This final chapter will explore the previously discussed themes of cosmic horror in H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction in greater detail by examining several of his short stories and the monsters that can be found in them. Lovecraft’s complete body of works consists of more than fifty short stories and a handful of novellas. These works provide an overabundance of material to dissect. A complete discussion of the entirety of this corpus is well beyond the scope of this thesis and as such I have chosen to focus on several key texts instead, namely the short stories ‘Dagon’ and ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ as well as the novella ‘The Shadow over Innsmouth’. This selection is based on three criteria. Firstly, these three texts are some of Lovecraft’s better known works and can be found in almost every anthology.
Over the decades they have become influential texts, of which the impact can still be seen in modern horror fiction today. Likewise, monsters like Cthulhu have become a recognisable part of popculture in general in the past decades (Ulstein, 47-51). Secondly, these texts contain a relatively high degree of intertextuality. Whilst the occasional reference to the possible existence of a greater mythos can be found in many of Lovecraft’s works, these three examples are interlinked by the existence of a monstrous race of sea-dwelling creatures and their equally monstrous gods. Not only are these monsters similar in appearance but the formulaic manner in which they are introduced and their function in these three texts are also comparable. An added benefit is that unlike some of Lovecraft’s other monsters they all possess recognisable bodies that can be examined and understood rather than being amorphous entities. The presence of a physical form allows these monsters to be analysed in a manner similar to the monsters in the previous chapters. Thirdly, the different texts have been written and published at various stages in Lovecraft’s career as an author, and together they span a period of almost twenty years. In such a time frame an author’s style and approach to writing can vary greatly and by selecting these texts I hope to account for such changes to a satisfying degree. In this chapter I will examine the monsters in ‘Dagon’, ‘The Call of Cthulhu’
and ‘The Shadow over Innsmouth’ and investigate, their purpose in the respective stories and
examine the fears that they embody. In doing so I will draw out the essential similarities between the monsters of Lovecraft and those discussed in earlier chapters.
‘Dagon’ is one of Lovecraft’s earliest short stories, written in 1917 and first published in 1923. Whilst only five pages long, the story manages to capture the horrific experience of a traumatized seafarer and his encounter with the supernatural after being stranded in the Pacific. At the outset of the story, the impact that this encounter has had on him is made abundantly clear as the anonymous narrator explains how he is on the precipice of ending his suffering by defenestration now that his supply of morphine has run dry (23). He then begins to tell the tale of how he was taken by the German navy during World War I and managed to escape, only to find himself stranded on an island described as a ‘slimy expanse of hellish black mire’ (23) strewn with rotting fish. The narrator spends some time on the island, proposing that it might have risen from the sea ‘through some unprecedented volcanic upheaval’ (24). When it is later proven that the island is not the result of tectonic activity, the whole experience is reframed as something unnatural. Upon the island, the narrator finds an enormous obelisk covered with unreadable hieroglyphs and carvings of several sea creatures. Amongst them, a large bas-relief stands out to the protagonist, depicting grotesque figures that
were damnably human in general outline despite webbed hand and, feet, shockingly wide and flabby lips, glassy, bulging eyes, and other features less pleasant to recall. Curiously enough, they seemed to have been chiselled badly out of proportion with their scenic background; for one of the creatures was shewn in the act of killing a whale represented as but little larger than himself (26).
This depiction, so the narrator suggests, might be of ancient gods of a long extinct tribe, but the unnatural setting of island and the cyclopean size of the monolith seems to suggest otherwise. As the protagonist is pondering the origin of the carvings, he is startled by the monster rising from the water. Its nightmarish form alone is enough to inspire abject terror, causing the protagonist to frantically flee back to his boat and escape the island. The description of the monster is, as befitting
such a panic-stricken scene, awfully brief but it can be understood that it is similar to those carved into the monolith.
With only the slight churning to mark its rise to the surface, the thing slid into view above the dark waters. Vast, Polyphemus-like, and loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith about which it flung its gigantic scaly arms, the while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds (26).
The monster is not described in any further detail and, besides revealing itself, it does not play an active role in the story. The only additional information the narrator reveals is that he has attempted to tentatively link the monster to ‘the ancient Philistine legend of Dagon, the Fish-God’ (26) but remains unconvinced. This leaves the question whether or not the creature is to be regarded as being the titular Dagon. The story ends with the narrator having gone mad with recurring dreams of this terrible sea monster. In a final twist, he describes ‘a noise at the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it’ as he is writing, and the narrative ends with an ominous ‘The window!
The window! (27)’.
Although relatively short and straightforward, ‘Dagon’ still offers several key elements that can be unpacked. The nature of the monster is the most notable, especially the manner in which he terrorizes his victim. As I have argued in a previous chapter, Beowulf features monsters who pose an immediate and overt physical threat to the hero and a more insidious, covert threat to both hero and society at large and the same can be said for Dracula. In these stories, the heroes are besieged by the monster and forced to fight back in an almost literal sense. However, ‘Dagon’ forgoes this physical threat and instead focusses on the implied danger that the discovery of such a creature suggests. It is essentially an embodiment of the trope of discovering things man was not meant to know. ‘Dagon’ presents a seemingly impossible situation and asks the question what would happen if monsters did indeed live under the sea, merely waiting to be found. The manner in which the creature seems to ignore the narrator at first and instead reaches for the obelisk is telling. It creates not only a link between the monster and the carvings but it also suggests that the object is much
more important than the man. This is where the cosmic horror of the story truly unfolds as it questions the anthropocentrism of both the narrator and his audience. Given that traditional monster stories are often centred around the interaction between man and monster, the absence of interaction between these two parties in ‘Dagon’ suggests that the monster hardly notices or cares for humans.
Such a change is a direct challenge to the importance of mankind. However, despite questioning man’s position in the cosmos, the monster is still given a recognisable humanoid shape even if Lovecraft displayed in other works that he had no trouble creating amorphous horrors that defy description. The fact that the monster in ‘Dagon’ is still humanoid indicates that the fear it embodies is related to the corruption of the human form. The creature can be seen as expressing a fear of immigrants that is found in many of Lovecraft’s works (McConeghy 5). Tyree contextualises Lovecraft’s xenophobia as being rooted in an ‘intense hatred for mixed and hybrid forms of culture’
and his white colonial beliefs that assumed the natural superiority of his own race (145). To him, the idea of interbreeding of either cultures or people was utterly repulsive, which is shown through his often blunt and sudden racial slurs (144). By situating the story somewhere on an exotic island in the Pacific, the author firmly establishes that his story does not take place in a civilized part of the world. Likewise, the hieroglyph-covered obelisk suggests some sort of civilization but of a kind much different and perhaps more primitive than that of the narrator. Once combined these elements create a situation in which the monster can be seen as the exponent of some exotic island culture with strange practices and stranger gods. Besides expressing a xenophobic unease and challenging the fundamental belief in an anthropocentric world, the monster in ‘Dagon’ also brings to the fore the problem of religion. Although Lovecraft would refine what Reynolds calls ‘the Dagon pseudomythology’ (100) in much more detail in the much later ‘Shadow over Innsmouth’, the stage for this is set in ‘Dagon’. When the narrator tries to understand the nature of the monster and relates how he attempted to find a link with ‘the ancient Philistine legend of Dagon, the Fish-God’ (26), he is very clear in explaining that this connection is unsatisfying. By not being able to fit the monster into an existing mythological framework, it is emphasized as being something new and difficult to
understand. At the same time, the monster suggests that these myths might not necessarily be correct but that they do contain a kernel of truth. As it turns out, there are indeed god-like monsters hidden away on Earth. The reality of this is emphasized by the manner in which the monster in
‘Dagon’ rises from the sea. By manifesting itself physically, its existence is confirmed. Its presence challenges the modern notion that such beings are unlikely to exist. At the same time, it introduces the notion that if god-like beings exist, they may not necessarily be benevolent towards or even interested in humanity. The narrator is stranded, both literally and figuratively and at the mercy of a monstrous being that he cannot understand. I would argue that this particular scene embodies the concept of indifferent, god-like creature that is central to several of Lovecraft’s texts. I will discuss the possibility of the monster possessing a divine status further when examining ‘Shadow over Innsmouth’, but for now it suffices to establish that the monster in ‘Dagon’ creates tension by challenging the beliefs and sense of security of the narrator and by extension the reader.
In ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ these same core ideas are further articulated and applied to a longer tale that employs a much more intricate narrative structure. In turn, this allows for the monster to be present in the background for much longer whilst building up to a final reveal. The story is framed as being ‘found among papers of the Late Francis Wayland Thurston’ (355) and is essentially a detailed account of Thurston’s own research following the death of his great uncle, Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages at Brown University, George Gammell Angell. The professor has passed suddenly after being ‘jostled by a nautical-looking negro’10 (356). Thurston is left to manage his great uncle’s affairs which lead to his discovery of a locked box containing a mysterious bass relief. The bass relief contains hieroglyphic symbols and the image of a monster which
Yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made
10 This passage serves as one of the prime examples of Lovecraft’s tendencies to describe the exact heritage of cultists and other wrongdoers. These characters are generally of African or American descent. This prejudice quite clearly Lovecraft’s racist beliefs that these people posed a threat to society.
it most shockingly frightful. Behind the figure was a vague suggestion of a Cyclopean architectural background (357).
Found alongside the relief he finds a stack of ‘press cuttings’ and a ‘main document [which] was headed “CTHULHU CULT”’. When compared to ‘Dagon’, the monster’s first appearance is very similar. The narrator finds an ancient carving of a monster that is vaguely humanoid but also vastly deformed in a chimeric fashion. Both are clearly influenced by the appearance of sea creatures and seem to inspire a general kind of unease or fear. Interestingly, the monster in ‘The Call of Cthulhu’
is presented early on which allows it to loom menacingly in the background. Here, the revelation of the monster may cause some initial shock but it is not the story’s focal point. The rest of the first part deals with Thurston relating his great uncle’s notes which explain that the relief was made not by some foreign and ancient civilization but rather by a local art student following a horrific dream
Of great Cyclopean cities of titan blocks and sky-flung monoliths, all dripping with green ooze and sinister with latent horror. Hieroglyphics had covered the walls and pillars, and from some undetermined point below had come a voice that was not a voice; a chaotic sensation which only fancy could transmute into sound, but which he attempted to render by the almost unpronounceable jumble of letters, “Cthulhu fhtagn” (358).
Here the monster is presented once more as a lingering presence. However, this time it seems to be able to influence certain individuals. Had the creature spoken to only the one artist, this might have been little more than a contrivance to drive the plot, but the narrator informs us that from the press cuttings he found amongst Angell’s possessions speak of similar cases across the globe with several artists going mad. In this way, the first chapter of the story serves to emphasize the ability of the monster to literally affect the world around it.
The second part of the story relates of Professor Angell’s involvement with a police investigation following the arrest of the members of a violent and deranged voodoo cult. During the arrest a statue bearing resemblance to the bass relief in the first chapter of the story is found and
Angell and several colleagues are consulted on its meaning. A fellow professor recalls a previous visit to a remote tribe in Greenland where a similar statuette was worshipped as a ‘supreme elder devil’ (363). Much like the voodoo cult, the tribe is characterized as strange, possible mad, for worshipping such a deity. The professor recalls a chant uttered during the worship, namely,
‘“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn”’. He translates it as ‘“In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming”‘. This phrase has come up earlier, although shortened, as
‘Cthulhu fhtagn’ (358) in the artist’s dream in the previous chapter and solving the mystery of its meaning is an important part of the narrator’s investigation. The chant provides further insight into the nature of the monster and plays a crucial role in establishing Cthulhu as presence within the story. He is dead but, at the same time, the passage suggests that death is more like a sleep to Cthulhu from which he may rise. Such a concept is perhaps similar to that of a vampire resting in his coffin although I would not classify Cthulhu as an undead creature. Instead, this fragment is meant to emphasize the fact that this is a monster that does not obey the natural order of life and death. The rest of the chapter explains that the monster is worshipped not only in remote locations but all across the world and further contextualizes Cthulhu as the ‘great priest’ of the Old Ones (366). These Old Ones are extra-terrestrial creatures that came to Earth long before man walked the earth and who remained hidden ever since. By doing so, the story alludes to the fact that there might be creatures far more terrible than Cthulhu beneath the sea.
The final part of the story concerns the narrator actively furthering the research done by his great uncle. Thurston comes across an Australian news article mentioning a ship with only a single survivor being returned to port under mysterious circumstances. The survivor is a Norwegian sailor named Johansen who remains in Australia for a short while before returning home. A statue similar to the one in the previous part is found aboard the ship and soon Thurston is traveling, first to Australia and then to Norway to catch up with the sailor. Upon arrival he learns that Johansen has since perished following an incident involving ‘two Lascar sailors’ (364). However, the narrator manages to obtain Johansen’s journal from his widow which contains the details of the incident at
sea. From this we learn that the sailor and his shipmates came across a previously uncharted island in the Pacific Ocean halfway between New Zealand and South America. This weed-covered island features cyclopean structures that seem not quite right, with the architecture being described as non-Euclidian.11 Amongst these ruins the crew of the ship find a large door, which they open out of curiosity. This chance encounter is what releases Cthulhu from his slumber, who begins to heave himself out of his tomb. Immediately, the sailors retreat back to their ship, much like the narrator in
‘Dagon’, although several of them perish out of mere shock or are swept up by Cthulhu’s enormous claws before reaching safety. Once the survivors, consisting of Johansen and one other sailor, reach the boat and attempt to flee, they realize it is impossible to get away. In a bold change of plans, they use their steamboat to ram the monster in a scene that is reminiscent of Wells’ War of the Worlds12 (378) in which the head of the creature bursts open. This buys them precious time to escape but does little else as the monster can be seen ‘recombining’ (378) before their very eyes. At sea, the other sailor perishes, leaving Johansen as the sole survivor when the ship is found adrift and brought to port in Australia. With Johansen’s narrative being over, the story as a whole ends much the same as it began: Cthulhu returns to bide his time beneath the waves. The narrator remains fearful, not only of the monster but of the fact that he now knows too much. Even if he has not been in direct contact with the monster, Thurston has, by researching it, become tainted. In ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ knowledge acts like a curse or a contagion that spreads from reader to reader. Although it is never fully implied, the text strongly suggests that the deaths of Professor Angell and Johansen were not accidental but rather perpetrated by foreign sailors belonging to the cult worshipping Cthulhu. Through them, the monster is seemingly capable of reaching anywhere and anyone, and the fact that the narrator is mentioned at the start to have also passed away leaves little doubt as to
11 In his treatise Elements Euclid laid out several basic principles for geometry, such as that on a flat plane two parallel lines can never meet and that all right angles are equal. Lovecraft used the concept of non-Euclidian architecture to create the suggestion that these structures are alien not simply because of style or material but also because of their impossible angels or curves. For more, see Taisbak and Van der Waerden’s ‘Euclid’.
12 In Wells’s 1898 novel The War of the Worlds Earth has been invaded by Martians piloting enormous war engines. In one of its more iconic scenes the British ironclad HMS Thunder Child manages to shoot down one of the machines in a naval battle before ramming a second. It is one of the few instances where human weapons are capable of destroying or even damaging the Martian fighting machines.
his fate. The looming threat of the monster is then extended to the audience who now also know too much and could suffer a similar fate.
‘The Shadow over Innsmouth’ is one of Lovecraft’s later works that is substantially longer than most of his writings. It shares many themes and tropes with ‘Dagon’ and ‘The Call of Cthulhu,’
and several aspects of the underlying mythos are seemingly in both stories. ‘The Shadow over Innsmouth’ is once more narrated by an anonymous protagonist, and it tells of his discovery of the fictional town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, whilst exploring his own genealogical history. The story, however, is prefaced by an ominous report of federal action taken against the city, arresting and displacing many of its inhabitants. Mention is even made of rumours of a torpedo discharge at a place named ‘Devil Reef’ (807), which is located just outside of the town’s harbour. Following this preface, the narrator informs his audience that he is about to ‘defy the ban on speech about this thing’ (808) and proceeds to reveal that these actions were taken after his escape from Innsmouth half a year earlier. He primes his readers by suggesting that something in the mysterious town warranted such drastic actions as well as the subsequent cover-up. Much of the initial story is used to build up the unpleasant reputation that the town and its residents enjoyed in the neighbouring area. The protagonist learns of Innsmouth’s existence through sheer coincidence in Newburyport but soon finds an agent at a local ticket office willing to offer a long exposition on the history and strange nature of Innsmouth and its inhabitants. According to the agent, the town is isolated and largely deserted with its local economy relying on fishing and a single gold refinery owned by ‘Old Man Marsh’ (809). He goes on explaining that this is the grandson of Captain Obed Marsh who is rumoured to have been ‘driving bargains with the devil and brining imps out of hell to live in Innsmouth’ (809). The agent then remarks that the general dislike of the people from Innsmouth is most likely due to ‘race prejudice’ (810). He describes how the inhabitants look strange, comparing their appearance to that of the ‘queer kinds of people’ from Africa and Asia. He then goes on to describe what is later called the ‘Innsmouth look’:
Queer narrow heads with flat noses and bulgy, stary eyes that never seem to shut, and their
skin ain’t quite right. Rough and scabby, and the sides of their necks are all shrivelled or creased up. Get bald too, very young. The older fellows look the worst –fact is, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a very old chap of that kind. Guess they must die of looking in the glass! Animals hate ‘em –they used to have lots of horse trouble before autos came in (810-1).
This is one of the crucial parts of the story that firmly establishes the inhabitants of Innsmouth as
“others”. Particularly interesting at this point is that their physical appearance invites a hostile reaction in animals, suggesting that the discrimination against the people of Innsmouth is based on something more substantial than mere prejudice alone. If even animals, who do not carry human biases, react violently to the people from Innsmouth, then they must be truly strange. At least that is what the story seems to establish. The rest of the information the agent offers might seem strangely unrelated. He moves on to describe that the town is known for its overabundant population of fish and the overprotective nature of its residents towards their fishing grounds. He then explains how the one hotel in Innsmouth is called ‘the Gilman House’ (811). This apparently tone-deaf change of topic achieves two things: First it creates an air of nonchalance as the agent seems to have taken the Innsmouth look for granted and does not linger on this subject. Secondly, for the astute reader it serves to foreshadow the main conceit of the plot, namely that many of the people of Innsmouth are actually monstrous fish-like beings. It remains in the background as somewhere the narrator does not want to lodge in the first place due to a general sense of unease but where he is nonetheless forced to spend the night due to events outside his control. The author uses this scene to wrong-foot his audience by overtly introducing a town full of monsters in order to make the discovery of the other, real monster, all the more shocking. It is possible to skip much of what follows, as the narrator resolves to travel to Innsmouth and spend his day there. Here, during a conversation with local drunkard Zadok Allen, the narrator discovers the source of the town’s monstrous appearance.
Zadok tells of Obed Marsh, a long-dead sea captain from Innsmouth, who discovered how to summon a monstrous race of fish-like humanoid beings that are later identified as ‘Deep Ones’