"The Lure of The Unknown Abyss": Ambivalence and Hybridity in H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth
Faculty Mentor
Dr. Beth Torgerson
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Start Date
5-7-2024 10:45 AM
End Date
5-7-2024 11:05 AM
Location
PAT 304
Primary Discipline of Presentation
English
Abstract
As made clear in his personal correspondence, H.P. Lovecraft maintained a lifelong obsession with racial and cultural purity and maintaining strict lines of racial segregation. However, critics have frequently noted that Lovecraft’s novella, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, ends its allegory of miscegenation on a note of ambivalence, with the narrator's attitude towards his new hybrid racial identity vacillating between revulsion and awe. This presentation is a literary analysis of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth, using an examination of Lovecraft’s letters, which argues that the novella first dramatizes Lovecraft’s beliefs on racial segregation and personal revulsion towards people of other races, before undermining this narrative and arriving at an irresolvable ambivalence which mirrors Lovecraft’s simultaneous fear of, and fascination with the unknown.
Recommended Citation
Gardner, Matthew A., ""The Lure of The Unknown Abyss": Ambivalence and Hybridity in H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth" (2024). 2024 Symposium. 5.
https://dc.ewu.edu/srcw_2024/op_2024/o1_2024/5
Creative Commons License
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"The Lure of The Unknown Abyss": Ambivalence and Hybridity in H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth
PAT 304
As made clear in his personal correspondence, H.P. Lovecraft maintained a lifelong obsession with racial and cultural purity and maintaining strict lines of racial segregation. However, critics have frequently noted that Lovecraft’s novella, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, ends its allegory of miscegenation on a note of ambivalence, with the narrator's attitude towards his new hybrid racial identity vacillating between revulsion and awe. This presentation is a literary analysis of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth, using an examination of Lovecraft’s letters, which argues that the novella first dramatizes Lovecraft’s beliefs on racial segregation and personal revulsion towards people of other races, before undermining this narrative and arriving at an irresolvable ambivalence which mirrors Lovecraft’s simultaneous fear of, and fascination with the unknown.
