Comparing Poe's The Uncanny And The Black Cat

The Uncanny and The Black Cat

Sigmund Freud, in his treatise, “The Uncanny,” describes the emotions that are experienced in a frightening encounter with the familiar. He explains the experience of the uncanny as a return of a repressed feeling or memory (836). This idea of a familiar and unfamiliar experience can be seen in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Black Cat.” Through a number of events, Poe’s narrator of the story experiences many uncanny instances that eventually lead to the grotesque murder of his wife. This murder, though seemingly unprovoked by his wife, can in fact be traced back to an element of the uncanny as a returning memory of the narrator’s repressed feminine qualities, hinted at in the beginning of Poe’s story.

Early in his essay Freud states that there is a variety of feelings regarding the uncanny as well as a diverse history of the term, and that exploring both paths will eventually lead to the conclusion that “the uncanny is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar” (825). This statement initially seems to complicate the argument by connecting a feeling of fear

Freud illustrates through varying definitions that the term heimlich means “belonging to the house, not strange, familiar, tame, intimate, friendly, etc.” (826). However, he then illustrates that, in another definition, the word means hidden, concealed, or secretive (827). These opposing definitions create a commonality between the heimlich and unheilmlich which Freud argues is exactly what the “uncanny” is all about: an experience that leaves a person feeling unnerved because there is something familiar in the terror. According to Freud, the uncanny is something that “should have remained inside hidden but has come to light” (828). In other words, the uncanny is the return of the