Lovecraft and metaphor
(Augh, internet, why do you have to have so many interesting things? I should have been asleep hours ago.)
So, as I've said, I frequently listen to Lovecraft audiobooks to get to sleep. (I remain disproportionately entertained by the fact that I use cosmic horror to relax.) I tend to get stuck on a story or two at a time -- for several weeks, I'll invariably start with that story every night. I've gone through The Call of Cthulhu (the obvious choice), The Dunwich Horror, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and to a degree The Lurking Fear and The Haunter of the Dark this way. Right now, though, I'm stuck on The Thing on the Doorstep. I'm not really sure why -- it's more character-driven, I suppose, than most of the pieces in my collection (not including Herbert West: Reanimator, but that's technically a comedy, if a dark one). It's oddly personal: the narrative frame is all about a close and complicated friendship. The choice surprises me, though, because it wasn't originally a particularly noteworthy story to me. I much preferred, say, The Statement of Randolph Carter or The Haunter of the Dark. (Can't say I care much for The Horror at Red Hook and its sometimes-egregious racism, but some of those colourful sentences made for very weird and belatedly entertaining awakenings. "The gangrenous corpse" indeed.)
Right now, I can't help being a postmodernist and thinking the story makes a rather interesting unintended metaphor for domestic abuse for two reasons: it's a story about a strong personality gradually overcoming a weaker one, and it's a story about the profoundest violation of bodily autonomy. Asenath (or rather, the personality inhabiting Asenath) overpowers Edward's will for the vast majority of the story, and the end includes her final dominance from which he cannot recover. She switches bodies with him -- apparently with some consent early on, but I am speculating about things that aren't written explicitly -- and one of the key moments in the story is Edward's trauma when she goes in his body to a place she promised she'd never take it, and they return to their respective bodies while his is still there. This being Lovecraft, it's a place of profound blasphemy, etc. Shoggoths do come up.
The story is, obviously, tragic: ultimately, Asenath takes over Edward's body for good. The strength he's learned isn't enough to save him. The fascinating part of the story, though, is her gradual dominance: initially, she can only exchange bodies for limited time, but eventually, she starts tormenting Edward by taking over when he doesn't expect it and leaving him in her body, locked away. The final struggle between them drives him mad as she spends weeks lingering on the edge of his mind and forcing her way in while he does everything he can to keep her out.
Maybe it's a bit of a Space Whale Aesop if I make it a metaphor. It does have some fascinating points, though, like the different strengths of personality, the degradation of autonomy, and the perspective of the narrator who watches the changes in his friend.
Or maybe I'm just up too late.
So, as I've said, I frequently listen to Lovecraft audiobooks to get to sleep. (I remain disproportionately entertained by the fact that I use cosmic horror to relax.) I tend to get stuck on a story or two at a time -- for several weeks, I'll invariably start with that story every night. I've gone through The Call of Cthulhu (the obvious choice), The Dunwich Horror, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and to a degree The Lurking Fear and The Haunter of the Dark this way. Right now, though, I'm stuck on The Thing on the Doorstep. I'm not really sure why -- it's more character-driven, I suppose, than most of the pieces in my collection (not including Herbert West: Reanimator, but that's technically a comedy, if a dark one). It's oddly personal: the narrative frame is all about a close and complicated friendship. The choice surprises me, though, because it wasn't originally a particularly noteworthy story to me. I much preferred, say, The Statement of Randolph Carter or The Haunter of the Dark. (Can't say I care much for The Horror at Red Hook and its sometimes-egregious racism, but some of those colourful sentences made for very weird and belatedly entertaining awakenings. "The gangrenous corpse" indeed.)
Right now, I can't help being a postmodernist and thinking the story makes a rather interesting unintended metaphor for domestic abuse for two reasons: it's a story about a strong personality gradually overcoming a weaker one, and it's a story about the profoundest violation of bodily autonomy. Asenath (or rather, the personality inhabiting Asenath) overpowers Edward's will for the vast majority of the story, and the end includes her final dominance from which he cannot recover. She switches bodies with him -- apparently with some consent early on, but I am speculating about things that aren't written explicitly -- and one of the key moments in the story is Edward's trauma when she goes in his body to a place she promised she'd never take it, and they return to their respective bodies while his is still there. This being Lovecraft, it's a place of profound blasphemy, etc. Shoggoths do come up.
The story is, obviously, tragic: ultimately, Asenath takes over Edward's body for good. The strength he's learned isn't enough to save him. The fascinating part of the story, though, is her gradual dominance: initially, she can only exchange bodies for limited time, but eventually, she starts tormenting Edward by taking over when he doesn't expect it and leaving him in her body, locked away. The final struggle between them drives him mad as she spends weeks lingering on the edge of his mind and forcing her way in while he does everything he can to keep her out.
Maybe it's a bit of a Space Whale Aesop if I make it a metaphor. It does have some fascinating points, though, like the different strengths of personality, the degradation of autonomy, and the perspective of the narrator who watches the changes in his friend.
Or maybe I'm just up too late.