Throughout the stories of “The Monkey” by Stephen King and Dracula by Bram Stoker it is seen how there is an element of the uncanny at work. As each of these narratives is read, what we have become familiarized with as human beings becomes foreign and unsettling to us. What we thought we understood has been changed and has now become frightening. To better understand the uncanny I will first summarize how Sigmund Freud describes it, then I will argue that there is an element of the uncanny in “The Monkey” by Stephen King and Dracula by Bram Stoker according to how Freud describes it.
First off the uncanny needs to be described. A brief summary of how Sigmund Freud describes the uncanny in his book, “The Uncanny” is:
The German word unheimlich …show more content…
A human will eventually die at the end of their lifespan, but the monkey is capable of predicting or even telling someone when they are going to die. Every human is familiar with the idea of death and that it will happen to each one of us, although it is a topic that we try and avoid. The monkey begins to play with that fear of death and the fact that the monkey is able to confront us with it makes us repulsed by it even more. In Hal’s case, the monkey tells him that someone or something has died, although he does not know who or what has died. This ends up endorsing his hatred for it and supports his reasons for getting rid of it.
In the end of this short story, Hal manages to get rid of the monkey by taking it to a place that represents the opposite of what the monkey represents. He takes it to clear lake, a place that to him is familiar, pleasant and comfortable. Where his uncle used to take him fishing as a kid. As he sailed out onto the water he manages to rid himself of this uncanny toy monkey. “The monkey was gone for good this time. He knew it somehow. Whatever happened to him, the monkey would not be back to draw a shadow over Dennis’s life, or Petey 's.” (King …show more content…
Human beings are familiar and known while vampires take that familiarity of humanity and they make it unfamiliar and also terrifying. Vampires appear to be human, they share many of the same qualities, but at the same time they are not human at all. This liminal state is something that is foreign to us and we cannot comprehend it. Something hidden being revealed is part of our requirement for being uncanny, so vampires also represent the uncanny because they resemble a human so closely that they can hide their vampirism. Although in the story of Dracula, Jonathan figures out that there is something different about Dracula and his brides, and this leaves him with a sense of unease. “I am in fear - in awful fear- and there is no escape for me: I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of…” (Stoker 40)
Another example of the uncanny in Dracula is the blurring of gender roles. The victorian era illustrated that men were strong and powerful and women were domestic, motherly and fragile. In this story, one of the first gender inversions begins when Jonathan falls asleep in the newly explored room. Jonathan becomes feminized by easily being seduced by the brides of dracula and allowing himself to be penetrated by their fangs. Not only is Jonathan being feminized, the brides of Dracula are being defeminized. They are doing this by assuming what was seen as the role of a male by seducing him and penetrating
First off the uncanny needs to be described. A brief summary of how Sigmund Freud describes the uncanny in his book, “The Uncanny” is:
The German word unheimlich …show more content…
A human will eventually die at the end of their lifespan, but the monkey is capable of predicting or even telling someone when they are going to die. Every human is familiar with the idea of death and that it will happen to each one of us, although it is a topic that we try and avoid. The monkey begins to play with that fear of death and the fact that the monkey is able to confront us with it makes us repulsed by it even more. In Hal’s case, the monkey tells him that someone or something has died, although he does not know who or what has died. This ends up endorsing his hatred for it and supports his reasons for getting rid of it.
In the end of this short story, Hal manages to get rid of the monkey by taking it to a place that represents the opposite of what the monkey represents. He takes it to clear lake, a place that to him is familiar, pleasant and comfortable. Where his uncle used to take him fishing as a kid. As he sailed out onto the water he manages to rid himself of this uncanny toy monkey. “The monkey was gone for good this time. He knew it somehow. Whatever happened to him, the monkey would not be back to draw a shadow over Dennis’s life, or Petey 's.” (King …show more content…
Human beings are familiar and known while vampires take that familiarity of humanity and they make it unfamiliar and also terrifying. Vampires appear to be human, they share many of the same qualities, but at the same time they are not human at all. This liminal state is something that is foreign to us and we cannot comprehend it. Something hidden being revealed is part of our requirement for being uncanny, so vampires also represent the uncanny because they resemble a human so closely that they can hide their vampirism. Although in the story of Dracula, Jonathan figures out that there is something different about Dracula and his brides, and this leaves him with a sense of unease. “I am in fear - in awful fear- and there is no escape for me: I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of…” (Stoker 40)
Another example of the uncanny in Dracula is the blurring of gender roles. The victorian era illustrated that men were strong and powerful and women were domestic, motherly and fragile. In this story, one of the first gender inversions begins when Jonathan falls asleep in the newly explored room. Jonathan becomes feminized by easily being seduced by the brides of dracula and allowing himself to be penetrated by their fangs. Not only is Jonathan being feminized, the brides of Dracula are being defeminized. They are doing this by assuming what was seen as the role of a male by seducing him and penetrating