Literature Abstract for Essay #3

Fear Is The Mind Killer – It Is The Little Death


At The Mountains Of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft


I contend that H.P. Lovecraft used the psychology of fear of the unknown on the mind, to make his short stories and books into popular fiction. Lovecraft used the strange attraction of fear and drew the average person to his works. I will illustrate the method of the creation of fear is as important as the psychology of the fear in how it affects our brain. It was H.P. Lovecraft himself who said; “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” Lovecraft may not have completely understood the psychological forces as we understand it today, but with mental illnesses that permeated his family, he understood the power of fear, and how it affected the human mind on the surface. Lovecraft created the themes that are used constantly in modern Horror Fiction through subtle use of language, and the creation of an entire mythos using a combination of mythologies. The wonder and unknown of the ancient civilizations and myths are used as a force or a universe that is vast, making the reader feel small in a large unknown and unfamiliar place.


In order to understand the effect of fear on the brain, I will first examine how the phraseology and words in “At The Mountains of Madness” create fear. Lovecraft had an anachronistic way of life that fed the “unknowns” he was writing about. A fan of the macabre through the influence of Edgar Allen Poe, Lovecraft was able to set the mood efficiently, just like the works he came to love. Another of the most important aspects of creating fear was adding authenticity to his stories, and relating known and modern things to Lovecraft was considered an oddity during his life despite his growing fame, even among his colleagues, which added to the mystique of his works. Lovecraft’s technique of writing as though he was forced to write the Mountains of Madness, the first line in fact, immediately puts the reader into the mind … Baroque descriptions and carefully placed throughout the work is a key part of his ability to make the reader feel as though they are a small piece of the cosmos, and matter little to the monsters who lurk throughout the world. Subjective adjectives allow the reader’s mind to wander. The phrase “Rows of antique books” makes the reader think about the word antique, and when surrounded by the fear created elsewhere in the text, can draw the reader into imagining that the books themselves may have secret powers, secret words, or deep and forbidden knowledge. I will examine the literary tools used to create mood and different types of fear from a psychological point of view.
In addition to the method used to create fear, the psychological effects make us want to revisit that fear. I will examine the effect fear has on the brain, and why these tools of the literary trade stimulate fear in our minds, and why we want to return to that fear. I will answer the question of our desire to return to fear that gets under the skin of the average reader. I will use “The psychology of fear and stress” By Jeffrey Alan Gray to illustrate how fear effects the mind and mutates within our brain to keep us aware and alert. The parallel of real and imagined fear both affect the mind in powerful ways. Lovecraft uses many ways to amplify our fear of the unknown including completely alien pronunciations of mythical creatures and places.
I will conclude my paper with an examination of Lovecraft’s grasp of using the different types of fear, from the obvious, to the subtle, to trigger the fear region of the brain, and the existential method that Lovecraft uses throughout “At the Mountains of Madness” to bring his reader into the place of fear using the narration of the story. I will use an example and follow the path from the method of causing the fear, to the effect on the brain, to the outward perception, and inward examination that result in exposing the reader to fear. The attraction of fear will be examined through “Media entertainment: the psychology of its appeal” By Dolf Zillmann and Peter Vorderer and other resources, and I will justify my original contention that these methods were used to create a popular fiction that people continue to be entertained by nearly a century later.