Stacey Busuttil | University of Northampton (original) (raw)

Thesis Chapters by Stacey Busuttil

Utilising theories from Freud, Lacan, and Zizek, this dissertation aims to unravel the scope and ... more Utilising theories from Freud, Lacan, and Zizek, this dissertation aims to unravel the scope and severity of the uncanny within modern literature, using the influences and contextual analysis of Edgar Allen Poe’s key texts (The Black Cat (1843), The Fall of the House of Usher (1839)) as a framework whilst drawing upon theorists such as Freud, Lacan and Zizek to support. Via the exploration of the significance of mirrors and doubling, this dissertation will assess the positive and negative implications of the Gothic and its literary tropes: the significance of doppelgängers and the Oedipal complex will further support the analysis of the Self and Other, as well as the notion of masks, both literally and hypothetically. Drawing upon Claude Levi Strauss and Leon Festinger, cognitive dissonance will also feature. With its implications ranging from rationalisation to redemption, cognitive dissonance will be used in conjunction with the uncanny valley to assess texts and pinpoint their contributions to terror and ambiguity within not only the characters of the text, but the reader as well. Julia Kristeva’s theory on abjection will also be drawn upon as an interesting parallel between uncanniness and expulsion between the Self/Other ethos. Particular attention shall be given to the Ego and the Id, particularly in relation to their relationship with the mirrored/doubled self. Freud’s theory of the uncanny will be used to investigate the semantic power of (das) heimlich and (das) unheimlich highlighting the strength of their dualism and the disruption of the safe, comforting and homely feeling that attributes to alienation and strangeness – of one not being “at home in the world” (Freud 63). Freud’s associations with the uncanny as the withdrawn, strange and mysterious “entity” entrenches its latent and somewhat fearful existence in both psychoanalytical and lexicographical analyses of texts and will prove helpful in analysing both Gothic and modern literary tropes. This elaboration of the uncanny will showcase that both high and low uncanny – “the Gothic cellar and the fantastic room” (Reuber 1) – ties many of the factors of the trope together. In each of the chosen texts the house is a predominant feature and in no way benign. More often than not, the physical building contributes to a characters’ indecisiveness, external and internal supernatural pressures, and labyrinthine structure. The latter will be used to illuminate the influence of Gothicism within the texts, as well as drawing upon Poe’s utilisation of the labyrinth as a psychological signifier for one’s chaotic psyche made tangible.
In conjunction with both Freud and Lacan, the mirror, doppelgänger and double motif will be explored in relation to character progression and their influence on the ego and the Id. Lacan’s “lack of lack” will be used to support character development and decent into the uncanny, with particular attention on this part with Millhauser’s Miracle Polish. Subjectivism and gaze will also be covered, as well as Zizek’s gaze qua object, detailing their contribution to inspire ambiguity, narcissism and anxiety on a psychological level. Attention will be given to the impact and scope of the Oedipal crisis/complex and its contributions to the subliminal uncanny within a family context. Attention will also be given to desumblimation and its relationship with the concealment-desire paradox. Gothicism will be linked with nihilism, supressed libido and internal/external dreamscapes; these, coupled with dissonance and sociological movement within the uncanny genre over time will highlight ambivalence and psychological dilemma as treated within a more modernised literary context.

Chapter one: Coraline – Neil Gaiman (2003)
The values of the Self and Other are questioned and human desire for the “preferred self” is explored through mirroring. Neil Gaiman’s Coraline sees the familiar flipped and skewed via the other mother: a grotesque replacement of the maternal. The notion of cognitive dissonance will explore the motif of masked/obscured features to pinpoint the impact of sudden ambiguity. Themes borrowed from Poe’s Gothic narratives support the motif of burial and its psychological implications. The Oedipus complex is explored via Freud and applied to Coraline’s relationship with her mother and father; the abjection of the maternal and the doppelgänger motif visualised in the “other mother”, as well as the impact of the grotesque as defined by Mikhail Bakhtin predominantly demonstrated in the patriarchal figure of the “other father”, will feature. Claude Levi Strauss’s theory of the mask will be touched upon in order to further illustrate the powerful ambiguity the uncanny implies, as well as the other mother’s relativity to the famous “uncanny valley”. Exploring the uncanny double as a figure of the “uncanny guest”, as supported by Susan Bernstein, will prove particularly enlightening and compliment the instability of familial structure within a pre-Oedipal protagonist (Coraline). Bernstein’s notion of the uncanny as a silent, rotating presence – an unseen/unacknowledged guest – will draw useful comparisons to Sarah Waters’s The Little Stranger.

Chapter two: Miracle Polish – Steven Millhauser (2011)
Focusing the discussion on the strongest motif of the text – mirrors and doubling – the analysis will delineate the importance of Lacanian gaze, “lack of lack” and desublimation. Gaze and jouissance will be used to clarify the uncanny in terms of narcissism and the power it has over its subject. The Gothic motif of the labyrinth (akin to Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher) will help clarify the uncanny in a modern context, stripping the literal castle-esque dungeons and looping hallways for a modernised setting, exemplify mental destabilisation at the hands of uncanny influence. The destabilisation of the “homely” or das heimlich under the effect of the uncanny/jouissance will be used to show the impact on its subject and their perception of liminal space. In keeping with the home and the familiar made anxious or unreal, the pressures of the double on the psyche will be highlighted to expose the possibility of altered perception. Furthermore, the double’s influence on the narrator’s ego and Id will be used to show the possibility for psychological change; the possibility for denial in familial relationships, e.g. the narrator’s love interest, will also feature. Comparisons to Poe’s use of Gothic locale will be drawn to assimilate the modernised context of the narrative with the complications/anxiety implicated by one’s double.

Chapter three: The Little Stranger – Sarah Waters (2009)
The uncanny will be used to pull together the implications of class and social change within a devolving Gothic context. Repression, denial and abjection will contribute to the study of the text, whilst harnessing the ambulatory uncanny as a tool of psychological anxiety. The double/mirrors will also feature as an example of repressed desire and ambivalence. Freud’s dream theory will be used to illustrate the fantastic (le fantastique), and cognitive dissonance theory will be used to emphasise the psychological relationship between the double and its impact on the subject. Similarly to Coraline, the narrator’s double will be compared to Bernstein’s “uncanny guest”, together with abjectified presence and classic Gothic architecture. The repression of the libido will be explored in relation to neurosis and objectified reality. Attention will be given to comparisons in Radcliffean Gothic nuances and architecture, together will Poe’s labyrinthine design. The supernatural as a motif of the fantastic will also be covered, the implications of which ranging from dissonance to the overruling strength of the das unheimlich. Zizek’s “death drive” will be touched upon to better explain the impact of the double on the characters it is exposed to, working its way through its subjects as a preamble to death. With the latter in mind, this dissertation hopes to prove a movement in the uncanny motif through modernisation: a change in stylistic nuance that disproves the need for literal death at the hands of the uncanny; this would go against traditional Gothic texts such as Poe’s William Wilson.