Keith Croshaw - Uncanny

The story starts out with an interesting relation to Freud’s idea of the uncanny with a depiction of Hoffman Nachtstycken’s story of “The Sand-Man.” The story is heavily based on the tale of the Sand-Man who comes to put little children to sleep at nighttime. In the story I remember you had to have your eyes closed for the sand man to be able to put you to sleep, and if you didn’t he wouldn’t come at all. In Nachtstycken’s version he always came every night, and if your eyes weren’t closed when he came the Sand-Man would tear your eyes out. The story is supposed to be a bit satirical, but anytime a child’s eyes are in question I fail to see the humor.

Throughout the story we see that the way the child perceives what is going on isn’t really what is happening, but he believes it so it becomes true through his eyes. Throughout the story many inanimate objects become real to the child, such as a doll. Freud’s idea behind telling the story is to show that reality is always in the eyes of the beholder, and anything can become real if someone believes it is in their eyes. On a side not I find it interesting how Freud mentions children have an extreme fear of loosing their eyes, and I still always have this irrational fear that so many things could blind me, so… interesting.