Freuds Uncanny in Frankenstein and Rebecca - Essay Example

 A Critical Analysis of Freud’s Uncanny in “Frankenstein” and “Rebecca” Introduction In the novels “Frankenstein” and “Rebecca”, both of the authors, Mary Shelly and Daphne Du Maurier, to a great extent, go along with Freud’s concept of ‘uncanny’ to captivate the readers’ topnotch attentions up to the end of the stories. Also both the themes and the structures of the novels interplay with each other in such a way that they significantly contribute to the growth of a horrible and breathtaking sense of uncertainty in readers’ mind as well as provoking it to concentrate more on the ‘strange’ that prevails throughout the progression of the stories. The “directive power” of the storytellers in the novels successfully conceals the dark and savage parts of their characters behind the façade of “language” that ultimately contributes to the readers’ uncertainty and confusion, and then to the rising tension reaching the climax; finally, to the development of purgation at the end of the novels. The annexations of the events are, though not picture-perfect, so perfect that readers take them as they are. But the underlying uncanny in the stories is so overwhelming that it continues to disturb the readers’ with a sense of discomfort that something strange or unfamiliar is eluding their eye. Indeed, the annexations of the events in the novels contribute to the development of visually perfect images of the characters but the uncanny solely operates in the subconscious region of the readers’ mind. A Brief Overview of Freud’s Uncanny Freud’s concept of uncanny essentially involves a feeling of both familiarity and strangeness. He explains that the uncanny is reminiscent of the Id in the readers’ or the observers’ personality. Since the pleasure principles, savagery and primitive parts of human personality remain suppressed with the rules, norm and regulations of the society, their revelations in any uncanny character in a fiction, in the first place, confound the readers. Therefore, they consider it as something strange or unfamiliar. But at the same time, since one’s subconscious mind immediately can identify its own Id with the Id part of the uncanny, it creates a sense of familiarity, as Freud (1919) asserts, “What is heimlich thus comes to be unheimlich…In general we are reminded that the word heimlich is not unambiguous…on the one hand it means what is familiar and agreeable, and on the other, what is concealed and kept out of sight” (p.23). According to Bennett and Royal (2001), “The Uncanny” has to do with making thing uncertain. It has to do with the sense that things are not as they have come to appear through habit and familiarity.” (p. 22) Like Freud’s “doll of Olympia” both Shelly’s and Maurier’s characters primarily play on the line of the readers’ expectations. That is, they are what they are expected by daily experiences of an individual. Yet their behaviors are intuitively foreign to the readers. Thus the characters’ concordance with common experience allures the readers to surf on the façade of the novels meaning while the cognitive dissonance, which grows out the characters’ strangeness that does not go usually with daily commonalities of human life, irritates one’s mind to explore deep into the inner meaning and into the core of the characters’ psychological makeup. Indeed the use of the uncanny, in its literal sense, takes the readers to the subconscious level of the characters’ psyche where Freud’s Id and dwells in under the iron restriction of the Ego and the Superego. Indeed the readers do not consciously perform this act of exploring the characters’ psyche to work out the reasons behind a fictitious character’s action; rather it happens that the readers also subconsciously -in other words, intuitively- tries to peep into the subconscious of the characters. Throughout this whole intuitive exploration a reader endeavors to assign a meaning to the uncanny or the strange and this act of intuitive exploration remains almost tensed during the climax of the stories. Rebecca In order to put the uncanny in its full effect, the storyteller resorts to several literary techniques. First, Mrs. De Winter narrates in a style of experiencing the déjà vu. The readers come across the déjà vu in the very first sentence: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderly again” (Maurier, 1938, p.1). Through this sentence, the readers actually enter into a dream reality. According Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, dreams are the realm where a person experiences the déjà vu of the Id’s carnal longings. A person is intuitively familiar with the Id’s pleasure principle. Since it is suppressed by the code of manner and the rules of a society, the readers feel horrified in reality even to acknowledge the presence of the savage in him. But the novel’s beginning in dream reality provides the readers to freely haunt the surreal and “déjà vu” environment of the Manderly. But often the storyteller often draws a break in the supposed dream reality with a view to bringing them in physical reality and thus allowing them to feel the horror of what they have just seen. Such a break is traceable in the lines: “Like all dreamers, I was possessed with a sudden of supernatural powers” (Maurier, 1938, p.1). In the very first sentence, the readers start to experience the déjà vu in a dream reality. But the phrase, “Like all dreamers, I was…” (Maurier, 1938, p.1) makes them aware of the reality and they realize that the narrator actually is telling about her past experience. Such technique of storytelling makes the whole story familiar but strange. Also the storyteller’s language and technique of story telling create a sense of odd coincidence that has happened earlier and that is something is destined to happen. The description of the characters, of the setting and the time contribute to the uncanny effects of the novel. Like the perpetuation of a bad dream, the setting of the story has been worked out through the word play of the narrator. Even though the reality of a dream is the strangest in a person’s waking, it is most familiar to a person in his dream since it reflects the horrible savagery of one’s Id. Like a dream reality, the storyteller coveys to the readers’ mind a sense of the inescapability of the familiar dream setting of the novel. For instances, the sentence “Peering closer to through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge is inhabited” (Maurier, 1938, p.1) instantly creates an uncanny sense of something ominous and the inhabited is still familiar to the readers because it is happening in the storyteller’s dream reality. The forgetfulness and the oblivion of the déjà vu setting of the novel, in some way, create a sense in the readers’ mind that the place and setting the story take place is implicitly familiar to them also; but they need to remember it properly as the author also is trying to recall it. Though it is evident that the author has been there before, her wordplays such as “I realized what happened”, “the little lattice window gaped forlorn”, “they crowded dark and uncontrolled” (Maurier, 1938, p. 2) etc grow a sense of uncertainty in the mind. Moreover, the experienced is horrified by the phrases such as “naked limbs leant close to one another”, “her stealthy, insidious way”, “squat oaks and tortured elms”, “Choked with grass”, “monster height”, “to a labyrinth, some choked wilderness” (Maurier, 1938, p.2) etc. Indeed the narrator’s language is fraught with animism and anthropomorphism that contribute to the strangeness of the environment throughout the whole novel. Daphne’s storyteller utilizes the power of language in the fullest to make the setting of the novel the gloomiest, dark and perpetually haunted by the phantom of Rebecca like one experiences in a bad dream. The story telling of “Rebecca” is such that for the readers the mazes of all confusions and uncertainties begin to get clear right at the moment when the story ends. Both the beginning and the middle of story the readers were feeling the uncertain about this hidden truths about the characters. The horror and savagery of the Id are emergent throughout the characters of the novel. The readers cannot say anything for sure about the hideous side of Maxim’s character because the storyteller suspends telling it until Maxim admits it himself. The storyteller describes him as “arresting, sensitive, medieval in some strange inexplicable way" (Maurier, 1938, p.15). The narrator’s description of Maxim is both romantic and insinuative of the “some remote darkness of Maxim’s self” (Maurier, 1938, p. 39). While this romanticism evokes the readers to be submerged in a feeling of self-obsession, the insinuative part of Maxim’s character makes them to grow curious about the strangeness of his character. The phrases “where men walked cloaked at night”, “the shadows of old doorways”, “past narrow stairways and dim dungeons”, “a past of whispers in the dark” (Maurier, 1938, p.15) reflect the shadow of his dark past. The uncanny feature in the portrayal of Maxim is that the readers are very familiar with the romantic environment that surrounds him, but “an obsessive personality, of sexual dominance, of human identity, and of the liberation of the hidden self” (Thomas, n.d. p. 4) of Maxim’s character is unfamiliar to them. The narrator’s description of the characters as well as of the nature is fraught with an abundance of sexuality. For an instance, when Maxim was taking the narrator to his estate, she describes the overwhelming beauty of the road with the phrases such as "serpent," "penetrate," "throbbing," "penetrating even deeper," "blood-red", and "slaughterous red" (Maurier, 1938, pp. 64-65). Rebecca’s ghostly presence in Manderly is also strange but normal, that is, uncanny. She is not a phantom but her dominance over Maxim as well as his house is phantom-like. The influence of the sexual beauty of Rebecca pervades Maxim’s memory in broad daylight. But the way Mrs. De Winter describes her reveals her as a phantom and also reveals the savagery of the Id’s sexuality. For an instance, when after the party Maxim does not come to bed, the narrator comments, “I could fight the living but I could not fight the dead…Rebecca would never grow old. Rebecca would always be the same. And she and I could not fight" (Maureir, 1938, pp. 233-4). These lines present Rebecca in an ambiguous way. First these lines uphold Rebecca’s real influence on Maxim in a ghostly manner. Thus Rebecca is both real and strange, and contributes to the uncanny appearance of the novel. These dark savageries behind the sublime portrayal of Rebecca produce the most uncannily effect in the readers’ mind. The readers see that Rebecca maintains illegal relationships with a number of men. Mrs. Danvers, in an insinuative way, tells about Rebecca’s promiscuous sexuality, as she says, “They made love to her, of course, who would not?" (Maurier, 1938, p. 245) Indeed the readers become confounded in front of the insinuation of the taboos in the narration. Mrs. Danvers’s infatuation and obsession with Rebecca’s clothes and hair brushing are indicative of her lesbian relationship with Rebecca. The readers cannot but guess that Mrs. Danvers’s indiscernible hostility to the narrator evolves from her sexual frustration that occurred because of the death of Rebecca. She tries to keep Rebecca’s presence intact by pushing the narrator towards committing suicide, as such she says, “It's you who ought to be dead, not Mrs. de Winter…Why don't you jump? Why don't you jump now and have done with it? Then you won't be unhappy anymore" (Maurier, 1938, p. 246). Frankenstein In “Frankenstein” the uncanny occurs mostly on the thematic level and to a limited extent in portrayal of the setting and characterizations. The uncanny in this novel functions in a way that is opposite to that of “Rebecca”. In the “Rebecca”, the readers feel the strange savagery behind the façade of familiar nobility and sublimity. But in the “Frankenstein”, the readers feel a strange humanity behind the surface level savagery. Shelly’s monster is openly savage. It shows an abundance of the revelation of the Id’s primitive principles. Strangely the readers feel the presence of human behind this savagery. The monster is not hideously savage; he is openly revengeful to his creator. Traditionally the readers are familiar with the savagery of a monster. There is nothing strange in the savagery of a monster, because they take it granted that a monster is such. Yet the monstrous portrayal is uncanny, because its humanly yearning to love and be in love carefully evades the readers’ eyes from the very beginning of the novel. It is remarkable that first four chapters of the novel deal with Victor’s self portrayal. In these chapters, Victor speaks a representative of the civilized society in which he lives. In a modern science-and-technology-backed society, Victor is the lonely scientist who is isolated from the society and familial love. In such a context, his endeavor to put life into inanimate object, with the knowledge of natural philosophy and chemistry, ends in the creation of a creation of an eight feet tall ugly monster that comprises of different organs of ugly creatures. But Victor’s creature is not a traditional monster that eats up other human being, as the monster claims, “My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment” (Shelly, 1818, p.148). But a monster that does not eat human being is itself an uncanny creation. Such monster was strange to the early 19th century readers because the connotation of the “monster” refers to some creature that is ferocious, ugly and is supposed to live human flesh and blood. Yet the readers feel that portrayal of the monster infers that it is not totally strange and unfamiliar. Shelly’s monster kills other human being brutally but at the same time yearns for a companion and her love, as the monster tells about his feeling: “I admired virtue and good feelings and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my cottagers, but I was shut out from intercourse with them” (Shelly, 1818, p.129). Such possession of opposing qualities turns the monster into the abstraction of a totally different evil. Essentially this uncanny evil appears to be the projection and reflection of other evils. This reflective evil, like the monster, gives birth to a number of interpretations from different perspectives and one of the most dominant interpretations is that the monster is the savage Id of human personality that needs the care and love of the society in order to be civilized. The uncanny of the monster’s image is further concentrated by his rescue of a peasant girl. This rescue essentially makes the readers more confused about the monster’s humanly quality. Initially the ugliness that appalls the readers initially turns into a kind of empathetic feeling for the beast (Klein, 2006, p. 139). The readers indeed find their own tender feeling of love in the beast. Since the monster is brutal and since his countenance does not go alone with the expectations of a commoner, this human-like monster appears to be the most unfamiliar to the readers. Therefore at some point, the readers are convinced that he is essentially the reflection of Victor’s alien behavior. Now if Victor is supposed to represent the mother-society, then the monster represents the society’s hostility. But in the novel Shelly never explicitly tells about the society’s evil behavior and Victor’s intentional animosity towards his creation; rather it is Victor’s instinctive hatred for the ugly and his failure to feel the child and human being in his ugly creation, as his innate hatred is evident in the line, “I started from my sleep with horror….I beheld the wretch—the miserable monster whom I had created” (Shelly, 1818, p.98). On the other hand, the monster is endowed with some rational capability to brood over his misery, as he says, “[which] I obtained by stealth…I was unseen and unknown, and which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of becoming one among my fellows” (Shelly, 1818, p.129). Conclusion Both of these novels incorporate the primary three elements of the popular gothic thriller informed by the principles of Freud’s psychometric theory, particularly his concepts of the uncanny, in order to tell their stories. In each case, the main character in question suffers from the effects of psychometry, or the division of the soul, as a result of his or her inability to see through the darkness of current events or their own flawed perceptions to better understand the sublime element at work under the surface. Through Freud’s ideas of the uncanny, both characters are forced to meet the hidden elements of their inner psyches. In only one case is this character able to resolve these issues sufficiently to embark on the remainder of her life in relative wholeness. This is because she is able to sufficiently confront her demons in order to understand what they mean to her own existence. References Bennett and Royal (2001), “Uncanny”, Fiction and Repetition. London: Bentham. Du Maurier, Daphne. (1938). Rebecca. Chicago, IL: JG Ferguson. Freud, Sigmund. (1919). The Uncanny. [online] December 02, 2010. available at Klein, J. Michael. “Beholding the Uncanny: Replicants, Cyborgs and Clones in Science Fiction”, [online] December 02, 2010. available at Shelley, Mary. (1818; 2004). The Essential Frankenstein. Leonard Wolf (Ed.). New York: Simon & Schuester. Thomas, John. (n.d.). “Daphne Du Maurier”, [online] December 02, 2010. available at Read More