"What is the Uncanny?": A Literary Guide for English Students and Teachers
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- Опубликовано: 28 июн 2024
- What does the word uncanny mean? How does the uncanny appear in literature? Professor Ray Malewitz answers these questions using examples from Sigmund Freud, Edgar Allan Poe, and common horror films. The short video is designed to help high school and college English students to not only identify examples of the uncanny in literature but also to analyze how this feeling is brought about.
This video now contains Spanish as well as English subtitles. To switch between languages, click on the "Settings" button in the video.
The video is sponsored by the School of Writing, Literature, and Film at Oregon State University. For more discussions of literary topics and essay writing tips, please subscribe to the free SWLF RUclips Channel or visit liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/w...
#LiteraryTerms #remotelearning #literature
Timestamps
0:00 Introduction to Fear
0:42 Freud's Theory of the Uncanny Defined
4:23 Uncanny Simple Examples
5:40 Interpreting the Uncanny Using Poe's The Raven
7:42 Uncanny Questions
Below are a few more videos in the series. Please drop us a comment letting us know what literary terms you would like us to explore in future videos!
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"What is a simile?": • "What is a Simile?": A...
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"What is a imagery?": • "What is Imagery?": A ...
"What is a sonnet?": • "What is a Sonnet?": A...
"What is metonymy?": • "What is Metonymy?": A...
"What is synecdoche?": • "What is a Synecdoche?...
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"What is a flashback?": • "What is a Flashback?"...
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"What is a flat character vs a round character?": • "What is a Flat Charac...
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"What is a graphic narrative? (Part I)": • "What is a Graphic Nov...
"What is a graphic narrative? (Part II)": • "What is a Graphic Nov...
"What is epistrophe?": • "What is Epistrophe?":...
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"What is the uncanny?": • "What is the Uncanny?"...
"What is a point of view?": • "What is Point of View...
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"What is a frame story?": • "What is a Frame Story...
"What is ekphrasis?": • "What is Ekphrasis?": ...
"What is blank verse?": • "What is Blank Verse?"...
"What is an epistolary novel?": • "What is an Epistolary...
"What is allegory?": • "What is an Allegory?"...
"What is tragedy?": • "What is a Tragedy?": ...
"What are euphony and cacophony?": • "What are Euphony and ...
"What are assonance and consonance?": • "What are Assonance an...
"What is a setting in literature?": • "What is a Setting?": ...
"What is onomatopoeia?": • "What is Onomatopoeia?...
"What is theme in literature?": www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5KZc...
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"What is a dramatic monologue?": • "What is a Dramatic Mo...
"What is an allusion?": • "What is an Allusion?"...
"What is alliteration?": • "What is Alliteration?...
"What is an epic?": • "What is an Epic?": A ...
"What is an ars poetica?": • "What is an Ars Poetic...
"What is a motif?": • "What is a Motif?": A ...
"What is a protagonist?": • "What is a Protagonist...
"What is literature?": • "What is Literature?":...
"What is a foil?": • "What is a Foil?": A L...
This video now includes Spanish as well as English subtitles. For a full list of dual-language videos in our series, please see the following site: liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/oregon-state-guide-english-literary-terms
I love the video. Mr./Dr. Ray Malewitz, has great presentation of his topic! So erudite, enriching, and delightful! Awesome! Love Edgar Allan Poe, Freud, so relative, as with Oedipus. Thanks
Thanks so much, Patricia! We're so happy to hear you enjoyed the video, and we hope you enjoy the others in our series as well!
doing a presentation about the Uncanny in school, thankyou so much! 💞
Awesome! We're happy to hear you found the lesson useful, Emily! Good luck on that presentation.
I just loved this lecture and understood the whole topic in a single video of 8 minutes, it rarely happens. Thank you MAN. LOVER FROM INDIA.
Thanks so much to for the love, Kumar! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
Thanks for the video and the very clear explanation. I am writing my PhD dissertation about Evil and the uncanny in Sabato’s novels. Besides Freud, I’m applying Otto’s Mysterium Tremendum and Todorov’s concept of “l’étrange”. I hope you can make more videos about literature topics. They are very useful.
We're delighted you found the video useful, Fernando. Thanks so much for your kind words. Good luck with your dissertation! What a fascinating set of texts!
For my study in culture and psychology..i need to answer the question..why do people enjoy watching horror mivies and being afraid in this manner?
Can you halo me with an answer based in psichoanalisis or Freud? How can the uncanny answer this question?
Thanks
I still do not get it. So, uncanny is the feeling we have when we encounter sth that reminds us of a childhood memory which must be irrational but seems rational. We feel terrified and may hide this fact. This happens because we have repressed a feeling. Is the terror coming from the feeling of irrationality but yet we feel it is rational??
Awesome video, thank you!
Thanks so much, Justin! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
This was great. Thank you!
Thanks so much, Tia! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
Thanks for this - interesting to look at some sort of historical/psychological/whatever record and think about what makes certain things creepy. Is "creepy" another term you're going to do, or should I just watch this video again?
Ha! We might add creepy to the list, but it'd probably just be a series of images of Willem Dafoe.
There is one animated film that scares me and deals with the uncanny: Coraline
Interesting! How does the film deal with the uncanny?
@@SWLF There is a teenage girl and he travels to a place where her mother and father are nicer but also creepy. Her mother, father, their house are the same but you can feel that there is something strange going on. Oh, also they have buttons for eyes but that is a whole different aspect of it.
@@nazilik1786 That sounds incredibly uncanny! Thanks so much for keeping the conversation going, Naz!
Coraline actually fits Ray's definition really well! Unlike something like Toy Story, the weird parts of Coraline are explicitly shown to be a violation of the "normal" world that is set up in the beginning of the movie :)
So. Coraline is the most scary movie for me. But after seeing this i think i ONLY have the uncanny with Coraline!
I love you. Thankyou for explaining this🥹
Thanks so much, Manpriya! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
Thank you so much sir its helps me understand better.
Thanks so much for your kind words, Mirtalin! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
'Like Mother Used to Make' by Shirley Jackson is a short story that gave me a strong sense of the uncanny. I would highly recommend that anyone interested in this concept read it.
Excellent choice, Alexis! There is more than a little uncanniness in David's apartment, which suddenly stops being a home (heimlich) when Harris visits. And David's exile from his own apartment places him in the awkward position of a child being sent away to his room. In a Freudian sense, this may mean that his attempt at "adulthood" (establishing his own independent home) barely covers over that previous self. And double apartments--one good, one evil--one of Freud's favorite themes! Plenty of Oedipal readings there as well. Thanks for keeping the conversation going!
Haven’t read that book, but ‘Mother’
reminds me of an old ‘Uncanny’ movie, ‘Throw Momma From the Train’! It has a paradoxical twist. I think the movie was a knock off title from a very popular song, “Throw Momma From the Train a Kiss, a Kiss!” It gave me an uncanny feeling as a young mother back then. 😥
It's the first time I hear about this story and I don't know why, but the title makes me really interested. UnfortunateIy I had no success in finding it. Do you have any idea where I can read it?
haven't read that one yet, but knowing her, shirley it's a dynamite story
@@patriciaperry7606 mama was a better writer than owen or his teacher, and omg! i realized on a recent rewatch the ex is kate mulgrew, from voyager! i also figured out she has some big katherine hepburn energy
Great explanation! Super helpful for my theory class. The biggest issue I don't understand with the Uncanny is many of the examples, the dolls from childhood to adulthood, there is a fear of bodily harm. I'm not sure if Freud addresses this fear of harm or just continues to talk about the fear of the unknown. But I don't seem to understand if/why that is left out? Perhaps from childhood to adulthood you realize that there are things in this world that want to harm you? Not sure.
Thanks so much, Riley _ ! To our mind, if you are in need of a paper topic for your theory class, this would be a good one, as Freud is a bit ambiguous in this regard and this gives you the space to write your own explanation clearing up that ambiguity. One fruitful place to start might be to explore the ways that blinding works in his reading of The Sandman, which returns to that central preoccupation of Freud's: the Oedipus complex...
i'm writing an essay about the represantation of the double in cinema and more specifically throught the movies ''Dorian Gray'', The double life of Veronique and Dead ringers and how these movies manage to approach differently the concept of the double
Awesome! That sounds like a subject well suited to uncanny analysis. Good luck with the essay, Alexandra, and thanks for sharing!
This vid is awesome. I forgot I loved Poe, until this. Goddamn thanks
Thanks so much,. Brian! We hope you enjoy the other videos in the series as well!
Man, great choice of background music, it sure does scare the uncanny outta me lol
Ha! We were going for familiar but largely suppressed with our music.
Amazing!!!!!
Thanks so much, Fernanda! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
Oregon State University - School of Writing, Literature and Film Yessssss, I just found your channel while looking for lectures about the uncanny! Simply perfect :) Thanks from Brazil 🇧🇷
@@TheGretaoto Thanks so much for your kind words! We're delighted to see the series traveling to Brazil!
i know Im randomly asking but does anybody know of a method to log back into an Instagram account?
I was stupid forgot the account password. I would love any tips you can give me.
@Legend Aydin instablaster :)
Plz, sir can you make something on Freud and his traumatic theory
Thanks for the suggestion, Nora! We'll give it some thought as we think through future directions for the series!
Great video! Could the fear of death or the idea that humankind can die suddenly be viewed as the uncanny? I remember one time I cried as a child because "I didn't want to die". I feel like I repressed that fear, but that it sometimes comes back nowadays while I visit cemeteries or watch 9/11 footage for instance. I have a feeling all children need to repress this fear to not become anxious and continue their lifes without being scared constantly.
Interesting question, Extropical! Freud certainly talks extensively about strategies that people employ to ward off this fear of death. But the uncanny (at least as Freud employs it) is usually associated with childish beliefs that our rational selves overcome or repress. Under this model, a "rational" human undoubtedly knows that he/she/they are going to die someday, so any reminder of that fact probably wouldn't be, strictly speaking, uncanny. What WOULD be uncanny is, perhaps, a childish belief that that death could be controlled or warded off in some way and to then have that childish belief confirmed (or seem to be confirmed).
All this is to say that while we certainly agree that ideas associated with death can be uncanny, the fact that all humans will die at some point isn't. Whew. That is a tangled explanation, but we hope it makes sense. What does everyone else think?
@@SWLF I really appreciate the extensive and well-thought-out answer! Such an interesting topic :) Freud's work really is timeless.
@@extropical2846 You're very welcome, Extropical!
The concept of the "uncanny" revolves around feelings of terror, which in the context of the movie "Alien", plays a significant role in shaping the film's atmosphere and tension.
The film's titular alien creature epitomizes the uncanny personified. The creature's design, with its bio-mechanical appearance, draws from both organic and mechanical sources, blurring the lines between muscle and machine. Its sleek yet grotesque form, along with the inherent unpredictability of its behavior, gives the viewers the eerie sensation that something is both familiar and deeply "alien". This contrast upends our understanding of the natural world and the boundaries imposed between the known and the unknown.
Yes! Thanks so much for adding to the conversation, John John! This also dovetails with the idea of pregnancy and childbirth discussed at the end of this lesson. Alien is certainly a movie that combines different kinds of fears in such an effective manner...
In what ways might the abject be thought of in relation to the uncanny?
Interesting question, Rodgie! How are you thinking of the term "abject"? There is a rather famous cultural critic named Julia Kristeva who has written extensively on the concept and her idea (which works on the level of individual bodies and nations / communities) is that the abject is a part of the body (or community) that is rejected or expelled and framed as "other." Given the fact that that thing (or person) was once a part of that body (or community), the process of abjection is similar to the process of repressing some earlier state of the self (or community) when the abject was a part of it. If, after expulsion, the abject is re-framed in such a way as to call attention to that original relationship (i.e. the fact that the abject is a part of the self or community), then the experience could certainly be considered uncanny.
Hmm, that is a pretty abstract response. Do you have a specific example in mind? Or would anyone else like to jump in with one?
that's how sometimes a knock is a gun. it goes off
If you liked this video, let us know by dropping us a comment and sharing your favorite example of the uncanny in a story, poem, or movie! Doing so will help us to build a rich digital learning environment around the topic of the uncanny in storytelling.
I'm writing a master thesis right now on the Uncanny (and Evil) in H.P. Lovecraft's work. Good video! The childlike understanding of supernatural forces can be compared to how protagonists in Lovecraft's stories have heard certain myths about creatures that defy our modern, rational outlook on the world. When these myths seem to become reality, it indeed horrifies the characters that what they had assumed to be follies of the humans of the distant past (where the myths come from), "children" compared to the proud, enlightened humanity of today, had a better grasp on what reality is like.
@@Estuways Thanks so much for the comment, Estuways! Your project sounds fascinating, and squarely within Freud's model, which (for better and worse) also discusses "primitive" civilizations in this way as "children" compared with the "enlightened" present. Good luck with the project!
@@SWLF Oh, I wasn't aware that he also makes that comparison, nice! Could you tell me where in his work this can be found? I don't suppose it's also in his essay on the uncanny? Thank you!
@@Estuways It is in that essay! Not sure where, but it is definitely there...
@@SWLF Ah, thanks very much! I'll find it.
My interpretation of Alien popping out of the body has parallels with child birth anxiety. Both parents experience unprecedented anxiety prior to child birth. Alien movie basically took that fear and put in on steroids by adding uncanny feeling.
Nice work here, Chaithanya! We agree.
Repetition of the word 'Nevermore' itself creepy and uncanny in Edgar Allen Poe's poem - The Raven
Nice work, Hema! It is quite uncanny to imagine a bird understanding the speaker's situation and replying to him as if he were human. If you have the time, try to find a RUclips video of a talking raven. They are out there and they are incredibly uncanny!
Possible synonyms for uncanny (seeming to have a supernatural character or origin):
arcane, cryptic, deep, enigmatic, impenetrable, inscrutable, mysterious, mystic, occult, dark, darkling, fuzzy, murky, obscure, shadowy, vague, ambiguous, equivocal, imponderable, incomprehensible, unfathomable, unintelligible, unsearchable, inexplicable, unaccountable, unexplainable, unanswerable, unknowable, metaphysical, mystical, numinous, supernatural
abstruse, esoteric, recondite, baffling, befuddling, bewildering, confounding, confusing, disorienting, mystifying, perplexing, puzzling.
Interesting list, Gerald! What does everyone else think?
hey
Hi, I don't understand still, can something abstract (non-material) be uncanny? So like the belief when you were a child of the potential complete loss of leisure time from taking care of a dog? (you don't the dog yet, you just think about it) The belief would get repressed because as we are older we become rational - that we do have time (because adults are aware to make use of time and be productive rather than watching T.V. as a kid all the time with no job) and that dogs offer companionship and don't require us to be there all the time (in the context that you don't own the dog yet, and never have, but your friend has a dog and you see companionship). But then when we read a story like a son being subservient to the dog because the dog is codependent, and how the dog requires a lot of attention and time (like constantly cooking, feeding); but then the dog dies and the son feels relief, happy (as if the dog is a not a companion but a burden)? Would that be uncanny? Sorry for the bother, thanks!
Interesting question, John! We would say yes--any childish belief (good or bad, concrete or abstract) that is repressed and then reemerges could provoke a feeling of uncanniness within Freud's model. However, in your model, the relief that the son feels would be a different kind of feeling or "affect" than the dread that accompanies the uncanny. So the reader of this hypothetical story would, perhaps, feel uncanny dread in the depiction of codependence and would then, perhaps, experience relief when the dog dies, as the uncanny object (or animal, in this case) would go away.
Hope that helps! Thanks for keeping the conversation going!
@@SWLF
Thank you for your answer! I have one last question, sorry for the bother. Would the fictional setting be important to use Freud's uncanny? Like does the setting have to be one of physical reality like a house that readers can connect to so that the childish belief reemerges, or can it be mountains and dungeons like a fantasy setting? Maybe this leads to another question like is uncanny only in horror? (i don't know, you don't have to answer the last one sorry)
@@johndong140 Great questions, John. Yes, Freud would argue that the setting (and other elements of the plot) must appear to operate in the world of common reality, so a realist setting of the home would be much more likely to provoke the uncanny than a fantasy setting. The appearance of realism would make the sudden introduction of a fantastical element jarring and frightening. And the feeling of uncanny isn't exclusive to horror. Freud would argue that tragedies such as Oedipus Rex and Hamlet might also, potentially, provoke that same feeling. Thanks for keeping the conversation going!
@@SWLF Thank you so much!
@@johndong140 You're very welcome!
abi sağol yarın mukoyu geççem adamsın
Ha! Thanks, @barsackgoz3960 ! We had to break out the Google translate for this one...
Hey year 11 English Advanced class, I know you're here for the assignment. whatssup?
terrifying thought! can you imagine? living creatures, growing deep in one's abdomen, until the inevitable day on which they force their way out? truly horrific! if that was something that could happen to an innocent person, i'd hope the medical profession would find a cure and society would make it readily available to any of the afflicted who wanted it, but c'mon, why wouldn't they? they'd have to be monsters to force anyone to remain in such a condition without consent
Ha! Thanks for the comment, @intellectually_lazy , though you may wish to rethink your name. Judging from this response, we're pretty confident that you gave some though how Alien might be read (and indeed has been read) through the theory of the uncanny. Thanks for keeping the conversation going!
then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed by some unseen censor, swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor
Mr Incredible Meme Broke me
Hmmm, we're not familiar with this meme. Is it uncanny?
Mr. Bobble head? Hahaha just kidding. Love these videos
Ha! He's just excited about the subject. Thanks for supporting the channel, Internet Dinosaur!
POV: You're writing a media studies essay
Freud's doing great in 21st century, apparently, 19th century Discourse founder couldn't be as pseudo-scientific as influential in inverse proportions.
Mr incredible becoming uncanny
Ha! That might be an exception to the idea that cartoons for children cannot be uncanny. But why do you suppose this meme manages to achieve this effect?
That's why uncanny memes suck
I did not understand a single thing.
well, bart, let me explain to you, it's not scary. it's about grief, obvi
like, meow
The uncanny and the weird are seen as the same thing?!?!
We would say no. The uncanny is a feeling of dread or unease. Weird (at least in the way Americans use the term today) just means unusual.
Oregon State University - School of Writing, Literature and Film we frequently see weird literature often related to Lovecraft and uncanny texts, like those by Poe. I was a bit confused 🥺 Is there any bibliography that explain the difference between those texts?
@@TheGretaoto Ah, gotcha. Lovecraft could certainly be considered uncanny as well as weird. "Weird" is a challenging word in English, as it is in the process of changing its definition. Originally, it meant BOTH strange and provoking anxiety or dread. Nowadays, people usually use the word "weird" in ways that drop the anxiety / dread association so that all it means is strange. Weird, right? We don't have a bibliography at hand, but trust us, you can certainly apply supernatural events in Lovecraft to childish belief systems.
@@SWLF wow thanks for answering so fast. I decided to come back and write ask this because I am working on my dissertation about HP Lovecraft and I was simply stuck on these two words since they appear a lot when we are dealing with the supernatural. This was the only channel I found talking about the uncanny. Your answer was like the light I needed to keep walking on this dark and mysterious place we call supernatural and fantastic literature. :) I may come back soon to watch more videos. Thank you very much!
Thanks so much, Fernanda! You've just made our day!
even creepier when you realize lenore was real, his wife and cousin, 14 to his 30-something. good move dying of consumption, little sister
'specially with what he did (in a story) to that cat
and nice she didn't live long enough to end up like mary wolstencraft shelley
gotta watch out for them poets, girl
Had to slide the woke in there....