Motives of Freud's essay Das Unheimliche in the collection of stories Žena koja zaustavlja satove by Kornelije Kvas

The article analyzes striking similarities between the motifs in 2023 short story collection The Woman Who Stops the Clocks (Žena koja zaustavlja satove) by Kornelije Kvas and Freud's 1919 essay The Uncanny (Das Unheimliche). Following Zeno's Path (Zenonov put), The Woman Who Stops the Clocks (2023) is the second work of fiction by Kornelije Kvas. The book consists of a prologue and nine seemingly unrelated stories of diverse themes, each with unexpected, fateful twists that open the door to various interpretations. The complexity of the structure and the polysemy of the text are revealed gradually; it often requires revisiting previously read material to notice that the same obscure characters and unusual motifs reappear cyclically throughout the stories. In contrast to the author's debut, which is characterized by postmodern literary techniques, The Woman Who Stops the Clocks features thematic and motif complexes and literary techniques that align more with the modernist poetics. This includes elements inherited from Romanticism, such as subjectivity and introspection, descriptions of complex, strained mental states, irrational and mystical premonitions and dreams, reflections on death, and attempts to distance oneself from reality through irony and fantasy. A particular theme of the collection is the psychological portrait of the artist, which John Barth considers one of the key themes of modernism. In the prologue the reader becomes acquainted with the narrator's intimate struggles, who suffers from the discord between his inner spirit and the external world. In "The Lost Sight"-a kind of epilogue that wraps up the entire collection-the main character, with a touch of subdued self-irony, recounts his life after becoming blind. We learn that he has finally managed to overcome his internal conflict between the painful longing to return to his nature and the premonition that such harmony is forever lost. His voluntary exile into a world of darkness, where all spatial-temporal limitations are dissolved and objective reality is denied, has allowed him to achieve absolute spiritual autonomy, a higher realm of existence inaccessible to ordinary people. Intertextuality as a form of communication with other authors is skilfully applied in this book. The entire collection is imbued with motifs from world literature, and in the story "Emil", the author reveals the titles that served as his inspiration, offering us a key to interpreting his work. In the spacious, richly appointed library where Emil spends his days, he selects quotes and thoughts from his reading. He does not return his favourite books to the shelves but piles them on his desk, offering the reader a clever glimpse into the world literature that served as his model. In the selected works, Greek tragedies will feature prominently. Readers will easily recognize the association with Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, when the main character realizes with horror that the prophecy of the woman with the white mark has come true and that his worst nightmare has been fulfilled: after conveying the news of the parents' death, Pavle hands Emil the fateful document, which had been carefully preserved until that moment, revealing the terrifying truth. However, the book that is not found on Emil's desk but could have been included in the mentioned list of literature is Sigmund Freud's essay The Uncanny, one of his texts in which a specific aesthetic category is analysed. In his considerations, Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, often used mythological motifs to develop particular psychoanalytic concepts. The most famous example is the Oedipus complex, thoroughly elaborated in The Interpretation of Dreams (Die Traumdeutung, 1900), where the complex through which infantile sexual development achieves its temporary resolution via identification with the same-sex parent is interpreted using the tragic hero's ominous fate from Sophocles' tragedy. The Oedipus complex is also at the heart of the aforementioned essay, where Freud analyses the often-present (partially aesthetic) experience of the uncanny-Das Unheimliche. Despite all the significant correspondences, the fact that Kvas did not include The Uncanny in his "list of literature" suggests that the motifs in his book are not directly inspired by Freud's essay. Demystifying the hidden meanings of Kvas's motifs through Freud's essay The Uncanny opens up one interpretative possibility that reveals a new, initially hidden meaning of the book, concealed in the unconscious. This primarily concerns the Oedipus complex, which is central to psychoanalytic theory and Freud's theory of art. The Oedipus complex is also at the heart of the story "Emil," which reveals threads that connect the other stories, shedding light on the multilayered nature of Kvas's book in a new and unexpected way. Our interpretation is also supported by the previously mentioned painting "King Oedipus" on the book's cover, created by Max Ernst, a German painter and sculptor who was among the first to embrace Freud's theories. Believing that an artist should create freely from their inner psyche, he explored his childhood traumas. His paintings, drawings, and collages represent his subconscious visions, making their meaning often seem unclear at first glance. Similarly, the unusual motifs in Kvas's stories confuse readers because they appear disconnected on the surface. However, when Freudian psychoanalysis and the essay The Uncanny are incorporated into the interpretation, the hidden (repressed) meaning of Kvas's book becomes apparent, revealing it not merely as a collection of short stories but as a multi-layered, cohesive work with a novel-like structure.