blog six

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 developing subgenre of horror fiction and the philosophy of cosmicism is developed by the American writer H. P. Lovecraft, the philosophy is that “there is no recognizable divine presence, such as God, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence.”(https://www.yourdictionary.com/cosmicism). More specifically, this philosophy indicates that human is not a significant existence in the universe as well as the existences of religions and beliefs. The insignificant of humanity probably is the most attractive and prominent theme in this philosophy of sub-genre. Lovecraft once described his worldview as that nothing is eternal on this planet including humanity, humans’ judgment and social norms and criteria toward good, evil, morality and immorality are only the ‘Victorian fictions’ (Duran, 2016).

The idea of cosmicism can be found in many of Lovecraft’s collections. For instance, both work ‘The colour out of space’ (Lovecraft, 1927) and ‘The shadow over innsmouth’ (Lovecraft, 1936) reveal a sense of fear and dread due to the unknown or mystic of the universe. It is not difficult to see how insignificant humans and other lives on this planet from ‘The colour out of space’, species mutate, humanity and humans are crashed due to that accident. Moreover, dread and fear are presented in ‘The shadow over innsmouth’ by describing the hybrid creatures that humans and ‘Deep ones’ produced, the disturbing appearances, capable of atrocity and unknown facts evoke the fear from people. Eventually, the narrator goes to madness after he found out that the ancestors of his family are also the hybrid production with the ‘Deep ones’. ‘The shadow over innsmouth’ also represents the insignificant of humans and their dread of unknown and mysterious. 

References

Duran, M. (2016). The real horror of Lovecraft’s cosmicism. https://www.mikeduran.com/2016/10/31/the-real-horror-of-lovecrafts-cosmicism/

Lovecraft, H. P. (1927). The color out of space.

Lovecraft, H. P. (1936). The shadow over innsmouth.

Your dictionary. (n.d.). Cosmicism definitions. https://www.yourdictionary.com/cosmicism