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Freud's Uncanny Narratives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Robin Lydenberg
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Abstract

Critics who work at the intersection of psychoanalysis and narratology frequently examine Freud's “The Uncanny” (“Das Unheimliche”). A close reading of the anecdotes interpolated in Freud's essay suggests that while narrative is often motivated by an effort to contain charged material, something always escapes that control, threatening to proliferate without stopping. The dual containing and dispersing effect of narrative is reflected in Freud's doubling of himself as narrator and protagonist; in his ambivalence toward women, the maternal, and creativity; and in his attraction and resistance to literature. Although Freud often appears to reduce literature to an illustration of psychoanalytic laws, the subversive literariness of language and the instability of the subject emerge dramatically in the uncanniness of his own narratives.

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Research Article
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PMLA , Volume 112 , Issue 5 , October 1997, pp. 1072 - 1086
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1997

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