H.P. Lovecraft. Expository essay

H.P. Lovecraft. Expository essay

By: Mónica de la Cruz Rojas

A01374485

H.P Lovecraft has generated a controversy in our time; the reason of this is simple. He is remembered for his work as the creator of the cosmic horror, but the question is why is he famous, since we have writers like Olaf Stapledon who wrote better science fiction, Clark Ashton Smith who had better style or Algernon Blackwood who wrote better horror, why is Lovecraft treasure in society, even when he is a racist elitist person.

Both text we read started to answer this question by analyzing the unique style of Lovecraft, since he cannot be categorize. For starting this analysis it is essential that we understand the concept of style. The definition is “the way in which language is used in a given context, by a given person, for a given purpose”. In this case the language used in the plot of a book, given by the author to generate an emotion or help with the development of the story.

Lovecraft has a very unique style starting with a frequent use of adjectives, this helps to overwhelm the readers by having a sheer intensity of the experience they share with the narrator or the characters, by using a large amount of adjectives in his stories Lovecraft defined one characteristic on his type of writing.

H.P Lovecraft work is full wide words like “indescribable, unknown or hideous”, creating a gap for the reader to imagine terrifying scenarios.

The second and main characteristic find in his stories is the dense and compressed vocabulary as said in Joshi, “Wide knowledge in the realms of biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy, art, architecture, literature, mythology, and other disciplines”, making the story hard for those with the lack of that information, since the did not understand the meaning making it hard for them to imagine the scenario.

The first person narration is also often found in his work, it helps the reader identify with the narrator in order for them to take a more direct part in all the events. This is emphasized by Lovecraft's intentional opposition between the local populace and the narrator, an outsider, not native to the parts, well educated and ignorant of local superstitions, comes to a feared, supposedly cursed place, armed with his rational mind and knowledge, only to discover monstrosities.

The stylistic features of Lovecraft's “Dream cycle” stories. Some of them being prose-poems, where the development of the story is fast and in its majority fantastic.

Another style marker is the intentional repetition of the phrase or its part making the narration of the place or situation sound alarming and threatening. The fragment from The Colour out of Space, exemplifies the above claim:

“The trees grew too thickly, and their trunks were too big for any healthy New England wood. There was too much silence in the dim alleys between them, and the floor was too soft with the dank moss and mattings of infinite years of decay“

In case of Lovecraft syntax it is frequent found in his work the inversion in the sentences.  Verbs, clauses and adjectives have no standard position. In the first sentence of his story “The Colour out of Space” explains the previous better in the next phrase:

“West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut”

The two text we have read explains the reason of why H.P Lovecraft has transcended in history. Starting by explaining that his unique style of writing has help achieve the previous, since he is a person who write in a different way and generated story’s based on people fear, using the narration and the description of the places as help achieve this. But something he did that truly help achieve it´s success was that he took marketing of his own work into his hands. He draw attention to himself and his work by creating a close relationship with his readers, he used to answer fan mail and he seemed to be interested in their opinion and in answering their doubts. This and his unique style of writing help him achieve the success the has know at days.