The convergence of the uncanny and gender in the contemporary model home

• Main Author: Mckinnon, Nancy
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1993/2492

The single family home located within the suburban development is ubiquitous within the landscape of contemporary North American culture. The single family home as represented in the model home, comprises for many the epitome of the dream home. This thesis argues that the model home expresses a dominance of reason and a repression of human identity as natural beings of a natural world which grew out of historical events situated in pre-Hellenic times, and eventually led to the emergence of the aesthetic of the uncanny within Western culture. The uncanny represents an awareness of our lost home in nature and a simultaneous recognition of the inevitability of our mortality. This thesis further argues that the repression of our identity a natural beings of a natural world has had particular meaning for woman, whose identity has been constructed by the culture as closer to nature than that of man.