The Others=The Uncanny?

Sorry I could not find a way to upload the actual scene from this movie that I will be showing in class. At any rate...

The Others engages numerous concepts discussed in Freud's essay on the Uncanny, and I believe that the film, in many ways, can serve to augment understanding of Freud's essay.

The film concerns a mother and her two photosensitive children, who have been cloistered in their home on an isolated island while the man of the house is away at war. A family that claims to have been servants in the house years before, comes back to serve the new lady of the house; soon after, Grace and her children start to believe the house is 'haunted' when in actuality, living beings are inhabiting it. Grace and her children do not know they are dead, whereas the family serving them is aware that in fact, both families are dead.

-They do not know they are dead because they have repressed the incident of their deaths. That which is secret becomes un-secret to them (p.133 & 134)

-They live in a 'house' they belive to be 'haunted' (which is infact inhabited by Alive human beings)

-Grace (the mother), while trying to go to town, is "lost in a fog" (p.144) only to return to the same spot; only to encounter "the familiar" (i.e. her husband), at which point her husband remarks that he has been looking for "home." We can also presume he is dead. His return home, and then subsequent abandonment is one of the more interesting questions to ponder...that is...why does he leave? Is it because he can see his wife doesn't know she is dead, because he is afraid of being dead, or perhaps, because of a fear of the "uncanny"? (What does that have to do with the sense of uncanniness toward the female genetalia?) (P.151) is this Charles' repression of home=uncanny, or repression of death? (Half of what Freud says can not be applied to women! Hello mysogyny, p.140-castration complex, p.151-female genitalia as foreign)

-The constant and eternal repetition of their lives (the servants and the family) since they do not know they are dead (recall the incantation at the end of the movie "the house is ours") (p.144)