A Faceless Kind of Terror: The Modern Mythology of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos
by J. Taylor
At the time of his death in 1936 Howard Phillips Lovecraft was a relative unknown. Born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1890, Lovecraft fancied himself a relic of an earlier age still. A devoted antiquarian, his early readings left him particularly enamored with the eighteenth century (Joshi). Yet, strangely, his fiction seems to have as much life in it today as ever. World-famous writers of horror and dark fantasy, such as Stephen King, have acknowledged him as an important influence on their work (Wohleber). His short stories and novellas have found adaptation into film and provided inspiration for numerous others. Further influence can be seen in the modern videogame industry, from oblique references in minor quests woven into Bethesda's popular titles Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, to more pervasive examples such as Alone in the Dark and Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. Lovecraft's Mythos has even turned up in cartoons, both those meant for children, like The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, and those intended for adults, such as The Simpsons and South Park. As Lovecraft biographer S.T. Joshi states, "Clearly, different readers draw different types of nourishment from Lovecraft, and this diversity appeal augurs well for his survival well into the twenty-first century" (qtd. in Hill 7). But just what is it about these works that continue to attract and captivate readers so long after the author's death? The core of Lovecraft's mythos is its uncompromising view of humanity’s insignificance in the universe. The result is a potent, nihilistic terror that bears an unexpected resonance in the mind of the twenty-first century individual, dwarfed and overwhelmed by his place in modern global society. Indeed, not only does the Cthulhu Mythos remain relevant to modern readers, its particular flavor of horrific futility is even more relevant today than it was at the time of its publication more than seventy years ago.
At first glance, the continuing popularity of Lovecraft and his Mythos seems rather unusual. His writing suffered harshly from the criticism of contemporaries, such as Edmund Wilson, who denounced his stories as "bad taste and bad art" (qtd. in Joshi). Other analyses, such as that offered by National Review writer John J. Miller, point out the weakness of his characterizations and the dense verbosity of his descriptive style. At the same time, much of his fiction reflects cultural attitudes that, today, seem backward and narrow-minded at best. At worst, some stories read as "thinly veiled projections of his racialist fears" (Joshi). From my own expeditions into his works, Lovecraft seems, at the very least, difficult to approach. Yet, once the effort is made, one thing that becomes swiftly apparent is Lovecraft's thorough understanding of the emotion upon which his popularity is built: horror. Lovecraft himself states in his still widely read 1927 essay 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." Despite his other criticisms, Miller acknowledges Lovecraft's skill in choosing his details carefully, building the atmosphere of suspense and tension which serve to give the climax of his tales their full, startling impact. So captivating is his fiction, in fact, that the majority of its dissemination has occurred, not through established publishers, but through fan press and institutions such as Arkham House, which was founded for that purpose by devoted followers of his works. Yet, despite this apparent handicap, Lovecraft's stories have enjoyed a wide distribution in America, Europe and Asia, and have been translated into French, Spanish, German and Japanese, among other languages (Joshi).
But is it the meticulous crafting of his horror fiction alone that accounts for his modern popularity? Lovecraft is a curious figure, one whose strange life and stranger fiction have made him the subject of a great deal of wonder and scholarly scrutiny. Born into a then-wealthy Providence family, Lovecraft was raised by a rabidly overprotective mother. The loss of his maternal grandfather, along with his privileged family's wealth, and their family home had a deep impact on his development, leaving him with a "sense of loss and displacement" (Joshi). He was kept out of school by poor health, and he suffered a "nervous collapse" that ultimately kept him from completing high school and attending university. Ashamed of this deficit, he became isolated, "buried in a world of his own making that was increasingly remote from reality" (Joshi). And there exists a wealth of information on the details of his life. While most of it was spent in reclusive isolation, Lovecraft led a remarkably active social life through correspondence, both in private and on the printed page. In fact, Joshi considers the author to be "one of the most self-documented individuals in human history," and speculates that attempts to publish his significant letters would require dozens of volumes. In examining Lovecraft's life, it is easy to see the events which gave rise to the sense of helplessness that informs the Mythos.
What, then, is the Mythos exactly? Opinions vary on the precise definition. For many, the Mythos is defined by certain common elements: references to ancient and indescribable beings out of space and time, such as Yog-Sothoth and the title figure in "The Call of Cthulhu"; bodies of esoteric literature like the Necronomicon and its mad architect, Abdul Alhazred; and the haunted milieus of Lovecraft's fictional New England, such as Arkham and Innsmouth (Clute and Grant 240). In his article "Lovecraft's CTHULHU MYTHOS", critic Mark Lowell poses that the deciding factor is whether the story approaches horror through Lovecraft's own cosmic philosophy. As published literary critic Sheila Fitzgerald characterizes, these stories feature as their central theme "an expansive and devastating confrontation with the unknown", exposing "humanity's insignificant and unsteady place in the universe" (qtd. in Lowell). Yet it is impossible to set aside either element and truly consider any story a Mythos story, as reading fans and authors alike have been drawn in and inspired by both its rich internal mythology and the terror that lies behind it.
Lovecraft was unflinchingly atheistic. The world, in his view, was one that science had successfully stripped of such primitive illusions as religion and superstition, and for whom such moral absolutes as "good" and "evil" were merely comforting illusions necessary for mankind to function within a cold and uncaring universe. Yet rather than surrendering imagination in the face of science, as American Heritage Magazine writer Curt Wohleber points out, "Lovecraft saw room enough for other horrors in the great gulfs of time and space". Or, as the man himself wrote in justifying his pursuit of creative expression in the face of seeming futility, "what, if not a form of non-supernatural cosmic art, is to pacify this sense of revolt - as well as gratify the cognate sense of curiosity?" (qtd. Joshi). As such, his stories form a mythology that complements rather than contradicts science, and Lovecraft's dedication to presenting the human element in his stories realistically and unromantically serve to anchor the weirder elements of his fiction into something very nearly plausible. So plausible, in fact, that some have mistaken elements of his stories as having an actual basis in fact. Perhaps the best example is Lovecraft's fictional book the Necronomicon, an unwholesome collection of lore whose shadowed history is given throughout the background of several Mythos stories. Lovecraft was careful in his stories to allude to the history surrounding the Necronomicon, and as its entry in the Chambers Dictionary of the Unexplained states, "such was the resonance and power of his invention that many people believed he referred to a real text" (Necronomicon). The publication of multiple hoaxes have only added to the mystique over the years, and numerous artists, writers, and film makers continue to make use of the infamous book in their own works to this day (Necronomicon).
Yet, on its own, this scrupulous attention to detail would not account for the vividness with which the Mythos captivates the imagination. Perhaps unintentionally, much of Lovecraft's fiction reflects a narrative structure as old as myth itself. In his article, Lowell suggests that the Mythos stories contain "a perversion of what Joseph Campbell called the mythic cycle, or monomyth" (48). The structure of the monomyth, as outlined in Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, features a messenger who draws the hero into a mythic otherworld where he undergoes some form of spiritual battle, eventually returning to share the benefits of his ordeal with the rest of mankind. By comparison, Lovecraft's stories do seem to provide a rather cynical aversion. His protagonists, however reluctantly they may have been drawn from the safety of their former lives and illusions, reap little benefit from their struggles. As Lowell observes, "this realm of myth contains only sorrow, insanity, and death" (48). He concludes, "The hero of the monomyth returns with a boon that revitalizes both himself and his community. Lovecraft's hero is destroyed by what he has gained" (49). And just as the structure of the monomyth has managed an acute resonance with the human psyche across numerous generations and cultures, so has Lovecraft's mythology managed to find its own resonance within the culture and minds of the early twenty-first century.
In trying to name that elusive element which gives the Mythos its modern relevance, it is important to take into account the history not only of the man himself—his unique, and peculiar history and worldview—but the perspectives of his newfound audience. It hardly needs to be said that society has changed in the seventy years since Lovecraft's death. The world today is simultaneously much smaller and impossibly more vast than it was during Lovecraft's lifetime. Modern technologies, such as the internet and social media, grant us access to and communication with other parts of the world that are almost instant, yet with this awareness comes a greater understanding of how small we really are. Living in a world of billions, the average internet user is touched by hundreds of influences. Exposed to information about the hardships and causes from their own and other nations, global issues press in. It can be so overwhelming that we, like Lovecraft, find ourselves dwarfed by the vastness of the world around us, and the daunting impossibility of imposing any meaningful changes upon it. And, like Lovecraft, often we shield ourselves, armored within comfortable worlds of our own making.
As John Miller uncontroversially states, "Lovecraft almost never wrote a happy ending, and he certainly isn't known for his sense of humor." Yet the peculiar irony is that comedy and parody seem to be the places where the legacy of the Mythos is heard the loudest. Cthulhu has become an internet icon. A mascot for the Mythos, he has been merchandised as plushies and on t-shirts; and seen appearances in macros, memes, and political cartoons. There is even a website devoted to his presidential campaign. "Why Vote for the Lesser Evil?" the slogan flippantly asks. How has this icon representing the terror of our helplessness in the face of cosmic annihilation been turned into a clown for the internet? The threats that confront modern generations—such as AIDs, ignorance, economic collapse, and environmental disaster—are formidable, faceless monsters. Threats that, on the surface, may seem too large and nebulous to face. Yet these obstacles can be more comfortably approached through the palliative effects of humor. In a strange way, Lovecraft served as a prophet for the kind of nihilism and isolation that has become a societal norm in the twenty-first century, and current generations are courted by a looming sense of hopelessness which shares its origins with the despair that instilled itself in Lovecraft during the Depression. And, like Lovecraft, ours is the choice between giving in to apathy and resignation in the face of things larger than ourselves, or striking out against them in creative revolt, even if we're just whistling in the dark.
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