What is the philosophy of cosmicism and how is it used to convey a sense of dread in both The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Colour out of Space?
Cosmicism is a philosophical concept made famous by American writer H.P Lovecraft. The idea of cosmicism is shown throughout many of Lovecraft’s stories such as The Colour out of Space, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and one of Lovecraft’s most popular fictional universes, The Cthulhu Mythos. It is stated by Slåtten (2016), that Lovecraft first started expanding the idea of cosmicism when he was just 13 years old. He got the idea from studying astronomy explaining that humanity is nothing compared to the ever changing cosmos.
Cosmicism, in easier words, describes the universe and cosmos as vast and that compared to this, the human race is insignificant. This idea is explored throughout many of Lovecraft’s works due to the science-fiction and horror components. Logic is often obliterated throughout many of Lovecraft’s works which shows the ignorance that humanity has towards anything beyond Earth.
The Colour out of Space and The Shadow Over Innsmouth both convey a sense of dread through cosmicism because they essentially present the fear of the unknown. The Colour out of Space (2020) film essentially depicts a family losing their minds due to a meteorite crashing into their front garden out of nowhere with extraterrestrial forces attached to it. Soon after, the wildlife and animals start to mutate and eventually die from the power of the light that comes from the mysterious meteorite (Burleson, 1993). This shows the reader the classical Lovecraftian style of weird horror by mutating living things and turning them into something unfamiliar and incomprehensible to the basic human mind.
Lovecraft has presented his audience with uncertainty which soon converts to horror and dread. Slåtten (2016) explains that the story shows human incompetence with the cosmos and almost ignorance due to the lack of information about the universe outside of Earth and the Milky Way. This creates a sense of dread because it is in the nature of humans to fear the unknown, and that is exactly what is presented through extraterrestrial beings. Within The Shadow Over Innsmouth, dread is projected through the loss of sanity and mutation, which is often used in many of Lovecraft’s stories. Lovecraft presents his readers with mixed feelings when describing the ‘eye’s’ of the people in Innsmouth (Snyder, 2017). The Shadow Over Innsmouth conveys horror through the townspeople, due to the fact that they are other-worldly after interbreeding with ‘the Deep Ones’. They are described as superstitious creepy hybrids with bulging eyes and many warn not to engage with them. The narrator of the story, and main protagonist, shows a progression into madness when he later finds out that he shares family bonds to the Deep Ones due to an early ancestor (Snyder, 2017). This madness can be compared to the sense of dread that the reader is experiencing because it describes the character as morphing into the other-worldly thing he later despises. This relates back to cosmicism because of outer-worldly aspects that essentially portray fear through mysterious, dark entities that prey on the human fear of the unknown.
References
Burleson, D. R. (1993). Lovecraft’s the colour out of space. Explicator. 52(1), 48-50. doi:10.1080/00144940.1993.9938737
Slåtten, K. Ø. (2016). Humans in a hostile cosmos: Science, cosmicism and race in HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos. Master’s thesis. University of Stavanger, Norway.
Snyder, P. J. (2017). “Dreadful Reality: Fear and Madness in the Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft”. Honors Thesis. 540. https://aquila.usm.edu/honors_theses/540
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