H.P. Lovecraft
"We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity and it was not meant that we should voyage far," H.P. Lovecraft admonishes in The Call of Cthulhu. The implication that humankind is not the pre-eminent species of creation is enough to break one's mind. One of the two themes of the story is the inability to come to terms with one's insignificance. Lovecraft writes about the madness that ensues when men (and only men) glimpse an older, stranger, and vastly more powerful creature than they can imagine. The theme speaks of forbidden knowledge that has the power to drive men mad or lead them to an untimely (and possibly accidental) death.
The secondary theme is, unfortunately, couched in racism. It is the role of the Other--the primitive, the savage, the wild; how these are the midwives of the evil Cthulhu. A menace threatens the dominant group, and it arises through the actions of primitives.
In the early twentieth century, European (white) men ruled supreme and were ripe for being toppled from their pedestal. The British Empire was at its height, comprising one-fourth of the Earth's area and population. The Empire ruled sixty-six countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Ceylon, Egypt, India, and Singapore. (1) Major health breakthroughs of the '20s heralded the discovery of Vitamins C and E and penicillin--the first of the modern antibiotics. The treatment of diabetes was made possible by the discovery of insulin. The radio and television were invented. (2) It is no wonder this group, at its pinnacle, considered itself to be invincible. A story about them being driven mad by the realization that they were insignificant and powerless belonged to the zeitgeist of the era.
The cult of Cthulhu is heralded by those whom Lovecraft describes as mongrels, mulattos, and "lower" mixed-caste people. The narrator, a grand-nephew of Professor Angell, views them as savage and sexually wild. Their evil revels celebrate the dawn of the monster's new age. The only people who undertake a sober, analytical study of Cthulhu are white European men. Within this race and ethnicity, the story posits, lies the seat of rationality and humankind's only hope of escaping a descent into savagery that the so-called lower races seek to bring. (We see this in earlier King Kong films where spear-bearing "natives" are the keepers of Kong.)
From a Jungian perspective, the battle between forces of rationality and forces of darkness occurs between the light of consciousness and the darkness of the mind's unconscious contents. When those contents are denied--sometimes because of an over-reliance on rationality--a “shadow” is released: an ungovernable, chthonic, fearsome monster that can wreak havoc when loosed on the world above. In Jungian terms, this could be a personal demon that might express itself in psychological pathology. An example would be a wealthy celebrity who commits a serious crime, ruining his or her career.
The unconscious world speaks in dreams and symbols. It is uncivilized. This is the language of artists, and in the story, they are the ones who experience Cthulhu in their dreams and visions. When used in a non-racist framework, I love this theme, as is the case in the movie Forbidden Planet with its "monsters from the ID." I am saddened that Lovecraft chose non-white races and ethnic groups to represent the shadow in his story, and through the use of terms such as “mongrel,” degraded them to less-than-human status.
In The Call of Cthulhu, any non-Christian religious rite that includes dancing around a campfire would most likely be seen as evil and labeled "savage," even without the murdered bodies. Some people of European descent, even today, continue to view non-white ethnic groups as "other" and thereby less civilized—likewise with their religious practices.
I admire Lovecraft's success at depicting a creature that defies the laws of physics. The shifting angles of the slabs of stone that comprise portions of Cthulhu's city are fascinating and ahead of their time. The language is breathtakingly beautiful in its complexity. I can't help but wonder how Lovecraft would write this story today.
The Outsider and Pickman's Model are brilliant short stories. Pickman's Model is similar to The Call of Cthulhu in tone and its theme of a hidden, mysterious threat that arises from underground--another group of chthonic spirits. The Outsider shifts POV to that very monster who claws its way up from beneath the earth, this time with innocent intent. The Outsider learns that beings like himself should stay underground, where they belong.
1. Swift, Dean. “The British History in 1920.” General History, www.general-history.com/the-british-empire-in-1920. Accessed 25 April 2021
2. “Scientific and Technological Discoveries.” 1920s Science, www.1920-30.com. Accessed 25 April 2021