Architectural Uncanny Quotes

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Manfred fails to resist transform Manfred from a formidable dominator to a powerless prisoner, which resulting an abrupt provoke of horror and uncanny.
In The Architectural Uncanny (1992), Anthony Vidler states that “At the heart of the anxiety provoked by such alien presences was a fundamental insecurity: that of a newly established class” (4). Manfred’s imprisonment has a symbolic meaning of his limited material security. His madness is mainly triggered by his desire to ensure his status in his newly established, unsteady regime, and his absurd lusts can be viewed as reflections of his unconscious fear. In the novel, Manfred cried out "Do I dream? or are the devils themselves in league against me? Speak, internal spectre! Or, if thou art …show more content…

Long galleries, chambers, trap doors, and secret passages together create a maze-like interior structure that seems mysterious and full of secrets and uncertainty. Plenty of empty spaces exist in the enormous inner space of the castle, which the chasing between Manfred and Isabella to take place. The ambiguity of one’s actual location can lead to confusion, misgiving, and fear. When Isabella is trying to run away from Manfred’s grasp, she “continued her flight to the bottom of the principal staircase. There she stopped, not knowing whether to direct her steps, nor how to escape from the impetuosity of the Prince” (25). Isabella’s exposure to uncertainty challenges her remaining consciousness and rationality, which pave the way for a sense of uncanny to emerge. Later on, Isabella once again gets lost in the lower part of the castle where is “hollowed into several intricate cloisters; and it was not easy for one under so much anxiety to find the door that opened into the cavern.” (26). Isabella’s consistent lost in the castle leads readers to feel an illusion of encountering a familiar sense of anxiety repetitively. Such strange familiarly stimulates a feeling of uncanny, unsettling and unearthly. Vidler (2015) claims that “ The uncanny habit of history to repeat itself, to return at unexpected and unwanted moments” (5), and he also defines uncanny as “a significant psychoanalytical and aesthetic response to the real shock...compounded by its unthinkable repetition” (9). Repetitively getting lost in pavements creates an eerie atmosphere in the story and steadily increases readers’ trepidation and uncanny

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