Artur Wagner Introduction

Among the multitude of literary genres that emerged during the twentieth century one undoubtedly stands out from the standards of what we usually refer to as the canon. Weird fiction, a subgenre belonging to the broader category of speculative fiction, was nearly single-handedly brought to its broadly known shape by an American author Howard Philips Lovecraft -- and due to its unordinary character influenced a vast number of subsequent writers, who never cease to draw inspiration from the ideas that he developed in his works. As S.T. Joshi, an acclaimed supernatural literature critic, notes, while Lovecraft was definitely not the first writer to launch the weird tale, he was the first to be utterly conscious about the tradition he adopted (1). The writer himself provided a brief definition of what truly comprises this genre:
The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer , unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject of that most terrible conception of the human brain a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space. (qtd. in Joshi 6)

Modern readers may find themselves baffled by certain recurrent themes and motifs specific to his writings, hence one has to be mindful of the particular influence that Lovecrafts ideology had on his literary legacy. For his works to evoke an intended emotional response (which is, in fact, that of terror and dismay) the reader must be acquainted with a broader context, engulfing both the theoretical background of Lovecrafts studies, and the general setting his works share. Even despite the apparent separateness of the individual stories in terms of their plot, it is essential to notice the manner in which they constitute a greater totality. This study attempts to trace and analyze the mechanisms behind the distinctive aspects of Lovecraftian literature,

namely the generation of the atmosphere of dread and uneasiness, and the repetitive theme of multipronged degeneration. H.P. Lovecraft developed the idea of cosmic indifferentism, based on the rebuttal of any divine presence and human insignificance within the galactic existence. Joshi observes that in works of Lovecraft The whole history of human life is a momentary incident in the ceaseless churning of electrons that makes up an eternal and infinite universe (175). The importance of humankind is hence diminished to the role of yet another species inhabiting the universe, trapped in its lacking understanding of the cosmos and of the far more powerful entities dwelling among the stars. This recursive theme present in the majority of Lovecrafts works gains particular significance in the cycle of short stories collectively referred to as the Cthulhu Mythos, named after the central figure in the Lovecraftian tradition the Great Cthulhu, who first made appearance in one of the most recognizable works of the cycle, The Call of Cthulhu. Having established a mythology of his own, the American writer created a pantheon of cosmic deities that are said to frequently interfere with humanity, which is unable to apprehend wholly the nature of its own existence. His specific, nearly hostile, attitude towards religion rejects the plausibility of any divine influence, therefore discarding the godly quality of the mythological entities. Being admittedly extraterrestrial, alien to our world, they possess no supernatural properties and are subjected to certain natural laws that common people may perceive as magical (Joshi 175-176, 192). The Great Old Ones (the common name of those legendary beings) possess superior understanding of the universe, although they are as material as humans, hence becoming rationally conceivable (Joshi 192). Consequently, The Whisperer in Darkness supplies a strikingly vivid, as far as Lovecrafts standards go, account of the species from outer space, providing a very strong sense of

disturbance with the use of explicit descriptions. This concept of rejecting supernatural presence and introducing life forms far greater than earthlings is extremely significant in the face of the underlying philosophy of cosmic indifferentism, deepening the sense of the triviality of human existence. Distinguishing a number of virtually almighty extraterrestrial beings, Lovecraft created a potent device for building a specific mood on the basis of outwardly unimportant mentions in the form of extraneous names or incantations that are obscure and unintelligible for the readers, thus inducing the state of uneasiness in them, or even awe. Referring to these peculiar creatures in multiple seemingly unrelated remarks, scattered around the individual works, serves the purpose of generating and maintaining an unceasing tension which may, though does not always have to, lead to a climax, the final outburst of accumulated suspense. Nevertheless, the exact nature of the obscure events is never revealed, leaving numerous unanswered questions and doubts, being but another distinct mechanism of inspiring horror in the readers. It is then the notion of uncertainty and incomprehension that plays the major role in constituting fear. In a similar vein, Lovecraft himself addressed the essence of horror in a famous essay entitled Supernatural Horror in Literature: The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown (1). Notwithstanding the variety of tools used to create the specific atmosphere, there is but one essential aspect of Lovecraftian literature to be analyzed. The concept of overwhelming degeneration permeates all of these writings, adopting various, both moral and corporeal, forms. This very specific idea of deterioration caused by an evil influence contributes to the omnipresent suspense and is manifested through different means. Respective instances of this phenomenon tend to differ dramatically, ranging from a straightforward physical deformation of the Deep Ones, originating from The

Shadow Over Innsmouth, to more sophisticated cases such as purely mental degeneration presented in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. The Colour Out of Space provides an extremely substantial exemplification of this motif, portraying a decaying influence of extraterrestrial matter on the entire nearby environment. The source of these blights is mostly connected with the impact of the alien forces, inevitably leading to inhuman deformation or, in other cases, to insanity. The deteriorating mental state of the central characters remains common to the majority of Lovecrafts weird fiction. Furthermore, deterioration is frequently attributed to the representatives of particular ethnic groups, as in the case of The Horror at Red Hook, where a group of Kurdish immigrants is depicted as a sect of devil-worshippers (Joshi 216). Such portrayals were facilitated by Lovecrafts racial preconceptions, repeatedly incorporated into his texts. Over the course of this thesis a variety of different mechanisms and devices governing the process of constituting the effect of fear will be identified and analyzed on the basis of selected works belonging to the Cthulhu Mythos, namely The Whisperer in Darkness, The Call of Cthulhu and The Shadow Over Innsmouth. A closer look will be taken at the issue of the Mythos being a greater entirety, and the subsequent consequences of such an approach in relation to evoking emotional response in the readers. The distinctive instances of diverse degeneration will be discussed in greater detail in the latter part of this study, on the basis of The Colour Out of Space, The Horror at Red Hook, and the formerly mentioned The Shadow Over Innsmouth. The discrete features of the motif shall be traced and discussed in relation to the worldview held by H.P. Lovecraft. Finally, a correlation between the both main aspects of the thesis, the methods of establishing the atmosphere and forms of degeneration, will be drawn to provide a final conclusion.

Chapter 1
The Chtulhu Mythos, a fictional universe shared by the number of Lovecrafts writings, is invariably treated as the most significant part of his oeuvre. The term coined by August Derleth, writer contemporary to Lovecraft himself, encompasses the body of works embedded within the world of cosmic deities, with the philosophy of cosmic indifferentism governing its ideological foundations. The works belonging to Cthulhu Mythos convey the ideas of cosmicism by means of various devices and have to be perceived in the context of its particular principles (Joshi ch.1). As Joshi observes:
Lovecrafts fiction must be understood in the context of the philosophical thought that he evolved over a lifetime of study and observation. The core of that thought-derived from readings of such ancient Greek philosophers as Democritus and Epicurus as well as from absorption of the discoveries of nineteenth-century physics, chemistry and biologyis mechanistic materialism. This is the belief that the universe is a mechanism operating according to fixed laws (although these may not all be known to human beings), and that there can be no immaterial substance such as a soul or spirit. (ch.1)

Evoking a proper emotional response is therefore largely dependent on presenting a world controlled by specific laws and mechanisms that may be predominantly unfamiliar and baffling to the reader. In the essay Notes On Writing Weird Fiction Lovecraft points at the relationship between horror and the unknown, claiming that it is hard to create a convincing picture of shattered natural law [ . . . ] without laying stress on the emotion of fear (1). The violation of certain commonly acknowledged laws embeds the reader in the realm where not all the rules known to man apply and understandability of the presented world is no longer secure. This very realm operates under the principles that are often incomprehensible for the human beings, hence seemingly supernatural. Lovecraft, however, rejects the idea of immaterial life, thus creating a world where human beings are but one of the many beings inhabiting the cosmos. The works belonging to Cthulhu Mythos collectively share such properties and use Lovecrafts philosophical thought as a base for their narratives. Even though the

individual stories function independently of one another, their joint setting in a consistently outlined reality establishes a coherent totality upon which an entire mythology has been built.