The Idea of Lost Identity in Fantasy Fiction: Stevenson, Stoker, and Lovecraft

Text by professor Timo Airaksinen part no: 6.

In fantasy literature, monsters are so terrifying that to meet one leads to insanity and suicide. However, "I am becoming a monster" must feel worse. Thomas Nagel asks, "What is it like to be a bat?"; I ask what it is like to become and be a monster – is it possible to know? To answer, we need semiotic tools. I design a Nagel Test to determine one's ability to formulate de se thoughts and beliefs during and after the monstrous transmogrification. To do this, I will discuss what I call a Perry Case and Perry Tale. Most emphatically, my goal is not to offer new interpretations of the masterpieces of Stevenson, Stoker, and Lovecraft. I use their stories as sources of examples. I sketch a theory of monsters in the fantasy world. My modest main aim is to understand the logic and semiotics of losing one's personal identity and its psychological consequences. I imagine the semantics of a possible world maximally similar to the readers' actual world, except it allows monsters and, because of them, monstrous threats to one's identity. This is the language game played by the classical horror writers I will introduce.

Keywords: Thomas Nagel, de se beliefs, possible worlds, monsters; personal identity; physical identity; horror; suicide, madness, literary strategies, Oscar Wilde, George Orwell. "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." (H.P. Lovecraft).

. Lovecraft: Ultimate Losses, Ultimate Ironies

We may discuss dramatic irony, the ironic potential of de se, and other examples of irony in HPL's stories. Horror stories exemplify dramatic irony [deleted]. I do not mean that the plot's conventions are predictable to the reader except at the most general level: something weird will happen, which surprises and shocks the main characters. Yet, the reading audience knows more than the characters, namely, that the plot moves into an alien and, for the reader, inaccessible possible world – that is why we call them fantasy stories (Inwagen, 2003).

Vampires are physically impossible in our actual world, and so are HPL's mythical creatures called the Great Old Ones and the Deep Ones. They arrived from another world at the beginning of time, but the world where they figure is now supposed to be our present world. The readers may face real horrors, but fantastic horrors are only their fictional echoes. Perhaps, "[w]e fear for ourselves only if we believe ourselves to be in danger; we fear for others only if we believe they exist and are in danger." (Joyce, 2000, p. 224). We read fictional accounts of horrible alien worlds and feel the horror. Perhaps the reader experiences ersatz fear. Fear, unlike horror, entails a threat. What would be the threat? There is no threat. The reader is safe. Horror is another thing, just like disgust and other emotions (Korsmeyer, 2010): we talk about nameless horror. 

Horror in fantasy fiction requires that we imagine the fictional world to be the actual world plus those features that the monsters need to emerge, act, and flourish (cf. Friend, 2016; Yanal, 1999; Zeimbekis, 2004). Of course, a writer can create a possible world that fails to resemble our actual world. But HPS, Stevenson, and Stoker use our actual world enriched by some weird possibilities. In that way, horror effects become stronger, but fear lessens. The de se mode of description of a person's thoughts and beliefs has ironic potential. The Perry Case and its monster applications are situationally ironic: to seek a culprit who is the seeker himself is ironic and amusing. The narrator digs deeper and deeper into an emerging horror, and then his beliefs suddenly turn into the de se mode: she says, "I am the horrific monster." 

For instance, in "The Outsider" (1921), the narrator leaves her underground dwelling and wanders around until she arrives at a manor where she finds a glamorous ball. She enters with high hopes of inclusion, but after seeing her, everyone rushes out, screaming in panic. She stops, looks around, and meets a disgusting, rotten corpse face to face. Surprised, she extends her arm to touch it, but his finger taps the clear cold glass of a mirror. This is an obvious Perry Tale. Once again, the de re belief, "Somebody scares these fine people," changes into de se: "I am the monster who causes the panic." She is the decayed corpse they are running away from. She is not the human being she thought she was: "I always know that I am an outsider, a stranger in this century and among those who are still men." Incidentally, we find here HPL's autobiographical tone of voice. He saw himself as an 18th-century English gentleman (De Camp, 1975, Ch. 8; Joshi, 1996, Chs. 1, 12).

In this story, the narrator learns what she is, a corpse. But she does not allow this to crush him. On the contrary, in the semi-optimistic ending, she returns to the world where she belongs. But she remains a melancholically happy monster and a ghoul. Again, HPL's prose works like poetry: When I returned to the churchyard place of marble and went down the steps I found the stone trap-door immovable; but I was not sorry, for I had hated the antique castle and the trees. Now I ride with the mocking and friendly ghouls on the night-wind, and play by day amongst the catacombs of Nephren-Ka in the sealed and unknown valley of Hadoth by the Nile. I know that light is not for me, save that of the moon over the rock tombs of Neb, nor any gaiety save the unnamed feasts of Nitokris beneath the Great Pyramid; yet in my new wildness and freedom I almost welcome the bitterness of alienage.

Here the narrator passes – during his search – the Nagel Test, but after he learns his identity as a corpse, we lose him. His new life, thoughts, and identity as a ghoul are beyond human comprehension. Incidentally, the feast of Nitokris was a deadly underground trap that drowned her enemies.[1] Hence the Nagel Test fails because of the challenges of imagining the speaker in his "bitterness of alienage." Something like a person remains, or the authentic expressions and utterances of "I" still linger, but we have no idea what the indexed entity is like. The word occurs here without its signified. HPL's stories contain sophisticated elements that make them more interesting than Stoker's. HPL does not utilize the cheap plot type of good people hunting down and destroying evil enemies. This old and venerable dragon slayer format makes the evil less strong and menacing than it may initially look. 

The hero conquers the ultimately vulnerable evil – this is a disappointing Christian way of thinking about salvation. In Christian societies, we should know that Jesus Christ and his angelic troops will arrive and conquer the realms of evil at the end of time. Of course, in Stoker's tale, evil does die, but its traces will continue lingering. HPL rejects such a naïve plot. Stoker is a Victorian traditionalist, while HPL's visions are modern, even postmodern. The reader does not expect a hero to locate and kill Nyarlathotep in "those grinning caverns of earth's center." He is not a dragon killer like Beowulf. HPL's monsters are rooted more firmly in the world – they are invincible enemies. Nevertheless, the actual threat is the loss of one's identity either through death, madness, or monstrous transmogrification.

HPL's best and most sophisticated stories make the narrators accept, ironically, their fate after the first near-debilitating mental shock and ultimately embrace it. They turn into monsters, yet they are described sympathetically and even compassionately. They are horrified and hated, but as HPL shows, this can be a mistake. In "The Outsider," the corpse rejects her life among the living and, realizing she cannot return to her grave, enjoys the ghoulish possibilities elsewhere – still retaining her identity, which we fail to understand. "The Shadow over Innsmouth" (1931) has a similarly beautiful and unconventional ending. The narrator discovers that he is one of those monstrous fish-like amphibious creatures that occupy the old and derelict New England town before they go under the open sea to meet the Deep Ones, presumably including the maddeningly horrific Dagon. The narrator observes the tell-tale changes in his appearance and realizes he is one of those Others (Berruti, 2009). We find a Perry Tale: I know fish-like monsters live here (de re), and, as I conclude, I am such a monster (de se) – now I accept the fact. And I understand that humans cannot understand what it is like to be me, or my Nagel Test will fail.

This kind of reasoning brings the narrator close to madness, and he almost kills himself, "So far, I have not shot myself as my uncle Douglas did. I bought an automatic and almost took the step, but certain dreams deterred me". His mind is already transformed so far that he cannot shoot himself. He must live to follow his dreams. Here HPL plays the trump card. You cannot conquer and win over the far too strong and pervasive horror, so you may as well join your folks and enjoy it. In this ironic manner, HPL solves the problem of a positive ending much more satisfyingly than Stoker. The narrator says goodbye to the readers: I shall plan my cousin's escape from that Canton madhouse, and together we shall go to marvel-shadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y'ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones, we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

This is a subtle parody of a Christian believer going to Heaven. The supreme irony of the story is that one goes mad only to enjoy its pleasures. As a Dagon-related monster, he will flourish. If you are a monster, why not live like a monster and be happy? But before this, you must be mad enough to fail your Nagel Test, and yet you must try to tell what it is like to be a fishy monster who joins the Deep Ones. You know you will be monstrously happy, so you must be mad. In "Innsmouth," HPL gives the narrator three possibilities: go mad, kill yourself, or accept that you are a monster. However, to enjoy your new life, you must first go mad and forget all your de se thoughts. You will no longer be the person your "I" signified. For a while, you may still use "I," but soon, the pronoun will first change and then an empty de se import. After entering the deep sea, one is no longer human. Such an ending is horror-ridden, happy, and ironic.

HPL writes, "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." To climb out of Plato's Cave is too dangerous. Paradoxically, the narrator in "Innsmouth" successfully correlates all his mind's content, but only when he has already reached the limits of alien existence. A human person should be content with her blessed ignorance. [1] Lord Dunsany's play The Queen's Enemies (1918) is based on Herodotus' story of Nitokris' murderous plot. Young HPS admired him and most likely knew the play.