http://urbanhonking.com/gunsinmylife/2008/02/05/twins/ Just another Urban Honking site Thu, 05 Aug 2010 13:53:15 +0000 hourly 1 http://urbanhonking.com/gunsinmylife/2008/02/05/twins/#comment-29 Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:51:11 +0000 http://urbanhonking.com/gunsinmylife/2008/02/05/twins/#comment-29 Actually, it’s weird because I was JUST reading about Freud’s theory of the “Uncanny,” and how it involves “doubleness” of some sort. Apparently we are both drawn to and repelled by doubleness and replication–Freud talks a lot about the terrifying nature of automata that look like people but aren’t quite–and the act of replicating something over and over again is, in Freud’s theory, the consequence of not coming to terms with the Uncanny. The Uncanny being, like, something from the past that you repress and try to forget, but it pops up in these gross scary ways. Stuff is Uncanny if it destabilizes your notion of your individual Selfhood, and TWINS are a great example of that unconscious fear. If two people look EXACTLY ALIKE, then how can they be separate beings, and what would it even mean if there were two people who were also the same person? This is upsetting, and is probably why twins show up so much in ghost stories (think of those horrifying twins in “The Shining” who don’t even DO anything—their mere presence is an enormous shock while you’re watching that movie).
for Freud of course this all eventually boils down to castration anxiety somehow, but whatever. You can’t give that man a concept that he can’t boil down to castration anxiety.
So yeah. Freud is everywhere! (his essay is called “The Uncanny,” I think (or “Unheimlich”) if you want to read it.

]]> http://urbanhonking.com/gunsinmylife/2008/02/05/twins/#comment-28 Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:50:04 +0000 http://urbanhonking.com/gunsinmylife/2008/02/05/twins/#comment-28 Actually, it’s weird because I was JUST reading about Freud’s theory of the “Uncanny,” and how it involves “doubleness” of some sort. Apparently we are both drawn to and repelled by doubleness and replication–Freud talks a lot about the terrifying nature of automata that look like people but aren’t quite–and the act of replicating something over and over again is, in Freud’s theory, the consequence of not coming to terms with the Uncanny. The Uncanny being, like, something from the past that you repress and try to forget, but it pops up in these gross scary ways. Stuff is Uncanny if it destabilizes your notion of your individual Selfhood, and TWINS are a great example of that unconscious fear. If two people look EXACTLY ALIKE, then how can they be separate beings, and what would it even mean if there were two people who were also the same person? This is upsetting, and is probably why twins show up so much in ghost stories (think of those horrifying twins in “The Shining” who don’t even DO anything—their mere presence is an enormous shock while you’re watching that movie).
for Freud of course this all eventually boils down to castration anxiety somehow, but whatever. You can’t give that man a concept that he can’t boil down to castration anxiety.
So yeah. Freud is everywhere! (his essay is called “The Uncanny,” I think (or “Unheimlich”) if you want to read it.

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