Thesis Proposal

Eric DerManouelian
Block: A
4/15/08

H.P Lovecraft: Thesis Proposal

In my American Author Essay I’m going to explore the idea that Lovecraft had accidently added symbolism in his dark twisted tales, reflecting on what he thought of his own life and what he thought of others. This is not a sturdy thesis yet, not until I read a biography of my author to aid my argument, however I have a strong hunch that Lovecraft did put pieces of his own life and his own ideals into his works. In Lovecraft’s pieces, he always seems to mention the ocean, in one way or another, usually to show something evil lurking within it, usually something overlooked now a days with all of modern monsters coming from the ocean such as Cloverfield and Godzilla, however H.P was the first person to use water to home his monsters. As soon as I realized all of H.P Lovecraft’s main characters were afraid of the ocean I looked up the psychology and symbolism of what water meant in dreams (because his most famous monster, Cthulhu, controls them) Freud believed that water stood for sexuality, or relationship with the opposite sex. In the story “He” the main character has a horrible life and has a chance to escape it, back to London, his paradise, yet he doesn’t because he’s afraid of the monsters he’ll come across if he goes into the ocean, the character grows old, poor and dies, this story I feel will be a crucial part of my essay seeing as how this book is the least fictional out of all of his stories and I feel one of the most self reflective and depressing.
The other piece of symbolism I would like to explore is the monsters that H.P put into these stories, are the ancient texts he uses, and if these are actual beliefs of him, the main quote I would focus on is:

"That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die."

This text is extremely important, it’s in almost every popular work of his and this is what is constantly spray painted onto his grave. I personally think this is more or less reflecting on how unappreciated he felt in the world, being one of the worlds darkest writers, too morbid for his time. I need to read more about this topic of how unappreciated he felt because I’m not quite sure how popular he was, I only know he felt unappreciated when he moved to New York and was forced to move back to Rhode Island

Symbolism of HP Lovecraft

Lovecraft is an odd person to talk about symbolism. Whether there is something behind these stories I believe there is. I don't believe however the symbolism is on purpose or that it's just to remind himself of things that have happened in his life, hating America, being under appreciated, only being published in 2 magazines and dying poor would do that to someone. I personally think that the story of Celephais and Whisperer in the Dark are the two stories Lovecraft really put himself into. Celephais I believe was himself telling how he just wanted to escape to the lands in his stories these tombs, maybe he was suicidal even seeing as how everyone who leaves New England dies at the end of his books. As far as whisperer in the Dark it might have been a cry for help, HP realizing his own insanity or perhaps exerting his anger and desire to kill any purity within his heart.

The whisperer in Darkness (68 pages)

This story blew me away that someone in the early 1900's could publish something like this. The story takes place in a man's mind who's being tapped by an evil entity (most likely Cthulhu). The messages are dark and we find out the man is a scholar attending college who's writing these satanic dark messages all over the walls and mutters them in his sleep. The satanic messages end up being Cthulu telling the man to kill the parasite inside of him. The parasite is Yuggoth the one being that can stop Cthulu. The man is basically pregnant with the alien jesus. The man (Henry Wentworth Akely) ignores the messages and gets medical help, by the end of the story Cthulu drives the man insane and into a mental hospital where he just lays there shaking repeating the message given to him by the entity of evil.

Memorable Line: Ia! Shub Niggurath! The Goat with a Thousand Young!...Ia! Sub Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!

Style: Completely original...don't know what to compare it to, incredible writing

The Colour Out of Space (30 pages)

Here we are, yet again the whole explorer theme with HP lovecraft. Two men explore a cave and a blinding light eats them up. Neither of them can explain the color but it's bright and marvelous yet something about it tells them that it's "the devil's mouth".

Memorable line; "Can't git away...draws ye....ye know summ'at's comin', but 'tain't no use" pg.30

Style: The story just makes me think of the Atomic bomb blast and the blinding light brighter then the sun.

The Call of Cthulhu (29pages)

Call of Cthulhu is a cult classic...and I mean that literally. This story revolves around news paper articles that form around a cult that worship the God of dreams Cthulu who is said to be the one that will destroy the world or to start a chain of events that will. Cthulu is a Giant green Squid with bat wings trapped under rubble of a temple after a century old fight with Dagon. Cthulhu is said to control dreams, thus controling the motives of people and at the end of the story the cult summons the bat-winged mocking imps of Tartarus (imps that appear to build Cthulhu a new home and to do their dirty work.

Memorable Line: ...-this test of my own sanity, wherein is pieced together that which I hope may never pieced together again. I looked upon all that the universe has to hold of horror, and even the skies of spring and the flowers of summer must ever afterward be poison to me

Style: the whole, news article style reminds me of Bram Stoker's Dracula how that was a cult novel and that was all entries in a notebook

Exterior Notes: (I love this story )

He (11 pages)

He is not a science fiction or fantasy story at all, which is the first time HP has went this route. It's about how much a man wanted to go to America to escape England but in the end he found the grass is always greener on the other side. That the El Dorado he was looking for was in Britain all along. This story tells about how obscure the idea of going to America was when the man lived in London.

Memorable Line: "Can you...Dare you...Go far?"(pg.7)

Style: Reminds me a bit of the tale of two cities mixed with the moral "It can always be worse"

The Hound (9 pages)

Boring story, dog gets abducted by ancient aliens and gets turned into a monster thousands of years later someone finds the dog and takes it as a pet. The dog is now out on the streets and kills it's owner

Memorable Line: In a squalid thieves' den an entire family had been torn to shreds by an unknown thing which left no trace, and those around had heard all night above the usual calmour of drunken voices a faint, deep, insistent note as of a gigantic hound. (Pg.7)

Style: The Omen meets A bad Steven King Novel