Gothic Themes, Settings, and Figures | Sigmund Freud (Essay Date 1919)
SIGMUND FREUD (ESSAY DATE 1919)
SOURCE: Freud, Sigmund. "The Uncanny." In The Uncanny, by Sigmund Freud, translated by David McLintock, pp. 123-62. New York: Penguin, 2003.
In the following excerpt from an essay first published in Imago in 1919 as "Das Unheimlich" and considered the quintessential work on the subject of the uncanny, Freud defines the uncanny, provides examples of how it is exemplified in E. T. A. Hoffmann's story "The Sandman," and explains how the uncanny functions within the context of human psychology.
II
If we now go on to review the persons and things, the impressions, processes and situations that can arouse an especially strong and distinct sense of the uncanny in us, we must clearly choose an appropriate example to start with. E. Jentsch singles out, as an excellent case, 'doubt as to whether an apparently animate object really is alive and, conversely, whether a...
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