C LIT243 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Blond Eckbert, Sigmund Freud, Red Riding
15 May 2018
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Department
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January 29, 2018
Eckbert the Blond
• Eckbert
o Homosexuality? – relationship with Hugo and Walter
o Love for Hugo – worried secret will impact friendship and love
o Why he liked Berta so much?
• Worried aout Walter’s opiio?
• Iterjeted hastil durig Berta’s story of how they met – justification for
why he liked and married her
o Son of knight but not wealthy – lower class; gains wealth through Berta
o Ke of Berta’s ealth
• Still loved her regardless; becomes part of unethical situation (aware of it
and carries her secret and guilt as he shares in her wealth)
o Dishonest wealth also made him wealthy
• Construction of fear, anxiety and suspense:
o Does Eckbert really see the old woman? Are they visuals of repressed memories?
o Walter knew the name of the dog - led to Berta's sickness
• How did he know the name?
• Sigmund Freud, "the Uncanny" (1919)
o Uncanny as subject of aesthetics; bringing together psychoanalytic and aesthetic
perspectives
o Uncanny: "no doubt that this belongs to realm of frightening, of what evokes
fear and dread"
o Linguistics analysis: heimlich as
1. homely, home-like, friendly, intimate, comfortable
2. concealed from sight, hidden from others; semantic opposition and
reconciliation of the binary through a "circle"
• both meanings not mutually exclusive
o Heimlich, heimlisch vs unheimlich (uncanny, eerie; unhomely)
o "the uncanny is that species of the frightening that goes back to what was once
well known and had long been familiar"
• Uncanny in "Eckbert the Blond" as a strategy of building suspense:
o Ongoing repetition and return (Berta's return to her parent's village;
reappearance of the old woman [at the end, but also through Walter and Hugo]
o The bird's song (words of song change, fell silent for a while until Berta couldn't
deal with guilt)
o The dog's name
o Eckbert's suppressed memories - bird supposedly dead but Eckbert could hear at
end
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