According to Sigmund Freud, "the uncanny is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is long known and long familiar" (825). In Robert Hayden's poem The Diver, the uncanny creeps upon the reader as the speaker descends further into the depths of the sea and the unconscious. Freud's use of the uncanny evokes fear and uncertainty in the reader as he delves deeper into the unconscious. Hayden uses alliteration to play with repression and turns familiar scenes into unfamiliar ones to emphasize swimming in and out of the conscious and unconscious mind. Reading the poem The Diver by Robert Hayden, the reader is immediately thrown into the unknown. After a few lines of the poem, the reader can begin to understand that we are underwater. The repetition of the sound causes different feelings of uncertainty and fear as the reader delves deeper into the poem. “Bryozoan moss/blurred, darkened/metal…” (Hayden 3). The repeating r's in a blurry, obscured way create a hazy sense of the darkness of the water that the speaker is experiencing. Haziness is a sense of repression that tries to escape the mind and reach consciousness. Hayden continues the use of alliteration with the sounds F and S. Although they are different letters they produce the same sound which causes confusion, but an acceptance of death. “Yet with languid/frenzy I struggled, as/a frozen person fights/sleeps wanting to sleep;/struggled against/the annihilating arms that/suddenly/surrounded me…” (Hayden 4). The use of sound in the last six lines of the poem makes the reader feel the need for air and the fear of death. “Reflection of the desire to live?/Fragile/flaming respirators? I swam from/ship somehow; /somehow the /measured ascent began” (Hayden 4). The R sound that starts is swimming in water. The B sound that continues right after in “brittle belling” is the gasp of air, and finally the S sounds that conclude the line creating a soft feel. As if the reader might not get out in time, even though the lines say the speaker manages to escape the ship. The fear that alliteration evokes in the reader is the unconscious. The deep inner thoughts that no one wants to tap into. The speaker is accepting the idea of ​​death in the ocean through his unconscious, but his conscious mind is trying to push back and begin the "measured ascent" (Hayden 4) back into the world.