42

Photography and surrealism

43
What is a surrealist photograph
observe it as something uncanny [unheimlich| and that
it arouses anxiety in them. I have explained this anxiety
by arguing that vhat ve are dealing vith is a sexual
excitation vith vhich their understanding is unable to
cope and vhich they also, no doubt, repudiate because
their parents are involved in it.
33
Lnable to assimilate the scene, it remains as a tragment
ot a message vhich has not been signited, an enigma
vhich the child is unable to symbolize. But it is precisely
this enigma, Iaplanche argues atter lreud, that propels,
seduces the intant into curiosity, the process ot tnding
a meaning tor the enigmatic message.
34
1he enigmatic
signiter (as a message vithout a signited, is inscribed in
constituting the subjects unconscious. What I propose
here is that lreuds theory ot the uncanny is, in enect,
a version ot ean Iaplanches enigmatic signiter as
discussed around the primal scene in particular and
primal tantasies in general: intra-uterine existence, pri-
mal scene, castration, seduction.
33
1hat is to say, the
repertoire ot uncanny motits and themes are all, in one
vay or another, so many elements and tragmentary
reterences to primal tantasies. 1he uncanny enect is the
re-emergence ot an enigmatic signiter tor the subject
vho remains innocent as to its unconscious meaning.
1he uncanny enect is the (to be, signited ot enig-
matic signiters, an enigmatic return to elements ot a
primal tantasy unconsciously recognized by the subject.
It thus tollovs that the motits and traumatic scenes
listed in lreuds uncanny are all related in some vay to
the circumstances in vhich a child might see, hear or teel
but not knov the original tantasies, seduction, primal
scene and castration.
36
In this context, the nocturnal tear
ot the dark, reanimation ot the dead, doubling, ghosts
vailing, a (voracious, evil eye (tear ot being seen,, a tear
ot losing eyes (a tantasy reconstruction ot punishment
tor looking,, all these and the other various uncanny
themes appear as tragments and aspects, as translations
ot a traumatic return ot the repressed. 1he motits and
themes identited by lreud are uncanny re-visions ot
an intants original tantasy scenes. What provokes the
uncanny teeling, as the return ot something tamiliar, is
the message, the presence ot an enigmatic signiter in
ean Iaplanche, New
Foundations for Psychoanalysis, trans.
David Macey (Oxtord: Basil
Blackvell, +,:,,, p. +:;, cited trom
lreud, The Interpretation of Dreams,
S.L., Vol. IVV, p. :.
See ean Iaplanche, The
Unconscious and the Id, trans. Iuke
1hurston and Iindsay Watson
(Iondon: Pebus Press, +,,,,,
pp. +o;.
ean Iaplanche and .-B.
Pontalis, Primal Phantasies, The
Language of Psychoanalysis
(Iondon: Karnac Books, +,::,,
p. +.
o I am not reducing the
concept ot the uncanny to castra-
tion and the death-drive.
Iaplanche situates lite and death
as tvo modalities ot the drive
vhich is single and sexual. See his
Life and Death in Psychoanalysis
(Iondon: ohns Hopkins Lniver-
sity Press, +,:,.