The Use of Language, Structure, and Narration in The Call of Cthulhu, a Short Story by H.P. Lovecraft

In the call of Cthulhu written by American writer HP, Lovecraft, he introduces his unique style of horror. The author features the monster Cthulhu by using the first-person perspective. The narrator discovers his dead granduncle‘s documents relating to the great monster named Cthulhu. He then begins to learn the truth behind his granduncle‘s research notes. The story is divided into three distinct parts relating to three witnesses of Cthulhu, Part one, The Horror in Clay relates to how the narrator‘s uncle worked with a student at the Rhode Island School of Design named Henry Anthony Wilcox, Wilcox created a sculpture based on his insane dreams of a hideous monster, The horrific sculpture was described as a combination of an octopus, a dragon and a human caricature Part two, the tale of inspector Legrasse, a police officer who held the meeting at the American Archaeological.

Society in order to identify a statuette that have been found after a raid on a voodoo meeting i The statuette is found to be similar to Wilcox‘s sculpture.

The final part, the madness from the sea describes the narrator‘s further findings into the cultr He travelled to New Zealand and Australia to meet the sailor and found out what he saw while sailing on the ocean that drove him insane, After that, he realized he was also part of the chain and believed that he will be a next person to die because he knew too much. Call of Cthulhu is Lovecraft’s great piece of disturbing horror story.

Ultimately, it is Lovecraft’s use of demoniac language, structure and narration that generates the story suspend as they are interrogated First, let’s discuss the language Lovecraft uses in this story‘ Much of Lovecraft’s writing concerns the limitation of human knowledge and experience and in this case, the call of Cthulhu also highlights the limitation of human langue to speak to broader ideas‘.

Here is the evidence to prove Lovecraft’s lack of compassion for naming: Over a fourth of those who reported anything, reported scenes and half-sounds not unlike those which Wilcox had described; and some of the dreamers confessed acute fear of the gigantic nameless thing visible toward the last. Instead of calling it something, he uses “nameless thing”. The word “queer” and “cyclopean” pop up many times in the story. It is clearly that Lovecraft is very attached to certain words. The language of horror he created has to rely in some irrational fears. Whether it is a fear of heights, fear of darkness, fear of ghost, etc. It extracts non rational responses. Human’s knowledge and study are nothing when it comes to the universe. On page 27, “he had said that the geometry of the dream place he saw was abnormal, non-Euclidean and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours”.

R’lyeh is described by bizarre architecture link to non-Euclidean geometry. The author‘s method of using geometry is to convey the weirdness. The city’s architecture does not make sense to us therefore It goes beyond our math and scientific knowledge That kind of geometry doesn‘t exist and Lovecraft put it in as unimaginable and impossible object. Cthulhu will eventually return, with worshipers often repeating the phrase Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah‘nagl fhtagn: “In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming” (13). His language and use of words seem that would be so alien to human that we mightjust go crazy for having experienced them. Secondly, structure also contributes to the success of the story. The effectiveness of “the Call of Cthulhu” can be attributes to the complex “onion”- like nature of unfolding events.

For example, through Francis Wayland Thurston, readers discover what Professor Angell left behind and based on his research, we are led to three deeper stories of three different characters Henry Anthony Wilcox, John Raymond Legrasse, William Charming Webb. The technique he uses is peeling back the story through this layer to that layer like peeling an onion. On the surface, narrator supposes that Wilcox just exaggerates or plays joke on the old man, The evidence can be seen here: He questioned the sculptor with scientific minuteness; and studied with almost frantic intensity the bas-relief on which the youth had found himself working, chilled and clad only in his night»clothes, when waking had stolen bewilderingly overhim. My uncle blamed his old agetttWilcox could not understand the repeated promises of silence which he was offered in exchange for admission…religious body. It might even look like a hoax. As the investigators penetrate the first layer, they should discover another beneath.

These layers might go on and on; until the investigators themselves decide they are getting too deep and stop their investigations. An example can be found on this passage: I have looked upon all that the universe has to hold of horror and even the skies of spring and flowers of summer Butl do not think my life will be long. As my uncle went, as poor Johansen went, so I shall go I know too much, and the cult still lives, The third technique H.P Lovecraft employed that best contributes to the story is narration, It can be seen in the beginning of the story: The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents, We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying “we shall either go mad from the revelation dark age.

Those sentences tell us a lot about the substantial ignorance of humanity regarding the universe. Many unknowable and untouchable things lay underneath our knowledge. That‘s what terrifies us. It relies on all professors Angell’s documents for Francis to make that realization, after which he then continues to investigate the case on his own, resulting in the frightening discoveries that change him into the narrator Francis But let us return to the first step — becoming aware of the major unknown, showing not only how scientific knowledge fails but also how human language cannot capture the horrori We only get a glimpse of what is really going on, Our academia and intelligence are knocked down.

Whatever we imagine, the real thing is far worse. On page 5, Thurston mentions “it seemed to be a sort of monster, or symbol representing a monster, of a form which only a diseased fancy could conceive”. Hitting on the central fear that writer tries to employ. It‘s uncaring and hostile. As Lovecraft intended, the ending of the story is horrifying also unanswerable. That unanswerable ending terrifies readers because we are also a part of the chain now. We know too muchjust like Francis Lastly, the story recounts how the narrator’s discovery of secret knowledge has driven him over the edge and brought him close to insanity. The use of Language, structure and narration make an excellentjob to contribute to the suspense and terror in the story.