The Outsider by H.P. Lovecraft: Review and PDF

There are several interpretations that associate The Outsider with the author himself, treating it as a sort of personal confession, albeit one cloaked in dark fantasy. In this reading, Lovecraft would be lamenting his own condition and his self-image as a stranger in the world. This offers an indication of how he viewed his own identity and place in society. His childhood isolation and difficult relationship with his mother are frequently mentioned in this context. According to accounts from Lovecraft himself and his biographers, she considered him ugly and treated him in an overbearing manner. Many critics read the story as an allegory about the fear of being seen and rejected.

This period of Lovecraft’s writing says a great deal about the post-war era, when the Roaring Twenties were beginning on one hand, whilst collective stress was growing on the other, helping to explain the rise of psychoanalysis. Dreams became a subject of psychological research, viewed as an outlet for repressed desires and trauma, something already explored extensively in Lovecraft’s stories. The Dreamlands may well contain some of his most melancholic works, with tales concerned with frustration and shattered expectations. We see this here, and we see the same in “A Quest for Iranon”, which ends on a frustrating and hopeless note. “Celephaïs” also explores a depressing idea: that of a man wishing to escape his reality to find the dream city he lost in the past.

It is worth remembering that this was the era of Egyptomania, or at least its beginning, as Tutankhamun’s tomb was opened in 1922. This helps explain why Lovecraft loved making references to Egypt and using Egyptian names, as everyone seemed to be doing the same for a while. The references to Nephren-Ka, Nitokris and the catacombs of the Nile reflect this popular interest. Lovecraft also invented names such as Hadoth and Neb, and some of these elements reappear in other stories from his circle.

I consider The Outsider one of Lovecraft’s best-executed stories, precisely because it is simple. The twist (he is the monster, and the creature is a reflection) is well known today, but the story still works even if you already know it, because what matters is the narrator’s sadness, while the surprise is an added bonus. The style is undeniably heavy and archaic, with some adjectives appearing excessively often, and the description of the monster is little more than a list of qualifying terms. There’s also an evident debt to Poe, which makes the story less original than Lovecraft’s cosmic fiction.