The Uncanny

Far from clinical, Freud’s rhetoric engages the reader in a tone that does not report, but rather explains (sometimes casually) what he’s trying to say. This is a voice fascinated with its own subject, one that thinks on the page and holds the reader’s hand through what may otherwise be much to obscure.
There’s a clear distinction between an “I” and a “we”- I, Freud am telling you what’s known until this point, we shall explore together from this point on.

“I know of only one attempt in medico-psychological literature, a fertile but not exhaustive paper by Jentsch (1906). But I must confess that I have not made a very thorough examination of the literature, especially the foreign literature, relating to this present modest contribution of mine, for reasons which, as may easily be guessed, lie in the times in which we live; so that my paper is presented to the reader without any claim to priority.”

Freud as an “I” is established early on in the reading, but not until after a disembodied couple of brief paragraphs, were the subject of the essay is introduced from a much more foreign and impersonal point of view. It is only until Freud interrupts the general discussion of the uncanny with this bit of opinionated background information that we as readers identify a guiding voice.

By the second section, the investigation becomes “our own”.
The plural, however, does not mean a suppression of Freud as an authority in the essay. He suspends sentences with clauses like “and I hope most readers of the story will agree with me”, this is still his idea (“I will show you”, Freud says)

Freud then does not beg for the reader to believe him, it’s not a tone that begs with understanding or agreeing from the reader, it’s one that assumes it.

“It only remains for us to test our new hypothesis on one or two more examples of the uncanny.” Halfway through the second section, his idea is our idea.

Freud is like a school teacher, with the authority of his singularity, the “I”, comes the assumption that the reader is on the same page, that there’s no skeptical student that needs to be persuaded.

The professor approach comes in his literary analysis, where he first uses the story of the Sand Man to get us on board with him. Literature is used as the bride between famous psychoanalyst and the public.

The long plot summary just emphasizes the need for synchrony between writer and reader, though it never begs for it.

We, as readers and Freud and guide become a solid team by the third section, where we analyze the “creative writer” (a third, distant party) together.