Due Thursday Jan 19, by 11:59pm
Freud—The Uncanny
An instance where something can be familiar, yet foreign at the same time, resulting in a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange. Because the uncanny is familiar, yet strange, it often creates cognitive dissonance within the experiencing subject due to the paradoxical nature of being attracted to, yet repulsed by an object at the same time.
Etymologically: Un-home-ly.
Kafka's stories have often been described as "uncanny." In what ways do "In the Penal Colony" and/or "A Report From an Academy" evoke feelings of the "familiar, yet strangely foreign?"
"In the Penal Colony" is a very disturbing short story. In today's society we are familiar with the ideas of execution and the death penalty, but in this story the process is horrific. The Officer is disturbingly excited about the killing apparatus; his explanations and descriptions make the reader feel uneasy. Then, adding to the horrendous nature of the execution is the lack of judicial process. The officer is just killing the Condemned Man because of something someone else said, no courts, no judges, just one opinion. Then in the end the officer shockingly decides to use his machine against himself and uses the inscription "Be Just!" This part is accepted by the reader because of the terrible person the Officer was, but at the same time, it is repulsive because of how the machine operates. Making this ending more repulsive is that the machine malfunctions and makes the execution even more horrific. When the reader finds out the truth about the Old Commandant, one realizes that the town was not so disturbed as to celebrate these executions, the Officer lied.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, "A Report for an Academy" does not seem to fall into the "uncanny" category. It's odd but not repulsive. It is a bit odd that an ape becomes a human in five years, but it just seems like regular fiction. It is not repulsive like "In the Penal Colony."
Olivia Broderick
ReplyDelete"In the Penal Colony" is uncanny in that it reminds me of other short stories and novels I've seen and history I've learned, yet is very different at the same time. The first thing that I was reminded of when reading this story was European colonization of the African continent and the novel "Heart of Darkness", written about that time. This story was similar to heart of darkness in that it seemed to take place in Africa, or a similar local, and the 'colonizers' did not seem to have any regard for the life that previously inhabited the place. However, it was unfamiliar and different from the novel in that the character of the Officer seemed to be an American. At one point he says that the Traveler may be opposed to 'the apparatus' because he is European and they may not have execution where he comes from. Thus, I would say that Kafka is putting on display how disgusting he finds the death penalty in the United States. We have become so accustomed to it that many often to not consider that a persons life is being taken away, and by going in to detail about the torture of the 'condemned man' and how slowly and painfully he is going to die, the reader is reminded of the horror of execution.
"A Report for an Academy" is uncanny in the way that Kafka treats the ape, he is an animal yet has shed all internal characteristics which connect him to this and has acquired human qualities. As humans we are used to viewing animals in a certain way which is very familiar to us and when that is taken away and the role of the subject is changed the uncanny quality takes place.
There were a few paragraphs that I read in Kafka's "A Report From an Academy" which evoked feelings inside me that could be described as uncanny, but there was one particular example in the story where I believed that the narrator was actually having this feeling as well. "A Report From an Academy" is a short story that is told from an ape's point of view. Throughout the story, the ape is recounting his life starting with him being held prisoner in a cage and taking the reader all the way up to the present day. At the beginning of the short story the ape is held captive and he longs to escape his prison. He hates the humans who have captured him, but he eventually decides that his only way out of his cage is to learn to act like a human. After a long struggle to learn the ways of humans, the ape is released and proceeds to live a pretty normal life. As the ape is telling the story about his past there are times where he cannot remember exactly how he was feeling when a certain incident occurred. This is what struck me as the narrator experiencing the so-called cognitive dissonance of "the uncanny." Even though the narrator probably spent more of his life than not as an ape, he seems to struggle to recall what it was like because after becoming more familiar and accustomed with his new way of living, his old life as a free ape now seems incredibly foreign.
ReplyDeleteAaron Bain
ReplyDelete"In the Penal Colony," the officer seems to enjoy executing people in a way that you could describe a soldier in war who was acclaimed post tramatic stress disorder. They can not live normal lives again because all they have seen or witnessed. The officer has probably executed enough people that he went mad and started feeling excitement and intensity as he executed someone. it seems very uncanny because the story can relate to our world with our own judicial system with the laws and even a death penalty, but our system would not allow someone who enjoys killing as much as the officer did to be the executer. "A Report for an Academy," seems a bit uncanny to me because the ape is being described as if it can solve problems and think logically as a human does. The ape was described to be thinking of ways to escape and survive once it was captured. Apes can learn from imitating a human but not on their own. Humans are seperated from all animals because we have the ability to problem solve while apes have instinct. Now I can beleive the ape learned to live the human way but it was only able to do this through the teaching of humans. The story seems uncanny because there are areas which can be very true and there are others that just seem to be too far fetched.
"A Report for an Academy", in my opnion, exemplifies Freud's definition of uncanny very well. In this short story, Red Peter, an ape captured by humans, explains his transformation as a wild animal to a calm human being. Throughout his journey, Red Peter realizes he has to mimic and "do as humans do" in order to obtain the freedom he once had. Once he achieved this, his life as an ape had forever ended. The ending of his previous life as an ape and the beginning of his new life as a human being allows for Red Peter to experience the feeling of uncanny. As he lost his ability to act as an ape, he lost his ability to relate to an ape. It's funny because when Red Peter talks about being with a "half-trained female chimpanzee" he explains that he doesn't want to see her during the day because he still senses the "madness of a bewildered trained animal" in her. This clearly shows that her animal like behavor is too much for him to handle, again showing how his transformation has left him unfamiliar with what he use to be familiar with.
ReplyDeleteIn "In the Penal Colony" Kafka describes a type of execution in which the reader is unfamiliar with. The first thing that came to mind while reading it was "The Pit and the Pendulum," by Edgar Allen Poe. In "The Pit and the Pendulum," there is also a torture device. While reading "In the Penal Colony," I felt familiar with the setting because it deals with the same elements. However, the ending of the story is uncanny because the reader is used to a condemned man being executed, but not a man freely choosing his execution. Kafka also gives the reader two points of view about the torture device; the Traveler and the Officer. The Traveler's view is typically the readers view, which is disgust for the machine. The Officer's view represents the uncanny part of the story because the reader is unused to such enthusiasm for torture. The reader has never viewed torture as the Officer does and so the familiar way in which the reader views torture is shattered.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found most interesting, or rather uncanny, about these two short stories was the idealistic pursuit of an impossible dream. In “A Report for an Academy”, Red Peter is captured as an ape and realizes that escape is impossible. As he searches for his “way out”, his adopted higher-level thinking brings him not only the interest of the people he studies but also loneliness as his true self becomes more vague. No matter how much he assimilates to the human world, the “gentle puff of air” at his heels reminds him of the freedom he gave up to become “human”.
ReplyDeleteIn a morbid twist, in the story “ The Penal Colony” the Officer also pursues an impossible dream of a world with unwavering “justice”. He is nostalgic about how life was when the Old Commandant ruled and the torture machine is a sort of comfort. By using the machine, he is continuing what he believes is absolute lawfulness and honoring the values he holds. When the Officer finally realizes his impossible dream will never be accepted by society, he resigns to death by the machine. Even his finally request is not humored; the device malfunctions and thus denies the Officer the experience he so coveted.
"In the Penal Colony" provides excellent examples of the uncanny, both through story events and through format. The events of the plot play out fairly straightforwardly, unspeakably cruel though they may be. The true sense of the uncanny stems from Kafka's refusal to name the characters. Keeping them unnamed forces the reader to identify each character by their actions alone. Thus, for example, The Officer comes across as a complete monster due to the complete lack of human characteristics he possesses. Essentially, the lack of humanizing qualities among all the characters serves a dual purpose, not only limiting the characters to their words and deeds alone, but also maximizing the horrors of the execution method depicted in its gruesome detail. Ultimately, the feeling of the uncanny throughout the story stems primarily from the style in which it is written rather than through the plot itself.
ReplyDeleteIn, "A Report for an Academy" Red Peter, an ape turned human, recalls his experience of becoming, "human." This evokes the uncanny, It is strange to think that ape can turn human, it is uncanny. Anyone knows that most animals can be trained, but to turn one to act human just seems impossible. It was interesting to see the narrator tell his tale of the journey to becoming human. It is not something he intended to do, he was just looking for a, "way out". It, in fact, repulsed him to think of acting like those men who had captured him at first. As time progressed however he became more accustomed to human behavior, and it no longer repulsed him. Actually the thought of acting like an ape, something that used to familiar to him and part of everyday life, became unfamiliar. He talks of not even being able to remember what it was like, he himself found it uncanny the thought of being an ape, "familiar, yet strangely foreign." The reader also sees it when the narrator talks of the female chimpanzee, he talks of having his way with her at night as an ape would, but could not look at her in the day. Is this because she reminded him of something, "familiar, yet strangely foreign," the uncanny.
ReplyDelete“In the Penal Colony” is a story about an execution in which an officer is excitedly describing the method of execution a man is about to face. It is told “familiar, yet foreign” way, in other words, uncanny. People today are familiar with the death penalty, yet the modern world is accustomed to people being put before a judge and being fully aware of the crime they are accused of committing. This story reminds me of Kafka’s “The Trial” a story in which Joseph K. is put on trial for a crime of which he does not know, yet he is still placed before a judge. In this short story, the person’s execution is based on the word of one man, this condemned man’s master. The method of execution is what truly causes the story to be uncanny in that it is a horrifying display of barbaric means to kill a man. The officer is truly ecstatic about the machine and how it kills people which could be horrifying to many people. Instead of simply killing him, the device is designed to slowly kill and torture him. In the end, instead of the servant being killed the officer volunteers himself to be killed by the machine he is so proud of. I find the relationship between this story and “The Trial” uncanny in many ways, not only is it about the execution of a man, but in the end both men offer themselves up to be executed. Also, neither man is killed in a particularly humane manner.
ReplyDeleteKafka seems to reflect life situations that are familiar to the reader but depict them in a strange manner in his two short stories “ A Report from an Academy” and Penal Colony”. Beginning with “A Report from an Academy” Kafka tells of an ape that feels the only way he will escape or be freed is to become like the men that have captured him. I see a correlation between what the Ape feels and the desire to be accepted socially in adolescence. In an attempt to escape this self-proclaimed mediocrity teenagers feel that they must conform and become like the people they perceive as socially superior. The reader is able to relate to the Ape’s desperation to be accepted through personal experience but finds the progression of an ape to a human as outlandish. Similarly in Kafka’s “In the Penal Academy” the reader can relate to the Traveler that is faced with a decision. The traveler must decide whether to obey the wishes of the Officer and ignore what he knows is right or decide to maintain his morals and have the Officer be angry with the his decision. The Traveler’s decision is intensified because the traveler is the last hope for the desperate Officer. If the Traveler’s decision is unfavorable and the Officer feels like his reporting to the Commandant could ruin his work, the Officer could become desperate and turn the execution machine on the Traveler. This only makes it more difficult for the Traveler to make the morally right decision. This personal contemplation of the morally right route with unfavorable consequences versus the path of least resistance that is morally compromising is something we have all experienced at one time or another. Again Kafka tells of a situation we are familiar with but presents it in a strange manner. This combination of familiar and strange is the basis of the uncanny feeling Kafka provokes.
ReplyDeleteKafka’s “A Report From an Academy” is, both at first glance and once having been investigated further, a short story with many details that can be described as uncanny. The subject matter itself is uncanny, considering that the narrator is attempting to inform the reader of his experiences transforming himself from an ape to something incredibly close to a civilized human being. There are the familiar elements of transformation, like the distance one feels after a drastic change with a former way of life. But the circumstances described are nothing less than bizarre. The narrator tells us from the point of view of someone who has survived a traumatic experience, like serving in a war. Although the basic details are present in his memory, he can only use warped descriptions of what may have been going on inside of him at a deeper level because his brain no longer functions as it did at the time, like an ape’s. The civilization of the narrator takes away a lot of what he once was in essence, although he does not bemoan the loss. It’s bizarre to hear a description of ape-like behavior from this seemingly civilized, well-spoken man as if he were describing what he ate for breakfast that day. Overall, the familiar aspects of the narrative were slightly outweighed by the repulsive or unsettling ones.
ReplyDeleteFranz Kafka’s “A Report for an Academy” is a profoundly uncanny short story. The narrator, Red Peter, is a captive ape that undergoes a quest to cultivate humanity that clearly resonates with one’s own experience of adapting to civilized culture. He gave up his origin, letting go of who he was to the point of loosing all recollection of his past life as an ape, which was only five years prior to this report to an academy. Though this span of time appears short considering the length of one’s life, he claims it is to him like humans trying to recall their past as apes. He feels permanently altered, never fully being able to be an ape again, claiming, “…even if I had sufficient power and will to run back their, I would have to scrape the fur off my body in order to get through.” This reformation was all in an effort to impress his captors, whom now as a civilized animal he has grown great compassion for, in order to find a way out of his cage avoiding certain death. Be it a socially constructed cage, where one’s actions can be constricted by fear of poverty, or a literal cage, we all desire to be the one on the outside. So he mimicked his captors to gain their acceptance, and thus he was allowed to walk amongst them. He even submitted to drinking their liquor, even though it repulsed him. In the end he could not bear to meet the gaze of his fellow civilized chimpanzee for in it he recognized the bewildered madness of a trained animal, which only served as a reminder to his own fate. He does not complain, as he never thought freedom to be achievable, but remains little content with his still limited life of mundane formalities regardless of his success. All of these emotions are relatable to the reader, yet at the same time the story is surreal and foreign. It is the observations of an ape with human capacity, but who physically remains a beast. On the surface, one could imagine an animals manners to be more repulsive then relatable. The whole story seems unfamiliar from the outside, with a core that speaks volume to the human condition.
ReplyDeleteTroy Penny
The uncanny, a vague term as I understand so far, points to a paradoxical state of familiarity and unfamiliarity at the same time. That feeling was brought out all over and throughout Kafka’s “A Report for an Academy”. It begins right from the start with the title. A report is something to which all students past elementary levels can share in their memory. Yet this one describes one individual’s ascent from ape to manhood, and while we may feel the idea makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint, it surely is beyond any of our experiences to have done so in a five-year span as he later states. Continuing on, the narrator explains he had to leave his origins behind wholly in order progress into the world of man. There is a feeling of sympathy or empathy, related to the idea of self-redefinition. Though people have struggled through a life-altered adjustment, whether it’s potty training or taking up the bottle as Kafka’s ape did, we understand the sentiment of it. But there is still a nagging unappreciable part; none of us can remember the crossing “the barrier” between species. Though the way it is written it feels like an analogy for the infant’s transition into a self-realizing adult. Yes, there is evoked uncanny all over Kafka, though these examples are few.
ReplyDelete