31.8.20 Death, the uncanny and the abject
‘Death is then, for Kristeva, the ultimate abjection. A corpse is made when the self abjects its entirety. Death is a shift from living to non-living, from ego to non-ego, from being to object. The horror experienced as a result of seeing a corpse is the product of the blurring of the lines between life and death which is encapsulated in that corpse. "There, I am at the border of my condition as a living being" (Kristeva 3). The border becomes an object in the corpse, which itself becomes borderless as death infects life. Freud also relates the feeling of the uncanny to birth and death, the creation and destruction of life, the negotiation of the ultimate boundary. The platform of birth and death is one which lends itself easily to a comparison of abjection and uncanniness because both Kristeva and Freud point to these instances as the origination of their respective topics. Freud writes, "Many people experience the feeling [of the uncanny] in the highest degree in relation to death and dead bodies, to the return of the dead, and to spirits and ghosts" (944). This claim is reminiscent of the earlier citation of Freud's reference to castration and the severing of body parts. Seeing the physical body (in part or in whole) as divorced from life is a horrific experience because it is such a confusing one. Life becomes non-life, animate becomes inanimate. The boundary is shifted or abolished, leaving us with ambiguity and the unknown. (Baird,2013, p 7&8)
Baird, A (2013) The Abject, the Uncanny, and the Sublime: A Destabilization of Boundaries Available at: http://writing.rochester.edu/celebrating/2013/Baird.pdf (Accessed: 30 August 2020)
‘Death is then, for Kristeva, the ultimate abjection. A corpse is made when the self abjects its entirety. Death is a shift from living to non-living, from ego to non-ego, from being to object. The horror experienced as a result of seeing a corpse is the product of the blurring of the lines between life and death which is encapsulated in that corpse. "There, I am at the border of my condition as a living being" (Kristeva 3). The border becomes an object in the corpse, which itself becomes borderless as death infects life. Freud also relates the feeling of the uncanny to birth and death, the creation and destruction of life, the negotiation of the ultimate boundary. The platform of birth and death is one which lends itself easily to a comparison of abjection and uncanniness because both Kristeva and Freud point to these instances as the origination of their respective topics. Freud writes, "Many people experience the feeling [of the uncanny] in the highest degree in relation to death and dead bodies, to the return of the dead, and to spirits and ghosts" (944). This claim is reminiscent of the earlier citation of Freud's reference to castration and the severing of body parts. Seeing the physical body (in part or in whole) as divorced from life is a horrific experience because it is such a confusing one. Life becomes non-life, animate becomes inanimate. The boundary is shifted or abolished, leaving us with ambiguity and the unknown. (Baird,2013, p 7&8)
Baird, A (2013) The Abject, the Uncanny, and the Sublime: A Destabilization of Boundaries Available at: http://writing.rochester.edu/celebrating/2013/Baird.pdf (Accessed: 30 August 2020)