RETURN OF THE UNCANNY Cover Image

TEKİNSİZİN GERİ DÖNÜŞÜ
RETURN OF THE UNCANNY

Author(s): Alper Kara
Subject(s): Psychoanalysis, Sociology of Literature
Published by: Motif Halk Oyunları Eğitim ve Öğretim Vakfı
Keywords: Uncanny; psychoanalysis; childhood; Ramsey Campbell; repression;

Summary/Abstract: Psychoanalysis, which is built on a series of psychological theories and methods, aims to understand and eliminate mental problems in the dark spaces of the unconscious getting to the root of them. Sexual fantasies during childhood and events forgotten through repression in this period are seen as sources that feed this dark place. Psychoanalysis tries to understand this dark, unknown area through the concept of "uncanny". The emotions that the characters repressed during their childhood in the novels The Last Voice They Hear, Silent Children and The Face That Must Die written in an uncanny atmosphere by the modern English horror writer Ramsey Campbell form the basis for the concept of “uncanny”. The source of the uncanny that characters experience is the undesired things of the past reaching the present with qualities unfamiliar as a result of the suppression. An unfinished, incomplete childhood comes to light in an adult body. What comes out with the return of the repressed deviates from what is familiar, and assumes a familiar but a strange form. The characters experience uncanny during the round trips between the two extremes. The dilemma that arises between the familiar and unfamiliar symbolizes their conflict with their own selves and their struggle between good and evil. The study will analyse Ramsey Campbell's aforementioned novels in the context of "uncanny".

  • Issue Year: 14/2021
  • Issue No: 35
  • Page Range: 1144-1160
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: Turkish