The Uncanny.

During our lesson we dealt with the aspect of "The Uncanny" and how it related to the Gothic genre.

Mr Sadgrove began the lesson by showing us several pictures, each of which contained an aspect that we could not comprehend because we did not understand it; this included images like a foot connected to a wall with no visible body and a woman's body strangely distorted.

Sir went on to reveal that these images all represented an aspect of the Gothic called the uncanny and put up the definition which was:

" Strange or mysterious, especially in an unsettling way."

From this definition the class began to associate certain words within the definition to a character, setting or narrative within the novels and plays they had read. For example, it was said that the character of Heathcliff fit this definition well along with Wuthering Heights itself.
Although the class was able to easily grasp the 'official' definition of the uncanny, we pressed on and explored the deeper meaning of the idea and, especially, how it relates to the Gothic.

We had a task where sir gave out three quotes relating to the uncanny and how it interacts with the Gothic printed on A4 paper and we, as pairs, had to read and annotate the quotes about how they relate to any of the Gothic literature we had read previously.
After this task, we looked at an example of the uncanny in Wuthering Heights. This was the scene where Lockwood meets the ghost of Catherine and how, to the reader, the interaction between the un-mysterious Lockwood and the mysterious and supernatural ghost becomes uncanny.

We read two articles, one about Sigmund Freud - a famous psychiatrist and another about Punter - a critic.
The former of the pair discussed the uncanny in a way that introduced it to us, in our own homes. Freud used two words:
Heimlich - Literally translating to 'homelike'
Unheimlich - Literally translating to 'unhomelike'

Freud said that it is when these two things interact, the heimlich and the unheimlich that the uncanny is formed. When the unhomelike elements invade our sanctuary, the home.

However Punter argued alternatively, explaining that the uncanny can be present even in the home, with Bronte's Wuthering Heights serving as a prime example of how the home is not safe and can be violent, mysterious and unsettling.

Rather then the Oxford and Freudian definitions, I prefer one that states the uncanny is when the barrier between the unknown and the known cracks and breaks down. If we go by this idea, even the most ordinary and 'known' ideas can become 'unknown' and uncanny.
An example of this being when you hear a loud sound at night, noise is not, in itself, unknown to you but it becomes so because you 'know' that the night should be quiet and this creates the sense that it is uncanny.

Since there was no homework that I am aware of, feel free to comment on anything I may have missed or what you interpret as the uncanny in your eyes and how it may relate to other literature such as the Bloody Chamber and Macbeth.

Roman A.