The Gothic Outsider
“The Outsider” by H.P Lovecraft is an eerie tale of an individual who has been
held captive since childhood, eventually escapes, and then realizes things
about himself are not what they appeared to be. Lovecraft uses gothic tropes to
show that his experiences are what he bases his personal identification on, and
it conditions how he understands the world around him. To understand the use of
these tropes it is essential to first understand the gothic genre.
When
reflecting upon the word “gothic” it automatically evokes a feeling of
uneasiness. The term gothic can be applied to anything, whether it be written,
film, music, and other works, or even experiences, which make one feel somewhat
scared or anxious. However, a work or
experience does not have to be a scary situation to be labeled gothic (that is
just one example). The gothic genre is full of tropes, which can be easily
identified and help one label something as gothic. These tropes can be
identified visually, aurally, and emotionally. If the situation or work
has a dark shadowy lightning, and castle like architecture, it would be
considered gothic. Within gothic literature and movies we often see a character
try to escape the oppression that is happening around them. Sometimes they are
able to escape and seek refuge some place else (often a near by religious
establishment) but sometimes, the character is not able to escape their
surroundings and instead, they retreat into their own head. This is an example
of the mental illness aspect of gothic. The gothic is more of creating an
atmosphere than a specific idea therefore, not all of these aspects need to be
combined together for it to be considered gothic.
When first beginning H.P Lovecraft’s
short story “The Outsider”, we learn that our narrator has been held captive in
an old dark castle. He has no recollection of where he was born, and has spend
years in the decaying castle. Lovecraft uses the classic gothic trope of the
decaying castle as the setting to his story, to create a creepy atmosphere. He
also uses the gothic trope of oppression to make the reader aware that the
narrator has had no real life experience, only what has occurred within the
castle. The paragraph continues and we learn that these experiences consist of
him being surrounded by bones, skeletons, and crypts. He states that he never
found those items as scary but rather more normal than the pictures and stories
he found in the books in the castle. The
books made up his mental image of the world outside and his self-image. The
only memory of another being is a vague recollection of someone like himself,
yet aged and decrepit, he thinks took care of him at some point.
Our narrator has grown tired of the
oppression, and just like the common gothic main character, has decided to
escape. He has to climb the stairs in the dark, dank tower in order to escape.
Lovecraft uses the trope of darkness, and it makes the reader anxious to see
what is going to occur next. As he continues up the tower he describes the
thick darkness and slimy walls. This brings to mind Chris Baldick’s description
of gothic fiction. Baldick states, “For the Gothic effect to be attained, a
tale should combine a fearful sense of inheritance in time with a
claustrophobic sense of enclosure in space, these two dimensions reinforcing
one another to produce an impression of sickening descent into disintegration”
(xix). In this selection the narrator touches on the gothic trope of
inheritance, and of the physical setting of the story. Within “The Outsider” we
do not know why the narrator inherited this life, and his journey through the
tower towards his escape evokes the feeling of claustrophobia.
When he
finally escapes, he reaches a castle and peers through the window. He sees the
people’s faces and hears their voices. As he joins their company, they all
scream and run in fear. At first, he thinks there is a monster among them, and
he touches the monster. He runs away, and since he cannot return to the castle,
he goes to the Nile and befriends friendly ghouls, because when he touched the
monster, it was actually a mirror. By having our narrator be a monster figure, Lovecraft
is rebelling against the classic gothic genre. In the usual gothic tales, the
humans are fleeing from the monsters but in this case, the monster is the one
fleeing and ultimately does not understand his own identity until the humans
reject him. Corinna Wagner talks about the face being a fixture of gothic
tales. “Dead faces are a gothic trope,
which present a startling view of the processes of identification, subjection,
communication and transparency”(83). It did not matter what was on the inside
of the narrator, as Wagner points out, the outer view is how they identify the
being. Lovecraft also incorporates the other ghouls as a way to show the need
for our narrator to be with people like himself. Since the narrator had no
experience, he assumed he was just like everyone else. Unfortunately, he learns
that this is not true. Inside he feels normal and is tired of being alone, but
his outside appearance hinders him from being accepted.
Lovecraft
never completely states what kind of monster or being the narrator is. He does
this to add even more mystery into his short story. Ernst Jentsch described the
effects of leaving the readers in suspense in his essay On the Psychology of
the Uncanny. Jentsch states, “In
telling a story one of the most successful devices for easily creating uncanny
effects is to leave the reader in uncertainty whether a particular figure in
the story is a human being or an automaton and to do it in such a way that his
attention is not focused directly upon his uncertainty, so that he may not be
led to go into the matter and clear it up immediately” (13). Although, the narrators identity is the not
the main aspect of the story, it still leaves the readers hypothesizing.
Many will argue that the narrator was not
actually a person being held captive in a castle but rather a zombie escaping
his tomb. This argument is made because rising from the grave is sometimes seen
within gothic works, however, this is not the case within this story. This can
be refuted by the passage on page 319 in “The Outsider”, “Some of the faces seemed to hold expressions
that brought up incredibly remote recollections, others were utterly alien.” As stated previously, the narrator could not
remember how or when he ended up in the castle, and he relied on the books for
his view on the outside world, including humans. If the narrator had only seen
human faces within the books he would be able to place where he had seen their
expressions before. Due to the fact that he states he had “remote
recollections”, this leads one to believe he had experienced human interaction
before arriving at the castle, thus making him some sort living being.
Lovecraft’s
“The Outsider”, is more than just your typical scary story. The emotional
journey and obstacles of the narrator make it more than just a tale of a
monster. In addition to the gothic tropes mentioned, the feelings of alienation
and abandonment experienced by the narrator give it the overall gothic
atmosphere. The majority of main characters in classic gothic tales could
relate to the alienation and abandonment felt by the narrator, making them all
outsiders together.
Works Cited
Baldick,
Chris. “Introduction” The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1993. xi-xxiii Print.
Jentsch,
Ernst. “On the Psychology of the Uncanny.” A
New Journal in Philosophy, Literature, and the Social Sciences.1.2 (1996) :7-17.
Print.
Lovecraft,
H.P. “The Outsider.” The Oxford Book of
Gothic Tales. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. 316-321. Print.
Wagner,
Corinna. "The Dream of a Transparent Body: Identity, Science and the
Gothic Novel." 74-92. Print.
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