Emulate the Style

The Fear of the Unknown

Lovecraft often revolves his stories about the fear of the unknown. Often in his stories the characters have to face something they have never seen or experienced before. Most of the time the characters are facing something otherworldly and unexplainable. For example, in the Call of Cthulhu no one truly understands Cthulhu and how his is infecting people’s dreams. They believe that he must be real but can’t believe it. Another example is in the story “Dagon”. The writer tries to understand what is happening but ultimately cannot explain what is happening to him. He often sticks with these topics because it creates a more mysterious and makes his horror more effective for the readers. Lovecraft’s Monsters are often just a bit too outside of reality for them to be real but still convincingly possible. The characters are often shown afraid and wanting to explain what is happening around them.

Investigating Leads to Harm

Lovecraft’s plots have been seen to revolve around that investigating the unknown will lead the characters to harm. In many of his stories the characters are faced with many things they can’t understand. They often search for explanations and look places that they should not have. The researchers often start out researching something simple and end up stumbling into the bigger and more cosmic mystery. They often go insane realizing how small human life is after revealing the truth to themselves. For example, in the Call of Cthulhu the main character starts out reading their late uncle’s notes and revealing the global cult and cosmic threats of Cthulhu. He discovers Cthulhu and lets the mystery of him entrape his mind. He starts going insane and becoming mad and his own findings and insignificance. Lovecraft also loves showing how human laws and morals are meaningless compared to the vast cosmos and the horrors out there.

Limited First Person

Lovecraft often utilizes the first person limited point of view. He often writes so the reader is reading a scientist or some other researcher's papers to bring a sense of authenticity to the story. He does this so the readers only know the thought that they wanted to write down to keep some mystery into their true mental state throughout his stories. For instance, in Dagon the reader is reading the final remarks of a guy facing an unknown horror. He understands that he is going insane but we don’t know all of the things he is thinking of that is making him go insane. We can only know as much as he wanted us to know unlike normal first person where the reader typically gets to read all the important thoughts the characters are having. With Lovecraft we can only see the thoughts that a person would be willing to write for the world to see.

Emulation

From the Diary of Dio Jackie found on his abandoned boat

There were reports of numerous sailors returning from overnight fishing trips off the shore of Handshire bothered and unwilling to return to the waters. I went to the docks searching for one of these sailors to try and interview to figure out what was happening in the waters. I was able to convince Henry Fischbach to let me ask him some questions. He talked about how when he went to sleep he had dreams of his boat sinking and seeing strange indescribable creatures in the sea, unlike anything he has ever caught. When he awoke from this nightmare, he recalls hearing his dead son’s laugh from underneath his boat and banging on the sides of it. He peered over the edge and saw the same monsters from his dreams. It asked “Papa?” in his son's voice before disappearing back to the water. He came right back to shore that night. He said that he could not sleep even once back on solid land. Every time he falls asleep he has that same dream and wakes up immediately. He seems to be going insane. I don’t think anyone else believed him. That night as I slept next to my wife, I had a dream of getting on Henry’s boat and all I could do was watch as the monsters took him into the sea. They looked almost human-like but were not. They were oddly shaped almost impossibly so. When I awoke that morning, I learned that Henry had died in his sleep from drowning. No one could explain it. I tried to ask his wife but she would not answer my questions. She only responded by saying he was insane and it was only a matter of time. I now knew that I had to figure this mystery out. It fully consumed me. All I could think of were these fish people that were out there. I was sure of it. My wife divorced me saying that I went insane and was neglecting her. She was right but I didn't care. All that mattered was explaining the fish men. I tried going out there in the night but nothing ever happened to me. Nothing was wrong yet everything was. Why didn’t it happen to me? Was I not good enough for them? I always dreamed of them but it was always watching Henry’s situation not my own. I even tried bringing other sailors with me. It never worked. Only they saw them. I still could not. Most died out with me. Deciding to jump into the water and sink after having the dreams. I believed that the only way for me was to live my life on the sea like the sailors used to. I believed that I wasn't worthy of them since I am a newcomer to the sea. One night it finally happened. I was dreaming my own dreams. This was finally my time. I heard my wife asking, “Why I did this? Was it worth it?” and I truly believed it was worth it. When I awoke was when I realized there were no monsters in the water. Only the madness of the open sea. It was too late for me. It is time to enter the water.

My Use of the Fear of the Unknown

I stuck with the topic of the fear of the unknown by having the dream monsters taking the fisherman and eventually Dio. I also added the use of dreams as a vision into the cosmic horror which Lovecraft often utilizes in his stories. The fish creatures invading the characters dreams is my use of the unexplainable horror from the creatures. Humans have not been able to enter a dream like these monsters seemingly can. The creatures being able to simulate the noise of the characters' loved ones, shows that they must be cosmic or something unseen before. They must have some knowledge of the humans even if they have never met them before. The creatures are obviously evolved to hunt conscious life forms. They want to lure them in with noises of lost relationships to get the food they need. The idea that the fish want to mentally break and lure them into the water highlights the idea that they must have been here long in order to learn what makes us crack.

My use of Investigation to Harm

I wanted to implement the idea that looking into the bizarre will lead to harm. I started like lovecraft with Dio just looking into a random event of the sailors refusing to go fishing again. He was just curious not really knowing what he was about to get himself into. He started to learn of the mystery that was happening over the water. It made him go mad and hyper focus on the waters abandoning his normal life. He learned of the dangers in the water but just needed for it to be solved for himself. This led him to doing anything to try to experience the craze over the waters. He believed that if he could experience it he could explain it to himself and the world and his life could return back to normal. This obsession with the unknown eventually lead to his death at the hands of the water.

My use of First Person Limited

I really like the limited first person point of view. I feel like it gives just enough information that the story makes sense and the unexplainable make just a little bit more sense. I tried to use the similar style of “Dagon” and “The Call of Cthulhu” by using a written report of the events rather than just the characters' eyes and thoughts. I tried to emulate this by having the story almost entirely in past tense with Dio writing about what happened rather than what is happening until the end where he writes in present tense because it is the last and this time he is doing it as it happens. We don’t know all of the thoughts of Dio and that is so we can try to assume what he is thinking and why he would want to abandon everything just to try to explain the water creatures.

Class Website

Page updated

Report abuse