Meaning of uncanny | Babel Free

Definitions

Something that is simultaneously familiar and strange, typically leading to feelings of discomfort.

Equivalents

Examples

“This uncontrollable possibility—the possibility of a certain loss of control—can, perhaps, explain why the uncanny remains a marginal notion even within psychoanalysis itself.”

“As is well known, Freud introduced the concept of the uncanny into psychoanalysis in 1919 and used The Sandman as a prime illustration for his definition.”

“In the preceding chapter, we saw that Freud linked the maternal body, death, and the afterlife with the uncanny in his famous essay "The Uncanny" ("Das Unheimliche").”

“The uncanny involves feelings of uncertainty, in particular regarding the reality of who one is and what is being experienced.”

“Freud argued that the uncanny was particularly associated with feelings of horror aroused by the figure of the paternal castrator, neglecting the tropes of woman and animal as a source of the uncanny.”

“[The uncanny is] something that was long familiar to the psyche and was estranged from it only through being repressed. The link with repression now illuminates Schelling′s definition of the uncanny as ‘something that should have remained hidden and has come into the open.’ (Freud: 2003, 147 f)”

“Because the uncanny affects and haunts everything, it is in constant transformation and cannot be pinned down.”

CEFR level