Beyond Repression and Back to the Secrets of the Familiar: A Critical Look at Freud's Essay on the Uncanny

Abstract

This article critiques the way Freud associates the uncanny with the idea of repression. The rhetoric he uses in the essay destabilizes his effort to place it in the depths of the psyche especially as he examines dictionary definitions interprets the doublings in Hoffmann's 'The Sandman' formulates an anthropological argument based on unsurmounted belief and reveals his stance on religion. Moving beyond repression the article underscores the aspect of secrecy in the constitution of the 'unheimlich' and proposes a contextual return to the conflicts between secrecy and openness between keeping private and making public that primarily play out on the surfaces of the psyche rather than in its repressed depths. It concludes with a return to the dictionary entries that fascinated Freud in order to cull more insights into the uncanny.