Lovecraft, Racism, and Fear of the Unknown

Lovecraft’s brand of cosmic horror was closely (read: inextricably) tied to his personal racism, but not always in the most obvious way. His best stories lean heavily on the idea of human insignificance: the indifferent cosmos, populated with beings of mind-boggling power, causes the reader to reel at their own unimportance, and that of our entire species. However, this idea might only seem horrifying and new to people who, thus far, have been confident in their own superiority. To other humans—African Americans, for example—there may be nothing new at all to the idea of an indifferent world in which they as a group are considered insignificant. As author Victor LaValle put it:

“[For] much of the world—I would say, certainly, most women, many people of color…in the United States—the concept that you are not that important, that you are not central to the conversation that the culture is having, is a given. It’s a given. And so the concept that I would be terrified that I was insignificant is almost laughable to me as a grown-up. Because, to my mind, the sort of narrative that I feel like I live, you know, a good part of the day, is that the world is actively hostile to me. That it finds me a bother. That it wishes I wasn’t there, at least in spaces that are not black or brown. And that’s very different from what Lovecraft is getting across.” —Imaginary Worlds podcast, 7/23/20

This is, of course, essential to understanding much of the recent work written by people of color in the Lovecraftian vein. In these stories, authors like N. K. Jemisin (“The City Born Great”) and Cassandra Khaw (A Song for Quiet) use the tropes of cosmic horror and the Cthulhu Mythos as a framework for critique, both of contemporary society and of the genre itself. LaValle’s own novella The Ballad of Black Tom is one of the finest examples of this “post-Lovecraftian” style, for the way in which it tells a compelling story while pushing back against many of Lovecraft’s own assumptions about race and culture.

More broadly, the above quote from LaValle illustrates an important point about the way literature ages, and the changing nature of horror. Many of the things Lovecraft intended as frightening require the mindset of a middle-class white person in the early 20th century. General anxiety and obsession over cultural/racial heritage? Let’s give our antagonists a mixed-race background. Thrilled by the up and coming “science” of eugenics? Throw in some deformities or non-human physical characteristics. Convinced that Western Culture is the culmination of all civilization? Blow people’s minds with the thought that a race of disgusting, non-humanoid aliens could actually surpass us in scientific prowess.

Of course, it’s not always that blatant. And many of the ideas HPL developed are genuinely terrifying. But, as often happens with older sci-fi and fantasy, the potency of the original is lessened by 1) familiarity and 2) actual cultural change.

The tropes and imagery of SFF have completely saturated the world, to the point where few adults are frightened by the mere sight of a horrifying monster on a screen. If a child is learning to draw, they’re probably copying characters from their favorite series or show or movie or manga—often with some kind of SFF bent. The media explosion of the 20th century has expanded the minds of the public—to the point where it’s hard to imagine a single person rising to fame for the sheer novelty of their fantastic paintings, as with HPL’s Pickman or the real-life Clark Ashton Smith. I mean, there’s some great stuff out there, and everyone has seen images that stick with them. But there’s nothing at all shocking in the mere fact that someone can depict worlds that aren’t real.

Beyond our increased comfort with fantastical ideas and imagery, contemporary readers view the world in fundamentally different ways from Lovecraft. Prodigy though he was, he likely wouldn’t even be able to track modern conversations around genetics, race, gender roles, or colonialism (much less technology). The interconnected world has given the average reader a breadth of cultural experience unparalleled in prior centuries. I would hazard that few still experience the foreign as de facto frightening, simply because of its foreign-ness. Indeed, I’ve actually heard opinions that the “terrible” reveal at the end of The Whisperer in Darkness—leaving one’s body behind to cross the solar system and commune with an alien race—is actually appealing on some level. Precisely the inverse of HPL’s intent. (I wonder if Guardians of the Galaxy would have terrified someone like HPL?)

Certainly, the foreign can still terrify. But (thank God) it ain’t what it used to be.