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Recommended: Issue of xenophobia
In the proposed assignment I intend to support that the theme of “alien invasion” constitutes a significant parameter in the American culture as it reflects the fear of the unknown. American society, likewise any other society, fears greatly that anything unknown, such as a person or an idea, will suddenly appear in their peaceful life, will not be assimilated and as a result will contribute to the distraction of their American identity. Given that US is a materialism-based culture, which contradicts the school of thought of communism, the fear of the unknown was especially focusing on it – among other things – during the Cold War. Authors were clearly referred to Russians as a threat – like they were aliens themselves – like in the case of Frederik Pohl’s sort stories “The Tunnel under the world” where the main protagonist questions himself about the enemy he is facing, and he uses the phrase “Russians? Martians?” Similarly, in the sort story of John Milne’s “Death and the Senator”, the Senator chooses to die instead of succumbing to the devilish medical practices of the Russians, that are taking place in outer space. Continuing, the “Red Scare” drove American politics to a new era; discussing anything about communism was almost prohibited, especially during the McCarthyism era. Hence, many authors used the theme of a forthcoming alien invasion, similar to a Red invasion, avoiding specific discussions on the subject. One example is the sort story of Robert Sheckley “The Hour of Battle”, where the Martians appear to be telepathic creatures that abducted an American soldier, which obliged Americans to wait in the open space for any attack in order to protect the earth. That narration can be considered a narration of the Cold War ...
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... London: Magnum. 87-92.
"Odyssey” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 03 Oct. 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey
Sigmund Freud. (2001) "From the Uncanny" In V. B . Leitch, W. E. Cain, L. Finke, B. Johnson, J. McGowan (eds.) The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: Norton. 824-41.
"Uncanny" Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 03 Oct. 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny
"United States in the 1950s" Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 03 Oct. 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_in_the_1950s#Science_and_technology
Wyndham, J. (1952) Revolt of the Triffids: The Day of the Triffids: A Science-fiction Novel. New York: Popular Library.
Wells, H. G. (1960) The War of the Worlds. New Zealand: Macmillan Publishers New Zealand Ltd
"Xenophobia" Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 03 Nov. 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia
The author starts the chapter by briefly introducing the source in which this chapter is based. He makes the introduction about the essay he wrote for the conference given in at Vanderbilt University. This essay is based about the events and problems both Native Americans and Europeans had to encounter and lived since the discovery of America.
The concept of the uncanny can be a difficult one to comprehend; this is why Freud begins his essay with an analysis of the different definitions of the uncanny in various languages. Ultimately Freud rests that the German terms “heimlich” and “unheimlich” best match the definition of the uncanny because it is translated as familiar and unfamiliar. The uncanny can be defined as something that creates a feeling of familiarity but also unfamiliarity, and this unfamiliarity is what is fearful to the individual. Freud’s essay “The Uncanny” can be related to the field of literary criticism because he explains how the feeling of the uncanny relates to the author’s attempt to convey a certain response from their audience. This type of analysis bridges Freud’s work and Larsen’s novel in order to re-examine and debate certain moments in Passing that after a second look can be defined as uncanny. Passing is a short novel that centers on two mixed women who reunite in their adult lives and describe how they are trying to “pass” as white to society. Clare’s motive for passing is so that she can live a luxurious life with her white husband who is extremely racist. Whereas Irene is trying to pass when she goes out in society, her husband Brian is fully aware and is a black doctor. Irene and Clare’s childhoods and pasts are vague which allows there to be room for psychoanalysis, particularly with the character Irene and her feelings towards Clare. Through psychoanalytical criticism of the uncanny moments that occur in Larsen’s novel Passing build tension between Irene and Clare and it is argued that Irene pushed Clare from the window that caused her death in order for Irene to keep her secure life with her husband.
A subculture can consist of any small group outside the central or key majority group. The groups can range from an organized crime group, to an Asian American group, to a religious group, to even a hippie commune. The main focus of this unit is the immigrant subcultures. The immigrant subculture that is becoming more commonplace every day in the United States is the Mexican Americans. Mexican Americans have many religious traditions, ceremonies, customs, as well as art and music forms. There are also various cultural traditions. Mexican Americans have their own identity on the contrary they still have distinct American characteristics.
War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells is a fiction story written about war and mankind’s coming of age. It is also a philosophical novel with many deep meanings underlying the shallow looking one-hundred-eighty-eight page book.
FREUD, SIGMUND, An Outline of Psychoanalysis, (W.W. Norton & Company : New York – London), Standard Edition, 1949, vol. 23
Sigmund Freud was first to take notice toward personality. “Like all of us, Sigmund Freud was a product of his times” (Myers 454). Freud took notice to a sequence of repetition within his patients. Freud had a large impact on psychology, history, and literary studies, however his most essential commitment was to focus on the unconscious mind. “In Freud’s view, human personality-including its emotions and striving- arises from a conflict between impulse and restraint-between our aggressive, pleasure- seeking biological urges and our internalized social controls over these urges” (Myers 455). His patients were experiencing a series of free association, which is also known as a state of unconsciousness. Freud explored unconscious with consciousness experience. The thought that individuals presented other reasons other than those they professed in earlier stages in time. “Freud’s
Past Biography. 1995 ed. Freud, Sigmund. A General Introduction Of Psychoanalysis. New York: Boni and Liveright,
(1) S. Freud, Civilisation and its Discontents, (trans.) J. Strachey, W.W. Norton Company, Inc. 1961, pp. 71-72.
Rabstejnek, C. V. (2011). History and Evolution of the Unconscious before and after Sigmund Freud. Psychology, 22 (4), 524-543.
According to Freud, "the uncanny is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar. (Freud 220) In other words, the uncanny can be expressed by "the distinction between imagination and reality is effaced" (Freud 244) and "an actual repression of some content thought and a return of this repressed content" (Freud 220). Moreover, he posits the uncanny moment as one in which two ostensibly opposing figures, elements, or definitions appear to coalesce, or in which one is mistaken for the other, revealing the fundamental instability of their distinction. (Alison 32) Besides, it involves the infantile complexes which was formerly repressed but are later revived and gen...
Sigmund Freud, The Ego and Id, trans Joan Riviere (London and New York: W.W. Norton, 1960), 5-6; 8-9.
iv[iv] As quoted by in a lecture on Sigmund Freud, available at http://www.bham.ac.uk/english/bibliography/CurrentCourses/Freud/FreudLecture.html, 12 December 2001.
Freud, Sigumund. "The Uncanny." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. New York: Blackwell, 1998.
Before continuing with the analysis of this topic, I would like to clarify and define the meaning of the word "uncanny" in the way I understand it. This word comes from the German Unheimlich, which means "uncomely", unfamiliar, uncomfortable, uneasy, and at the same time gloomy, ghastly, demonic and gruesome. According to Freud, this word justifies the need of a special conceptual term, which is to express certain things that lie in the field of what is frightening but at the same time leads back to what is known of old and familiar. Freud, however, argues that the "uncanny" is frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar. .
Freud, S. (1927). The Future of an Illusion. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XXI (1927-1931): The Future of an Illusion, Civilization and its Discontents, and Other Works, 1-56.