TSM - poetics of space reading

Gaston Bachelard's Poetics of Spaces was a very dense read but provided an insight into the ways in which spaces have an effect on humans. In this section of the reading that was given it had talked about the home. The house is, for Bachelard, the quintessential phenomenological object, which means that this is the place in which the personal experience reaches its epitome. Homes serve and provide us humans with the sense of security, control, belonging, and identity. In the reading Bachelard says in the first sentence  "A house constitutes a body of images that give mankind proofs or illusions of stability." In a home we desire stability and that is demonstrated through the foundations of the house. In order to have stability we must build in a strong foundation to ensure that the fears that our mind creates are protected from the outside forces. When we try to protect ourselfs from the outside world we have the tendency to retreat to the attic, which reminds us of the apparent structure of home. This metaphorical representation of the attic serves as a reminder to clarity that our minds find when see the foundations. In contrast the other part of the brain other than the attic is the cellar. Gaston Bachelard mentions within the Poetics of Spaces that "the cellar becomes buried madness, walled-in tragedy." Being buried within the depths of the cellar within our mind beings to become more dramatic, and our fear becomes more exaggerated. The section of this reading shows that the attic and cellar both appear, whether that be through our minds or occur within our dreams.