My essay is called “Alive but Insignificant: An Analysis of Cosmic Horror in H.P. Lovecraft’s Writing”. Howard Phillips Lovecraft has written many short stories surrounding the idea of “cosmic horror”. In this essay I seek to investigate how this cosmic horror works and what connections it has to occultism by analyzing six of his short stories: The Call of Cthulhu, The Colour Out of Space, The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, The Haunter of The Dark, The Nameless City and Nyarlathotep. In the essay I use sources that show Lovecraft’s biography and letters to build an idea of how he might have been thinking when writing and in the theory segment I bring up the sublime to show what “cosmic horror” means when analyzing Lovecraft. I analyze the stories based on three categories: The Fear of Cosmos, The Fear of The Occult and The Fear of The Abyss. In the second to last segment called discussion I got through everything that I have found through my analysis: Within The Fear of Cosmos, I analyze The Colour Out of Space, Nyarlathotep and The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath to find that the fear comes from the idea that there is a force somewhere out in space that can destroy humanity on a whim and humans have no way of stopping it. Within The Fear of The Occult, I analyze the Cthulhucult in The Call of Cthulhu by bringing up Lovecraft’s connections to occultism and potential connections to Helena Blavatsky. To enforce the connection between Lovecraft and Blavatsky I use a quote from Haunter of The Dark that presents a book that Blavatsky has ties to. There I find that the fear comes from the idea that a malevolent monster is whispering in the ears of people, encouraging them to commit horrific acts and to abandon their humanity in its name. In The Fear of The Abyss, I analyze The Nameless City and The Call of Cthulhu to find that the fear comes from the idea that there is a powerful and horrifying monster sleeping somewhere under the earth and the ocean, waiting for the right time to awaken and come out of hiding, all while humanity is unaware of it. In the very last segment I go through some comments regarding the essay, where I share my biggest problems with Lovecraft and why certain parts of the essay was cut out.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-221770 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Jidah, Abraham |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för kultur- och medievetenskaper |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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