The Uncanny

The Uncanny Imagery

Loss of Eyes

Freud focuses on the loss of eyes as a powerful image that often creates an uncanny effect. Freud links this to the infant fear of castration.

Living Dolls

The Uncanny also focuses on the unsettling feeling provoked by living dolls, or other inanimate objects of which we can't be certain whether they are alive. Freud links the uncanny in this case to the recurrence of the belief in the omnipotence of thoughts by infants and primitive people.

Living Burial

Freud also invokes the image of being buried alive as something that generates an uncanny feeling. Freud ties this feeling back to the infant's wish to be able to return to the womb.