"The Uncanny"

The term heimlich embodies the dialectic of "privacy" and "intimacy" that is inherent in bourgeois ideology. Therefore Freud can associate it with the "private parts," the parts of the body that are the most "intimate" and that are simultaneously those parts subject to the most concealment. However, in Freud's understanding the "heimlich" will also be something that is concealed from the self.


unheimlich: as the negation of heimlich, this word usually only applies to the first set of meanings listed above:

unheimlich I = unhomey, unfamiliar, untame, uncomfortable = eerie, weird, etc.

unheimlich II (the less common variant) = unconcealed, unsecret; what is made known; what is supposed to be kept secret but is inadvertently revealed.