Dreams/Fantasies of Science in H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Dreams in The Witch House”

Year 2017, Volume: 21 Issue: 1, 197 - 207, 20.03.2017

Fatime Gül Koçsoy

Abstract

This study examines the dreams and fantasies
in Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s (1890-1937) “The Dreams in the Witch House”
(1933) in the context of science/myth opposition. Inspired by the idea that
mythical phenomena can be explicated by science, the protagonist tries to
amalgamate black magic with modern mathematics and both in his dreams and in
reality achieves entering into the fourth dimension, surpassing the boundaries
of time and space. Unfortunately, these scientific and fantastic travels into
the cosmic/the extraterrestrial cost him death. Lovecraft signifies that even
through the devices of modern science man can be helpless to surmount the
supernatural phenomena. He shows that American society has deep-rooted but
unspoken fears like New England witch myth and attributes the explanation of
their unearthly character to the imaginary and unknowable creatures of
outer-world, drawing attention to the suspending nature of them. He proves that
science and mythology are absolutely separate areas, affirming the beginning
point. Lovecraft wants to believe that Newtonian causality reigns in the
universe. Diving into the fourth dimension becomes a source of dread for him,
because neither causality nor modern science is able to explain its possibility
or give a satisfactory clarification to it. The existence of the scientifically
unresolved issues in the 20th century is strong enough to threaten the place of
man in the universe. Lovecraft is deeply disturbed even terrified by them. The
combination of the scientific with the unscientific manifests itself as a
reason and element of terror. Lovecraft writes stories out of this
disillusionment and dread shifting the focus of horror fiction from the earthly
to the cosmic/the unknown. Although he believes in the power of science, he
prescribes that man should accept the phenomena science cannot answer as
unknowable.

Keywords

H.P.Lovecraft, “The Dreams In The Witch House”, Dream/Fantasy, Extraterrestrial, Science

References

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