primitive beliefs that havebeen surmounted, which are now being confirmed. Theaudience which this film targeted most likely do not believein the spirits of the dead walking among the living, yetmany generations ago this was considered a valid belief. For instance, an ancient Middle Eastern society that existedin what is modern day Syria sometime around the Neolithicera would bury dead relatives under the floor of theirhouses because they believed that this would keep the familymember with them. They felt that the close proximity of thecorpse would enable the spirit of the deceased to reside inthe house. The belief in spirits can also be found in the originof the holiday, Halloween. This holiday was created becausepeople believed that they could appease the spirits anddemons around them by offering candy, and also they feltthat by dressing their children up as these spirits anddemons the children would be safe from the supernaturalforces. The feeling of uncanniness inspired by thereconfirmation of these primitive beliefs occurs because weare not confident enough in our modern conceptions tocompletely disregard our old belief systems. Freuds purpose for writing this essay was to explainthe psychological influences behind our reactions to thosethings or events which we consider abnormal and uncanny. While both the components of his theory are true, they arenot the exclusive reasons for a feeling of uncanniness, andFreud admits this himself. For instance, the feeling thatdeja vu causes is most surely one of uncanniness, yet it isnot a result of infantile complexes or from the resurfacingof primitive beliefs. The reason that deja vu causesuncanniness is because it is the knowledge of something inthe recesses of our memory that is unattainable in anydefinite sense. Freud does indeed succeed in explaining twovery important causes of uncanniness, and they are easilyidentified in literature and in society.Freud believes that uncanniness is...
