![]() 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. ![]() ![]() More often than not, the physical building contributes to a characters’ indecisiveness, external and internal supernatural pressures, and labyrinthine structure. In each of the chosen texts the house is a predominant feature and in no way benign. 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. Freud’s associations with the uncanny as the withdrawn, strange and mysterious “entity” entrenches its latent and somewhat fearful existence in both psychoanalytical and lexicographical analyses of texts and will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. 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). Particular attention shall be given to the Ego and the Id, particularly in relation to their relationship with the mirrored/doubled self. Julia Kristeva’s theory on abjection will also be drawn upon as an interesting parallel between uncanniness and expulsion between the Self/Other ethos. 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. Drawing upon Claude Levi Strauss and Leon Festinger, cognitive dissonance will also feature. 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. 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.
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