The Darkest Corners of the Mind

I like the macabre, the dark, and the weird. Ever Since I was a teenager, and “gave myself permission” to enjoy those things.

I was raised Roman Catholic, with lots of stuff on the darker side of the media spectrum deemed “Satanic”. A good example, back in 1999 at the height of Episode I hype. I wasn’t allowed to own anything with Darth Maul on it. Ray Park’s iconic make up was seen as “Satanic” and “of the Devil”, by my mother.

Once I got pass the childhood fear drilled in my head, I began to explore things which were once considered taboo while growing up, or at least what I thought my mother would perceive as taboo.

It started out simple with revisiting The Nightmare Before Christmas, I watched it a few times as a kid, but it wasn’t a VHS my parents bought so I didn’t watch it for about 15 years upon the revisit — I immediately loved it. It felt like home, I related to the character of Jack — still do — and the animation just captured my imagination.

From Nightmare I moved on to more of Burton’s work, and continued to explore gothie media; movies, TV, and music I consumed it all. This continued all throughout college, with my work reflecting my love for a darker aesthetic.

After college I was still good friends with my college girlfriend. We had since broken up, but we were on good terms at the time of this particular story. One day she mentioned she was taking a class taught by one of my favorite professors called Film, Fear, & Literature. I didn’t have anything going on the night the class was being held, so I asked her to see if the professor would mind me sitting in on the class. She did, and he said I was more than welcome to join.

In the class the curriculum revolved around, as I’m sure you can imagine from the name, horror within media. It was in this class I was introduced to the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

A name which at the time of the class back in 2009 was really only well known among nerds - though now with the popularity of the show Lovecraft Country, much more well known.

Lovecraft was an early 20th century pulp author who wrote what as come to be known as Cosmic Horror, but what he and his contemporaries called “weird fiction”. He never saw fame in his lifetime, he died virtually penniless at the age of 46 from stomach cancer.

After his death his friends and fellow authors August Derleth and Donald Wandrei started the publishing house Arkham House, named after the city featured in many of Lovecraft’s work, to make his work available to the masses. It was through Arkham House Lovecraft’s work found it’s way to the likes of Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, John Carpenter, and Guillermo del Toro, and inspired generations of horror creators.

Arkham House was not the only legacy of Lovercraft’s work; within his work he created a fully functioning mythos. Commonly known as the “Cthulhu Mythos”, Lovecraft created a whole pantheon of gods and monsters not of our world. Deities who came from the stars and ruled over Earth only to leave at the dawn of the man.

A lot of Lovecraft’s stories revolved around protagonists — always white, male, and usually well educated — discovering traces of these alien masters; driving them to madness. You see unlike a lot of horror writers in Lovecraft’s world murder is not usually the fate of his characters, but madness is what befalls these white male protagonists; gnashing of teeth, unable to speak but in incomprehensible gibberish, and suicide by tossing themselves from buildings is more common.

This is most likely because Lovecraft own parents both died gripped by madness.

Though Lovecraft started this mythos he was incredibly liberal with who could use his characters in his work. With this freedom Lovecraft became “Patient 0” in a mythos which has long since out lived him. So much so a Charlie Day Red String Meme like flow chart is needed at times to figure out who created what within the Cthulhu Mythos.

Though the Mythos Lovecraft created out lived him, the origins of it creation came from a much darker place.

Lovecraft was a revolutionary author, with a mind which created true terrors, but he was also an unapologetic racist; he thought himself as part of a great white linage, a “true New England Gentleman”, better than the common riffraff, and the “immigrants invading the shores of America”. He did not stray way from using slurs in his work, most well known of which is naming the protagonist in the short story “Rats in the Wall” cat “N-slur-man”, as well as the only poem I have ever come across penned by him titled “Creation of the N-slur”.

As I’m sure you can imagine he didn’t write it as “N-slur”.

Lovecraft’s racism has been hotly debated for decades, some saying he was extreme for his time in regards to race relations in America, others saying his racism was common with men of his perceived social standing. Regardless of where you fall on how racist Lovecraft was or wasn’t, it is undeniable his Mythos, the legacy of his work, is rooted in his fear of the Other.

The Zeus of his pantheon, Azathoth, known as “The Blind Idiot God”, is the creation of all things, but cares not for any of his creations. He only creates because it is what he does. There is no love, no empathy, just pointless, endless creation.

Nyarlathotep, the closest thing to a Devil archetype in the mythos, known as “The Crawling Chaos” is a shapeshifter, changing forms, and infiltrating societies. For someone to look upon him is for them to go mad.

Yog-Sothoth a cosmic entity, a being which is said to take the form of a conglomeration of glowing spheres, an all-knowing deity. It is coterminous with all time and space, yet is supposedly locked outside of the universe we inhabit. To “please” it one could bring knowledge. However, like most beings in the Mythos, to see it or learn too much about it is to court disaster.

These are just a few examples of the beings which came forth from Lovecraft’s fears. Each of these examples illustrated the three motifs of which Lovecraft focused on in his work; Azathoth, his nihilism; Nyarlathotep, his racism; Yog-Sothoth, his xenophobia.

Once I realized the racist undertones of his work I did a lot of soul searching about if I could continue to enjoy Lovecraft’s work, and the conclusion I came to was “yes”.

Though his work comes from a dark horrible place, he was able to take all of his xenophobia, and racism, and was able to create something that you do not need to be a xenophobe and/or a racist to be able to enjoy.

Since his death there has been hundreds of authors who have taken the works of Lovecraft and were able to be able to create something new, exciting, and not racist and/or xenophobic from it, myself included.

As long as you don’t try to defend the horrible aspects of his work, and acknowledge them as unacceptable now and at the time of his writings, there is an amazing setting in which to create and enjoy.

The work of H.P. Lovecraft is an example of the true power of story. It shows that even in the darkest corners of the human mind something good can come out of it, which can bring comfort, inspire, and entertain, and that is what storytelling is all about.