could fit that, given his distinction on primitive beliefs. Beliefs about the world are going to be tied into the nature of metaphysical beliefs, and perhaps we might fear a dark metaphysics or a cosmic horror because it represents a threat to established norms of thinking and perception. Either way, the human, psychological element is going to come back. I'm not saying she's wrong for disregarding Freud, but she might have left out some of the more important parts of his work.

Although, given that Freeland is working more with notions of the sublime (or an anti sublime which threatens the self), I can understand her criticisms of Freud. It's interesting to note that some of her observations about the Shining tend to coincide with some of Freud's distinctions. She mentions the doubling of reality through mirrors, and similarly, Freud discusses the doubling of the self (when Jack enters the hotel bathroom in the scene with Grady, there is a definitive possibility of the doubling of his self).

I like Freeland's idea that the Shining is a type of cosmic horror that threatens our sense of self and, rather than reinforcing it like the sublime, threatens to break it down and disintegrate it. Her insights into why we enjoy uncanny horror seem to tie into Carroll. She mentions how we might like the aesthetic presentation because it challenges us to think and reflect about the horrors presented, feeling dread and repulsion to better respond. It would seem that Carroll's idea of internalizing the narrative of horror stories would fit well here. In both cases, we're internalizing the horror presented.

A couple of nitpicks: She goes a bit too far with the critique of patriarchy - it's not essential to her investigation. Also, she argues that Jack's fatherliness is threatened and that he fails the father-figure role. I've always thought that the cook in the film took that role and ran with it.