Spaces of the Uncanny: Alterations and Re-elaborations of the Domestic in the Works of Fleur Jaeggy

Abstract

This essay examines the representation of domestic space in the works of Fleur Jaeggy, placing it in dialogue with Mona Chollet’s reflection on the home as a refuge and a site of identity formation. While Chollet views the domestic environment as a space of protection and self-expression, Jaeggy subverts this notion, portraying it instead as a site of confinement and self-erasure. Her protagonists inhabit closed, oppressive spaces that do not provide security but rather impose pervasive control, stripping them of autonomy. In this context, the uncanny is not a sudden intrusion but an inherent condition, permeating every area and crystallizing existence in a state of claustrophobic stasis. The analysis explores how Jaeggy dismantles the rhetoric of the home as a place of belonging and formation, revealing it instead as a site not only of physical, but also of emotional and psychological imprisonment. Drawing on Bachelard’s phenomenology of space, the study highlights the centrality of confinement in Jaeggy’s work, where enclosure is not merely a spatial condition but an inescapable fate, condemning the protagonists to an existence suspended between isolation and dissolution.