What Does The Uncanny Mean

Samuel Cody
Katy Brundan
Colt 301
5 May 2015

Sigmund Freud's The Uncanny is a convincing text that examines the repetition of coincidental events that many people seem to experience in their lifetime. Throughout this written work, he acknowledges these experiences as both familiar and frightening, which creates his paradox of 'uncanny' feelings that we all seem to experience. The importance of having a lack of a known reason for these mysterious, uncanny coincidences is that they become open-ended for us to interpret and to ascribe them a meaning. Even if we fail to give these phenomenons a definite meaning, we can still assume that there is some sort of answer behind these instances that we have yet to understand. Freud's general thesis of The Uncanny covers the mysterious reoccurrence of topics that remind us of our earlier stages of life, such as the castration complex and animistic conceptions of our world. Similarly to Freud's writing, in the episode Blink from the Dr. Who series, many

He argues that one source of the uncanny is constructed in our infantile beliefs of castration. Freud states, “We shall venture, therefore, to refer to the uncanny effect of the Sand-Man to the anxiety belonging to the castration complex of childhood” (Freud 233). He refers to the story of the Sand-Man because the Sand-Man steals children's eyes, which is a precious organ of the human body. Freud quotes the Sand-Man in his text because he argues that the uncanny effect in this story has to do with the castration of the eyes as a symbol of male genitals. The uncanny elements of castration are perceived as threatening to a man's life because the fear of castration is a punishment that deviates from societal norms. These organs are crucial in a man's life in order for him to keep power and to live a normal, happy