In this paper the author draws on Theodor Fontane’s 1895 novel Effi Briest to consider the links between Freud’s paper om The Uncanny and his elaboration of the trauma of sexuality and the après coup. Conceptualising trauma in contemporary clinical theory inevitably draws on the theory of the après coup: the blow that is inflicted on the psyche when the impact of the early event is retranscribed at a later date. The author considers the trauma that Effi experiences, not the catastrophic trauma of death or assault but the deceptive trauma, disguised as an unparalleled opportunity for Effi. Her story highlights the trauma of sexuality and the incestuous Oedipal dimension. In the cruel economy of incestuous exchange across the generations Effi in what she experiences as a dreary incarceration, is left isolated with her libidinal yearnings. Arguing that Effi as a seventeen-year-old girl is drawn into the incestuous world of her parents and the mother’s suitor Instetten, the author describes how the trauma involving the denial of her sexuality, leads to her being ostracised and facing psychic death. Captured in the deferred maternal desire, Effi unknowingly becomes part of a system of incestuous exchange. This is a trauma that is only known in the après coup,

(A summary of the novel. Effi is the seventeen-year-old daughter of Frau and Herr von Briest. She is married off to Baron von Instetten who was previously her mother's suitor. In the bleak environs of her marital home in Kessin, North Germany far away from her idyllic childhood home, Hohen Cremmen, Effi is susceptible to sinister fantasies in the house which she feels to be haunted. Her husband is neglectful of her as he is dedicated to his professional life and connections with distinguished politicians. Effi befriends Roswitha who becomes her maid and attends to her child Annie. She embarks on a loveless affair with Captain Crampas, a physically injured womaniser. Instetten discovers the affair when he finds Effi's letters to Crampas. Instetten challenges Crampas to a duel in which the latter is killed. Effi is ostracised and lives apart from Annie but with Roswitha. Her parents too abandon her. Annie eventually visits her mother, but Effi realises that Instetten has influenced Annie and the meeting is not repeated. Finally, the von Briests relent and Effi returns to Hohen Cremmen where she, still a young woman, dies.)