Catching Up Post

I found On Dreams to be a very interesting read because dreams have always been appealing to me. Freud points out how his friend's gesture of paying for his cab showed up, in a way, in his own dream. It's interesting how something so small can have an effect on our dreams and can be hidden in such a strange way. I have heard writing down you're dreams helps to remember and make meaning of them but, I never would've thought they had such deep meanings.

I don't think I've ever read anything quite like The Sandman. The content of the story, from the beginning to the end, and even the way it is written, is just strange. I know we discussed in class that because it is not specifically stated, there cannot be such a simple explanation to the story as Nathaniel being insane. I do however think it's clear that there's something wrong going on in his head. Between his outbursts and his interest in Olympia, who isn't real, he simply cannot be a normally functioning person. The question of what exactly is considered normal? is not an easy question to answer, but I do believe that having feelings for an automaton excludes you from normalcy. I also thought an interesting point was when Coppola takes Olympia away from Spalanzanni, the name switches from Coppola to Coppelius. I believe this is just Nathaniel falling into one of his episodes and he is choosing to hear Coppelius over Coppola.

After hearing in class that the beginning of The Turn of the Screw was somewhat boring, i found the first few pages built an anticipation of what was later to come in the novella. It's pretty creepy how this guy keeps showing up and it seems like Mrs. Grose is holding something back. After being seen outside the window, and she went outside to that very same window to look in, I thought for sure she was gonna see him inside. That would have been eery. Then we come to find out Mrs. Grose knows who the man is and he is indeed dead. It seems things are known that aren't being shared and secrets will be exposed by the end of the story.

Because I'm so behind...(On Dreams, The Sandman, The Uncanny, and a little bit of Turn of the Screw)

I'm pretty far behind in terms of posting so I just wanted to post my notes from when I did read the followings:

On Dreams was a little hard to follow because of Freud's tendency to circle back after reaching new points. It actually reminds me how (in my own) dreams can sometimes kind of loop or just rewind after a certain point. Sometimes I find myself running through the same place or at the 'end', it just begins again- maybe that's just me? But after rereading and listening to lectures for this piece, I found that him using his own dream and thoroughly breaking it down as an example was quite interesting. I never thought our dreams could so deeply coincide with our waking life- it's exactly like deciphering a story. I do, however, think that dreams can't occasionally be understood and am totally okay with it. Thinking about how dreams are meant for us to conclude the repressed thoughts we contain or the events that occurs in our waking life, how would one explain the act of lucid dreaming? It could, yes, conclude repressed feelings/events but we could do that in waking life so it just has me thinking, what happens in lucid dreaming that doesn't happen in dreams or while awake?

The Sandman was an eerily interesting story, to say the least- class lectures helped to understand the flow or lack there of. After reading and going through notes, my main question was whether Nathaniel was having a dream (from when he's a child OR at the age he wrote the letters from the beginning), Nathaniel is simply psychotic, or if the story is strictly meant to be a work of fiction. It's written like a real event with no hints to paranormal or super fictiony detail but I would say because of Nathaniel's weird trippy rants, he's probably just out of his mind. There's definitely a type of neurosis where one has anxiety over specific things (eyes, rings of fire, daddy issues...) and thus is obsessed and relates everything to that. The story really made me think hard on what's real and what also, in real life, what triggers that behavior- because of that, I thought it was a great read. Also, I did check out the links of all sorts of spooky 'uncanny' things from the Main class blog and I couldn't even get through the second part of 99 rooms, that music is too much. I also checked out one of the videos for The Sandman update, the one that looked alot like Nightmare before Christmas, and it was a fun addition to look at when remembering the story that the nanny gave Nathaniel as opposed to his mother's hushed version.

The Uncanny was a long but informal reading. The first part was helpful with how Freud found out about the terms heimlich and unheimlich and how it is used back and forth, also, how it relates to the english version, uncanny/canny. The second and third go through examples from stories and also real life afflictions used in stories. I find it to be all analysis and very helpful to stories like The Sandman and what I'm currently reading, Turn of the Screw. So far I really enjoy Turn of the Screw, it actually wasn't all that hard because I got in about 5 chapters and I find it to be one of those stories that I wanna keep reading. The only difficulty I'm having is who is speaking at what moment, otherwise, as mentioned previously in class, alot of the people mentioned have died and I've been noticing that a lot so far.

Turn Of The Screw

The beginning of this story was really a drag! It was funny discussing in class what is scary or "inappropriate" at this time, and how it probably wouldn't seem like anything to us now. It was also interesting to talk about the time this story is told and how the child is worshipped! And how you metioned in the class blog how the child was looked at as pure and innocent.
Throughtout the story the governess is always concerned with Miles and Flora and there well-being it seems. And it seems as if evil is associated with sex or doing something out of the ordinary?
I found it pretty wierd too that right after the story begins when she sees this man, Mrs Grose knows who it is after a description of clothes and then informs the governess he is dead, but assumes that Quint is after someone. It is just wierd throughout the story how it seems like everyone knows something, but can't say. It definately is a story of hidden secrets. It just seems like sex or whatever is being hidden is forbidden to be spoken of. It was pretty freak to me at points like when the governess just saw this random guy staring at her through a tower and then through there dining room windom or any of the times she sees these ghost really, pretty freaky.

I enjoy our discussions in class, they really help clear up some confusing parts of stories, and bring up things I at first wouldn't even recognize and help understand some points that are not understood.

psychoanalysis as a source of the uncanny

we are born with unlimited possibilities/potentials

they are rapidly narrowed down after birth

this causes tremendous anxiety- we repress it

this causes all the “sexual anxiety” we experience in adult life

uncovering these repressions give us a feeling or experience of the uncanny

psychoanalysis (as a therapy) deals with those anxieties by uncovering the repressions

so psychoanalysis can itself produce an experience of the uncanny.

I thought the Turn of the Screw was a great story, I was completely captivated and constantly trying to figure out what was really goin on. I was a little confused on the time span of the story, like how long she was there experiencing the 'ghostly' encounters. I also was curious about how old the boy was, as his voice and actions seemed to mature by the end of the story. I like how it ended, however I felt a little unsettled that it never came back to the narrator and the ones listening to this story. I'm really exciied to start on the Accursed Inhabitants of the House of Bly for another perspective of what was going.

Im looking forward to our class discussion which always clears up questions I have.

The Untranny

An uncanny thing has components of heimlich and unheimlich. That is to say it is something at once familiar and homelike and strangely foreign and incomprehensible. The transexual embodies the nature of the uncanny perfectly. They are subjects universally familiar to both sexes, yet unlike either at all. They are both sexes and simultaneously neither sex. This is an extreamally uncanny concept.

There is also another uncanny element to the uncanniness of the transexual. It is through the definition of unheimlich: when something hidden is uncovered. When someone sees a transexual the feeling of the uncanny is undeniable. This is because we are fulfilling the meaning of unheimlich when once we recognize them as a transexual. We are uncovering a secret that is being hidden and simultaneously flaunted.

The Turn of the Screw

This novel starts off confusing because it seems like it starts out of nowhere. It doesn't explain anything and it doesn't start off how a normal story would. But eventually it starts to make sense when Mrs. Grose sees a man that she doesn't know who looks scary. He keeps watching her and she's trying to figure out who it is but can't until she starts to remember what he's wearing.

For this part I don't understand how she at first doesn't know him, but then figures out who he is, then she knows he's dead. Then after she knows he's dead she knows that Quint was looking for someone? I just thought that was weird.

The Uncanny

The essay The Uncanny, was very interesting because it gives us the insight to what hoffman was thinking when writing The Sandman.Freud gives us explanations about the doubling concept used many times between mentioning Nathaniels father, the burnings of the houses and also him falling sick. The reason was that these events were repetitive because they had a significant meaning. I couldn't understand why the events in the story were doing so untill the uncanny explained. Freud explains that their is also the concept of human vs. Inhuman between Nathaniel and olympia. All of the events that were in the timeline shows us clear that everything is happening for a reason. The example in class using female vs. Male was interesting because we had an idea or a concept that males were to be more dominant in society. Overall, I was glad the uncanny was able to point out what was unclear to me. On another note, The Turn of the Screw is already starting to get better than the beginning of the story.

The Sandman/ The Uncanny

I'm a little late for this, sorry! Going over The Uncanny in class helped a lot in making sense of The Sandman overall for me. Even though there is no explanation for the events and why they happen and if they are even actually happening, I now understand some smaller elements of the story. When Freud first brought in the concept of doubling I didn't quite understand what he meant, but i went back to The Sandman again and the chart we went over in class and it brought all of it together. All of the important aspects of the story continue to repeat themselves in order to show their importance.

Also, I find the idea that loss of eyes serves as the fear for castration very interesting. I, myself, wouldn't have made that connection, but now that it's been presented to me it makes a lot of sense. If Coppelius is supposed to be the stories "father figure" then he comes into the story at all the moments where Nathanial is trying to solidify love with another character. So his madness could stem from the fear of castration.

I'm still not quite sure that i understand the spyglass entirely though.

And I'm not sure if this correlates at all, but all the talk of eyes in class, it reminded me of the movie Coraline because in order for her to stay in her alternate perfect world she needs to sew buttons where her eyes should be. Another kind of creepy story, I don't even know if it works with our past discussion, it's just where my mind automatically went.

THE UNCANNY

Psalm 27,5. In the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me. im fasinated that freud pick this up as an "heimlich, unheimlich" effect. the tabernacle is a place where god would meet with his people, its normally a very wholy place where the smell of sin or sin itself cannot abound, but it is wriiten that we are born in sin and shapen in iniquity (Isaiah 53:6), so its fascinating that the almighty god would dwell inside or with sinful men. holy dwelling with unholy in secret, uncanny?. pharoah naming a jew "joseph" to be second in command of egypt. joseph both jew and egyptian, uncanny? there's soo many stories in the bible that carries the uncanny effect. Iran president ahmadinejad at the world trade center, uncanny?

It was really interesting to learn how Freud's essay on Uncanny linked a very strange story Sandman to something almost everyone experienced in his/her life. "unfamiliar within familiar"- simple but interesting stuff. Freud not only showd the very negligible differnce between the most familiar and strangest things but also gave meaning to very same piece of literature(Sandman), which walter scott called madman's work. we carry the scariest thing within us , the skeleton, is also very interesting way of saying unfamiliar within familiar. most of the pictures on blogs are strange just because they are slightly different that normal. For example, babies eyes are the only different thing on his/her face which is making him/her very strange.

For the Love of Corn

http://www.anasomnia.com/

need a webcam   turn ur lights on and off in ur room and its crazy

So I just finished "H" and I feel it also ended rather abruptly and without answering many questions that it leaves the reader asking.  It actually leaves you asking even more questions.   And is the final letter, addressed "to whom it may concern" and not signed by anyone, a suicide note from Benjamin? He is released from the hospital while being weened off his medication after he has been "treated" (Elliot no longer responds to him and Elliottown has gone to the year a million- the pills and therapy have ended his hallucinations and therefore contact with Elliot). But Benjamin does not believe that Elliot is a figment of his imagination, he just believes that Elliot has left him. So when released, could he have just decided to kill himself because Elliot, the only one who truly understood him (because she was actually a part of him), had left him?

H

Where is the link for "A Cursid Inhabitance of the House of Bly"?

I had to download a new web browser to be able to get on the Blog finally.

And I'm about 3/4 of the way through "H" and its a lot easier reading that the last few readings in the sense that it's written in the way people actually  speak orally today.  Its also pretty weird in the sense that your getting all these different perspectives about whats going on from all different characters and you dont actually hear from the protagonist of the story until about half way through the book. i like the style of the story though, using letters from different characters to get a sense of whats happened instead of just telling a story in a straight narrative form. Elizabeth Shepard does a great job. You still create all the images of the story without her having to break her form of letter writing. 

THE SANDMAN

I feel everyone is on point by saying this is by far if not the most awkward story written. i forgot if it is fiction or not. but i wonder whose crazy though nathaniel or is it the writer of this literature( mad scientist or frankinstein). On a more serious note the notion of nathaniel losing his eyes as a mirror effect of castration has some validity. they say the eyes are the window to one soul so losing one's eyes could mean losing your soul( the essence of you) and for a man losing his testicle could mean losing his place as a man and more over losing the opportunity to play the role of FATHER. its funny that most of the encounters in the story is Nathaniel trying to find love and i feel its more to have childeren so he can play the domineering role as head of the household. In the book of genesis it is said that a man should leave his mother and father and shall cleave unto his own wife, with that said i feel the fear of castration has been lurking since creation and is even more previlant in the animal kingdom. so if god created the animals first and adam after could we say this tendency came from us watching them versus an inate gene. know it sounds weird but going back to dreams could it be that dreams( or memory) can travel through generation, similar to how phobias do. i know its alot to absorb.

Sandman / Uncanny

The Sandman has got to be one of the most awesomely, disturbing piece of literature I have ever read. I personally am very weary when it comes down to anything involving eyes so it had be from the start. While reading, I also took note how there would be these step backwards, repeating motifs throughout the story. What helped me the most was when that class was given with the timeline of events which had it all drawn out and made it easier to comprehend that it wasn't some coincedence, that these things were there for a specific reason. The idea of the dupilicity really opened my mind more to the story, and after that class I went back to reread it with a deeper understanding. Poor Nathanel is all I can think of. He really suffers through the story and that whole disturbing idea that nothing is what it seems really got under my skin. How could he be so far gone that he does not see what is so clear? His blindness is most uncanny to me. Clara's letter to him and her voice of reason, saying how it is mind over matter made me think. She writes how there is this power in ourselves to refrain from going down a wild path and if one thinks their going a little crazy, to start going another way. That stood out to me for some reason, because maybe Nathanel had control to back away from the bad thoughts. I also find the whole idea of uncanny really interesting. There was one picture from the blog Carnival of the Uncanny that completely disturbed my mind, the one with the monkey throwing up and someone just taking a picture of it. I don't know the reason why it just bugged me out. Something was so off? about it that it really got under my skin.

I also found a link for the essay The "Uncanny" : http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf

Coppala and Spalanzani

To me it looks like Coppola/Coppelius and Spalanzani are partners in crime. In the beginning of the story Coppola attempts to sell Nate a barometer. The latter then flips out and attacks Coppola. From this point on they begin to systematically set his life in motion in accordance with their plans. It is shortly after the attack that Nate goes back home to visit. When he returns he finds that his house has been burned down. It is noted that the fire was started in the apothcary's laboratory. An apothecary is a chemist who dispenses medical concoctions, much like a contemporary pharmicist. This too is uncanny, similar with minor differences to the original fire. Hoffmann writes," He (Nathaniel) did not think it at all remarkable
that he now lodged opposite to Professor Spalazani; neither did it appear singular when he percieved that his window looked straight into the room where Olympia often sat alone..."
Then the next major occurance in the story is Coppola returning to Nate despite the risk of being attacked by a lunatic. And he risks the visit so that he can give Nate a telescope.The telescope is essential, and symbolic. Even though its supposed to improve vision, it actually serves to ensnare Nathaniel even deeper in their plans. He uses the telescope to gaze at Olympia. It just seems like to big of a coincidence for all these things to happen by mistake. It seems much more probable that Coppelius and Spalanzani burned down the house, (perhaps even intentionally they did it in a familiar way as the first fire)oversaw his relocation, and provided him with the telescope.

" The Sandman "

I actually enjoyed this reading even though it was pretty wierd. I liked the set up of the story, how it started off in letters and then was later narrated. I enjoyed that you got different perspectives. You can see the way Nathienal invisions the reality of the situation as opposed to Lothaire, Clara and his mother who believe he is just making it up. It is a little fustrating you can not really tell if what's happening is real or fake and even though many of us would think it is an allusion, then I can't understand while in the narrated part of the story it still gives specific details and makes some parts seem like they are really happening, and this is from someone else's perspective who is telling the story like they were there it seems.
There was so many details and descriptions of the uncanny situations it's hard not to believe. One of my interperations of this story would be Nathianel had a bad experience as a child and it infected his mind like a disease and eventually drove him to insanity.
It is annoying though that you do not have a clear understanding of the story, but at least it allows you to explore and make a couple of inferences.

The Sandman

The strangeness of the story answers all the questions it has to present. For example, the fact that we are trying to decipher the real events from events that may have happened are irrelevant inquiries because "The Sandman" himself is a fictional entity according to Nathaniel's mother. Nathaniel only becomes interested in who the Sandman is after he learns of his reason of making an appearance. I feel as though the overall basis of the story is to give the reader a dream of a frightened child. I myself have had dreams where i've been another age, in a strange place, performing unnatural and uncanny actions etc. But there are significances to various events in the story.