Cathy Caruths Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Trauma claims that to be traumatized is precisely to be

possessed by an image or event (Caruth 3). This idea of possession is seen in Edgar Allan Poes
Ulalume through the narrators enigmatic journey toward his dead lovers grave. Throughout the
poem, the narrator unknowingly works to overcome the trauma that is associated with surviving the
event of his lover dying. The narrator is seemingly able to understand the true cause of his trauma
through the use of the paradoxical duality of attraction/repulsion and familiar/unfamiliar contained in
the Uncanny as described by Sigmund Freud in The Uncanny. The narrator uses the information
gained from his trance-like walk to realize his repressed trauma; thus, creating a way to communicate
what is deep inside of him in a manner that allows others to understand their own pain. By closely
examining the ways in which the narrator uses the Uncanny to both access his own unconscious to
obtain information essential to his understanding of his own trauma and to validate his relationship to
the world, the poem anachronisticallybecause the poem is written prior to Freuds scholarship
suggests that while there are varying degrees of consciousness in respect to the trauma itself, one can
come to understand, or witness, the crisis of the trauma through the use of the Uncanny as a form of
psychoanalysis.
Poes Ulalume illustrates characteristics of Freuds Uncanny in various ways, which allows for
psychoanalytical insight into the poem. In Freuds The Uncanny, Freud works to establish the
uncanny as a class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar
(The Uncanny 1-2). This means that instead of simply equating the uncanny with something that is
unfamiliar and unknown, he is rather treats it as an addition of a familiarity to what is novel and
unfamiliar in order to make it uncanny (The Uncanny 2). While the woods of Ulalume seem to be
haunted, they are full of quotidian characteristicsleaves, lakes, stars, and the moon. What does make
the woods uncanny, however, is the narrators lack of knowledge at the time that he was indeed in a
place that he admits, once we had journeyed down here (Hollander 245). This adds unfamiliarity to a
familiar place. The woods are unrecognizable to the speaker because he has repressed the memory of
his Ulalume. Further, Freud states that the Uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something
which is familiar and old-established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through
the process of repression (The Uncanny 13). Thus, the narrator is not recognizing the woods because
of the repression of his trauma.
This particular trauma, the death of a loved one, is an emotional trauma, which according to Freud, is
transformed, if it is repressed, into anxiety, then among instances of frightening things there must be
one class in which the frightening element can be shown to be something repressed which recurs (The
Uncanny 13). The reoccurring event is the journey to the tomb. The repetitive nature of Poes text also
contributes to this idea. The narrator repeats whole parts of lines as if he has already forgotten what he
has said. This is exemplified repeatedly in the stanzas with, The leaves they were crisped and sere/The
leaves they were withering and sere, along with And star-dials pointed to morn--/As the star-dials
hinted of morn, among others (Hollander 244-245). The repetition with slight variation creates a
sense of Uncanny for the reader as he or she revisits lines that are familiar, but also unfamiliar,
aligning reader and narrator in a realm of uncertainty. As the reader moves through the poem, he is
forced to either repress or forget the prior lines in order to experience the new lines. These forced
repressions act as clues as to what may need to remain hidden in order for the narrator to continue to
repress his trauma. The sense of uneasiness felt by the reader when he or she experiences the
repetition and repression is a result of a realization that the reader is about to discover something that
ought to have remained hidden but has come to light (The Uncanny 4). The idea of something
hidden surfacing generates the idea of repression. If this repression exists as a result of trauma, then it
creates the possibility of psychoanalysis, which may reveal a cureor witnessing of the trauma in a
way that is useful for those involved. Just as the illuminating imagery of the stars, eyes, and Ulalume
seem to cast light onto the poem to reveal certain hidden qualities, psychoanalysis may be used to
ascertain information about the speaker, reader, and author.
Though the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir is depicted as unknown, it serves as a valid medium for
psychoanalysis. A large part of Caruths argument in Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Trauma is that the
event is not assimilated or experienced fully at the time, but only belatedly (Caruth 3). Therefore, when
a person has reoccurrences of the traumatic situation, it is not a remembering of what happened, but
rather an experience of what ones conscious did not allow for him to witness at the time. The narrators
journey down to the door of a legended tomb without the knowledge of what demon hath tempted
serves as a physical manifestation of the narrators unconscious mind (Hollander 246-247). This memory
does not come with ease, and in fact, it only comes after he has grappled with his SoulPsyche,
conquering her scruples and gloom (Hollander 246). The period that is between the traumatic event,
the death of his lover, and the manifestation of the resulting symptom, the undesirable yet enchanting
journey to the tomb, is what Freud defines as latency. The affected, therefore, develops a crisis of
truth because the event has in fact not been experienced at the time it occurs This means that the
victim, the narrator, is not fully able to understand the trauma because he cannot historicize it, and
therefore the event lacks truth and validation. The reoccurrence of the traumaand subsequent
repression of the incident will continue unless the event can be validated. For the narrator, this means
that he will both have to establish the validity of the death of Ulalume as well as experience the
traumatic event of realizing the horrors and existence of the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir, the
night of the year, and the dank tarn of Auber (Hollander 245-246). The Uncanny serves as a vehicle
through which the trauma within the story can be elucidated and historicized.
The aesthetics of the Uncanny allow for a fantastical world to be created. As a result, the speaker of
the poem is able to separate his soul, Psyche, from his body. The Psyche, however, is not contained only
as an ephemeral entity, but rather as a seemingly human manifestation. The narrator and Psyche are
able to roam, communicate, and touch. Interestingly, the Psyche is able to have the foresight to know
that the star that the narrator insists on following is something to be mistrusted. The humanlike
qualities of Psyche juxtaposed to the imaginary nature of Psyche create an instance of the Uncanny in
itself. This is that an uncanny effect is often and easily produced when the distinction between the
imagination and reality is effaced, as when something that we hitherto regarded as imaginary appears
before us in reality (The Uncanny 15). The consequential denial of reality allows for the speakerand
readerto enter a realm in which the possibility of accessing the unconscious, the trauma hidden within
the soul, is possible. In this, the physical connection that the narrator makes with PsycheThus I
pacified Psyche and kissed her, /And tempted her out of her gloom--/And conquered her scruples and
gloomenables the narrator to see the tomb; and, through the aid of Psyche, the death of Ulalume is
rediscovered (Hollander 246). It is the narrators separation from himself, a witnessing of his self, that
renders the actualization of the trauma possible.
The recognition of the trauma, however, does not provide a cure for the narrator. Instead, the speaker
is in fact further damaged. In her essay, Caruth surmises that there is an inability fully to witness the
event as it occurs, or the ability to witness fully only at the cost of witnessing oneself (Caruth 3). The
narrators witnessing of his own conscious constitutes a witnessing of his own self that was previously
hidden from him. Additionally, the unexpected fright of the narrators rediscovery of Ulalumes tomb
causes another division of self within the already divided self of the narrator. This is due to the
narrators run into danger without being prepared for it, which causes both traumatic neurosis and
fright-neuroses (Beyond the Pleasure Principle 598). The separated unconscious, Psyche, is culpable
for the further splitting of the speaker self because it was not able to fully protect its subject from
fright (Beyond the Pleasure Principle 598). With unusual celerity, the narrator and Psyche seem to be
relieved that their journey through the woods is halted by the merciful ghouls, that bar up our way
and that ban it./From the secret that lies hidden in these wolds (Hollander 247). This suggests that they
feel as if they escaped apparently unharmed (Beyond the Pleasure Principle 596). In reality the
narrator and Psyche are actually just experiencing an inherent latency within the experience of the
fright, which will later manifest as yet another form of traumatic neurosis. This illuminates the
repetitive terror surrounding the narrator (Caruth 4). The major implications of this are that the terror of
the trauma will continue belatedly past the pages of the poem, and more importantly, that the trauma
at the end of the poem is the double to the hidden trauma of Ulalume that weaves throughout the
entirety of the poem.
The double is treated in Freuds The Uncanny as the repetition of the same features or character-
traits or vicissitudes, or even the same nameswith the belief in the soul and with the fear of death
(The Uncanny 9). The double is an insurance against the destruction of the ego, an energetic denial
of the power of death (The Uncanny 9). The doubles in Ulalume work both with and against this
idea. The most obvious double in Ulalume is Psyche and the narrator. The fact that the double of the
narrator is in fact his own unconscioussomething with which we do not usually have contact
provides a noteworthy aberration from the familiar. The mental agency becomes isolated, capable of
self-observation, and thus, the double goes from having been an assurance of immortality to the
uncanny harbinger of death (The Uncanny 9). This second double in the poem is that of Astarte and
Ulalume. While the connection between the two is obscure, the ways in which Astarte brings the
speaker to the grave of Ulalume with her bright eyes highlights the possible connection through the
two female figures (Hollander 246). The ghoulish nature of Astarte is evinced in Psyches mistrust of
the star despite her illuminating power (Hollander 246). Further, the speaker is obviously deceived by
Astartes guile as her concealed intentions are to him nothing but dreaming (Hollander 246). The
physically manifested division of the narrators self prevents his unconscious from overriding the
repetition compulsion, and ultimately, Ulalumes double is able to literally shed light on her grave,
immortalizing her presence in Ulalume. The last double that needs to be assigned is that of the reader.
The seductive nature of the poem suggests that the reader should play an active role in the poem or
that the poem should have some effect on the reader.
The importance of the reader as a witness is that in this, the poem is turned into a form of
psychoanalysis. The reader is apparently able to witness and listen to *the+ departure of the narrators
trauma with a disconnection from the poem, eliminating the danger, of traumas contagion, of the
traumatization of ones who listen and making the poem his protective unconscious (Caruth 10). This
disconnection, however, is complicated by Poes use of the uncanny. If the reader were to be simply
disconnected from the poem, then the unnerving feeling associated with the work would not manifest.
Usually in works of the uncanny, the reader is doubled with the narrator, or main character, of the story,
and the reader then aligns his perspective with that narrator. The experience of the reader is usually
then seen through the main characters conscious in a way that the reader is left in uncertainty. In this,
his attention is not directly focused upon his uncertainty, so that he may not be urged to go into the
matter and clear it up immediately, since thatwould dissipate the peculiar emotional effect (The
Uncanny 5). Poe creates contention to this particular idea because his main character already has a
double; furthermore, that double happens to be his unconscious. The reader is then left with the
problem of to whom is he doubled? In order for the horror of the poem to be internally felt, witnessed,
and historicized, some sort of unconscious vehicle must be established. One solution is that the reader is
actually doubled with the author of the poem, Poe himself.
By establishing the reader as his double, Poe creates a literal energetic denial of the power of death
(The Uncanny 9). In this, the poem works as a form of psychoanalysis in itself as Poe is able to
experience his own death, while preserving a piece of himself within the text. The anxieties Poe felt as a
writer or about himself comprise the latent material of the poem, and the imagery within the poem
make up the manifest material (On Dreams 148). As the reader works through the intricacies of the
narrators journey, he is also elucidating the possibility that Poe is his double, his unconscious of which
he will never have access. The feelings of the uncanny that the reader feels is due to the effect of the
emotional impulse that is repressed into anxiety, thenrecurs (The Uncanny 13). Therefore, the
presence felt by the reader in the poem, if psycho-analytic theory is to be correct, is in actuality the
anxiety of Poewhether this is an anxiety of death or an anxiety of lack of fame. Further, the inevitable
death of the author, and therefore the inevitable death of the reader, is unnerving, positioning this as
something that should usually remain hidden, but is surfaced. As a consequence, the reader is thrust
into a traumatic experience in itselfthat of which the symptoms are sure to manifest in some way
after the latency period is over.
The poem takes on the guise of being a horrific tragedy without redemption through its tone and
imagery; however, upon closer look, it is made clear that the uncanny nature of the poem is actually
useful for the reader, narrator, and author. Poe creates an atmosphere which is comparable to the
fantastical landscapes of the uncanny, which allows for him to introduce situations of real vs. imagined
in a way that may be unsettling for the reader, albeit innocuous. The ability of the narrator to
demonstrate the departure of the event through his separated psyche offers a temporary relief for the
reader as he safely witnesses the trauma of the speaker. The doubling of the reader and writer,
however, complicates this, suggesting that the poem is a source of trauma in itself. The uncanny that
is utilized in the poem serves as a form of psychoanalysis not only because it permits the reader to
experience the trauma of the unsalvageable narrator in a way that perhaps allows reflexive reflection of
the readers own trauma, but also because the reader is doubled with Poe, which positions the reader in
the crisis of witnessing a new trauma. The result is that the poem illuminates certain aspects while
consequently bestowing the burden of experience on the reader.