anna's w/u uncanny freud

After reading Freud's "The Uncanny", I didn't make the leap that fear of losing one's sight is connected to fear of castration. It's possible, though not definite. Since Hoffman's intentions are not verified, it just remains speculation. Good Old Freud is at it again!

Freud states that jentsch's ovservation of Hoffman leaving the reader to wonder if a particular character is real or not as being a successful uncanny device, is only partially correct. Freud believes Olympia is not the most uncanny occurrence in the story. he feels this because children tend not to differeniate between the inanimate and animate. If their doll were to become real, it wouldn't be scary to them, but rather it would be something they might secretly wish for. When I read Jentsch's statement though, I think of The Sandman himself as being the most uncanny. Is this a real character or a figment of the imagination? Does he represent repressed childhood experiences or how we can avoid a fear, only to have it come back to 'haunt' us?

When Nathaniel's nurse explains the terrifying story of The Sandman to him, it reminded me of old fairy tales and how sinister and frightening they always were. Children, strangely enough, are not scared off by such stories and have a certain fascination with scary things. It made me think of the movie 'To Kill a Mockingbird', and how the kids saw their neighbor as being scary but in reality he was mentally slow. He ends up an unlikely hero by coming to their aid.

Freud states Hoffman's bringing "anxiety about eyes into such intimate connection with the father's death" convinces him that The Sandman must be about the castration complex. You could also look at this though as naiveness replaced by knowledge. Maybe Nathaniel saw his father as perfect (as most young children see their parents) and through growing up sees something that disappoints him or takes away that facade of perfection. Also, when Freud asks "why The Sandman is always a destroyer of love?", it could be the author was referring to an idealized version of love, an infatuation. Also, the author could be speaking about the injury to the eyes, as the loss of innocence, in the sense of how children see and understand things. The Sandman would be symbolically depriving them of their seeing through innocent eyes.