Contextual and Theoretical Studies Week 1:The Uncanny

The Uncanny brought into more of an understanding by Sigmund Freuds essay which created in 1919 after reading his version of the representation of the uncanny and i have summarised it to the way i believed to have read it:

The uncanny is the story of Nathaniel who at a young age was told of a story in which if he didn't go to bed early would get a visit fro the sand-man who was believed to come and take the young childrens' eyes which don't go to sleep early and would then take them back to his own children to be fed. However due to an incident in which the belief of the sand-man story being true an dseeing his father die in his studies resulted in a childhood trauma which had him seeing things in a different way than what they really are as teh example of him believing that the doll Olympia was a real human. As the story unfolds the figure of the sand-man begins to appear constantly in places near Nathaniel and which in one appearence after buying what Nathaniel was told were weather glasses, which as time progressed were constantly used and each tme Nathaniel had thought he had seen the sand-man but being unsure he used the weather glass which put his vision in different aspect which led to him seeing the sand-man wherever he went and having flshbacks of his childhood incident.

But because of that incident in his childhood led to reprecussions in his present adult life with him seeing the sand-man and whilst having the flashback Nathaniel began to shout "Ring of Fire, Spin About!" and trying to escape from what he believe to be fire began to scale a tower which after intense screams and one last look at the sand-man let go and fell from the tower and shattered his skull. The story finishes with the author writing at how the story was merely there to show the uncanny events which from Nathaniels childhood past led to him being afraid of a figure which was believed to of been following him, which made him afraid and see things as unclear to the extent of hanging around with a doll which he thought was real because of how life like it looked.

My experience of this was story was that the idea of a figure lurking in the shadows of the night was to cme out and take the eys of children if they didn't go to bed early was a good story but the build ofrom the incident in his childhood to what happened at the end was to me a good kind end to the story and to the notion of you shouldn't believe everything you hear and at the end in the analysis of the author trying to make out that the doll was a real character which didn't speak was pretty good in my view.