NARRATOR’S XENOPHOBIA AS SEEN ON THE CALL OF CTHULU BY H.P LOVECRAFT: A PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH
Maret 07, 2021
Oleh: Muhammad Alif Faturrachman
(Founder Mediatikusastra)
The
Call of Cthulu is a short
story written by an American author Howard Phillips Lovecraft which also known
as H.P Lovecraft. It was first published in Weird
Tales magazine in 1928 and became the most notable short story by H.P
Lovecraft that set the creation of the Lovecraftian genre, the Cosmicism philosophy,
and the Cthulu mythos in modern days. The Call of Cthulu story revolves on a
man named Francis Wayland Thurston which discovers several old notes belong to
his late granduncle. Unbeknownst to him, these notes led him to discovers a
grand conspiracy involving an ancient oceanic entity and its secret cults.
In this article, the writer intended to analyze
the psychology of Francis Wayland Thurston as the narrator of the story. The
writer employed psychoanalytic literary criticism theory based on Sigmund Freud’s
psychoanalysis theory as an approach and also used the descriptive qualitative
research method by reading and taking notes on literary and internet sources.
Furthermore, the writer aimed to analyze the characterization and a
psychological phenomenon called “Xenophobia” also known as the fear of the
unknown or stranger on the character of Francis Wayland Thurston on The Call of Cthulu short story. In
addition, the writer also employed the theory of self-defense mechanisms which
was proposed by Berger (2004), in order to identify the proofs of Francis xenophobic
behavior through his psychological self-defense mechanisms which are; Selective perception;
Selective memory; Denial; Avoidance; Displacement; Projection; Regression;
Ambivalence; Fixation; Identification; Rationalization; Reaction Formation;
Repression; and Suppression.
H.P
Lovecraft introduces his early work with his own style of narration involving fear in the form of a phobia related to
the human world. Phobia has an effect of overwhelming and unreasonable fear
toward an object that provokes anxiety and avoidance, In addition, phobia is
said to be a result of the unresolved conflicts between the id and the superego
within human mind, therefore, the ego forced to please both sides by applying
the self-defense mechanisms(Fritscher, 2019). There are several types of
phobias that exist in the world and one of the most unique phobia is known as
Xenophobia.the Xenophobia derives
from the Greek words xénos, meaning 'the stranger' or 'the unknown' and phóbos,
meaning 'fear', this means that xenophobia is a fear of the unknown, a strange
things that have not yet discovered by the sufferer.
In The Call of Cthulu, Lovecraft provided us
with an example of a xenophobic character, the narrator Francis Wayland
Thurston, a man who suffers from the Xenophobia or the fear of the unknown.In
the story, Francis Wayland Thurston is a well-known resident of Boston and also
known as an anthropologist. Following his grand-uncle's sudden and mysterious
death, he discovers and investigates the Cthulhu Cult. Along with his
investigation, he writes the manuscript of "The Call of Cthulhu"
based on his findings from his grand-uncle's notes, belongings, and his own
discoveries. The transcript itself was divided into three parts: "The
Horror in Clay," explains his grand-uncle's death, Francis discovery of
his granduncle belongings, and also the story of Henry Anthony Wilcox, a
hyper-sensitive sculptor from Rhodes island; "The Tale of Inspector
Legrasse, "this part recounts a police inspector's encounter with the
Cthulhu Cult on Lousiana; and "The Madness from the Sea," was the
last part in Francis manuscript and was based on the discovery of a diary
belongs to second mate Gustaf Johansen. Francis ends his narration predicting
that he will be hunted by the cult or even Cthulu itself for everything that he
has known.
It could
be seen that Francis is struggling against his own fear. Generally, in order to cope with phobia, human tends to
apply the self-defense mechanisms consciously or even unconsciously to avoid
things that they thought cannot handle. In this case, the writer is going to
analyze Francis Wayland's application of a self-defense mechanism against his
xenophobia.
FRANCIS
XENOPHOBIA& SELF-DEFENSE MECHANISMS
Based on the analysis of The Call of Cthulu plot
and characterization, it signified that Francis had xenophobia issues.
Hereinafter, the analysis data of his narration further explains his
implementation of several points in self-defense mechanisms both consciously or
unconsciously which could be extracted as the following:
A.
Denial
The first self-defense mechanism found on The Call of Cthulu short story
begins with Francis’s early narration
itself in the form of
denial. According to Berger (2004), denial occurs when someone chooses to ignore
a problem that actually exists and believes or pretends that it does not exist
at all. Francis in his narration stated that:
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all its contents” (Lovecraft, 1928).
This statement is a sign of his denial of reality as Francis
stated that the inability of human mind to correlate all its contents is the
most merciful thing in the world. Furthermore, this
statement provides the first sign of xenophobic behavior
through Francis’s way of thinking. In his narration, he mentioned that being unable to know
everything that human did not know is simply an act of mercy by the human mind
itself. Francis’s narration could be interpreted as his
gratitude for his ignorance, on the other hand,
this statement provides the clue of his fear of the unknown
and his denial of the fact that it is an inability, not a gift. However, he thoughts that the
inability to correlate all of human mind contents has saved him from the
fact that there are a lot of unknown things that existed in this world and
Francis himself did not know exists which made him feel threatened by those
unbeknownst to him. Hence, Francis felt safe in his isolation from everything
that he did not know by believing that his ignorance is keeping him safe from his fear of the unknown as a form of
his denial self-defense.
B.
Selective Perception
Another self-defense mechanism
employed by Francis in The Call of Cthulu is in a form of selective perception.
According to Berger (2004), selective perception happens when someone only
hears and sees as well as believes something that makes them feel better.
Francis, in his narration, stated:
“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” (Lovecraft, 1928).
He tends to be ignorance and choose the
selective perception method as his self-defense which applies that he only sees, hears and believes things that he thoughts he could handle and
choose to not meddle with things that he did not know. Furthermore, this
narration gives us the glimpse of his selective perception as he narrated that 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, as this sentence is a perfect allegory of
his own views of the world
and the world that he wants to see. Francis in his
xenophobic way of thinking
has depicted his own perspective on the world around him, indicating
that he only sees, hears, and believes what he desires to then ignore everything
that he did not desire which he
refers to as the sea that should not be voyaged.
Francis prefers to ignorance as his justification
of his xenophobic behavior supported by the phrase which read that we live in a
black sea of infinity. Generally, the color ‘black’ is always associated with
fear, mystery, death, sadness, and many other things as black itself is the
absence of color, thus, creating a persona of something unknown or strange.
While, sea is always associated with vast unknown, dark, and deep part of the
earth which human did not yet had the ability to correlate all of its contents;
followed by a word infinity to emphasize a total ignorance of the world
unbeknownst to him. He ends his narration by saying that we, human, should not voyage far into the black sea of
infinity. Furthermore, the narration given by Francis indicated that he feared what he refers to the
unknown, with black sea of infinity as an allegorical metaphor of the unknown
things around him, meanwhile, he seeks justification of his fear in the form of an
allegory of a placid island of ignorance, as he felt safe and peace if he
chooses to know nothing while simultaneously threatened by the things that he
did not knows about.
C.
Avoidance
The third self-defense mechanism found on The Call of Cthulu short story
shows how Francis avoids his fear. According to Berger (2004), avoidance occurs
when someone stays away from people or situations that are able to make them
feel anxious or uncomfortable. There is evidence of Francis narration imaging
his way of thinking to support the use of avoidance which read as follows:
“But someday, the piecing together of
dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of
our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation
or flee from the light into the peace of a new dark age” (Lovecraft, 1928).
He emphasizes that knowledge could indeed lead
us to our own doom, threatening our established position in the world just
because we know too much about the entire world itself. Moreover, he said that
if we are able to compile all pieces of knowledge of the unknown, then we will
surely go mad in our own realization of what lies beyond our ignorance or fleed
the unraveled world of knowledge into the safety dark age of knowing nothing.
From this point, his narration implies
that he does fear the unknown and tries to avoid it by any means necessary. He
even mentioned that the risk of knowing the unknown might led him to become mad
or even fleed into the safety of a new dark age, therefore, he chooses to
remain ignorant of the unknown things that lie far beyond his own bits of
knowledge.
D.
Rationalization
The last
self-defense mechanism which Francis used in his narration is ultimately called
rationalization. According to Berger (2004), rationalization occurs when there
is an offering of logical explanations or even excuses for any behavior that
came from unconscious and irrational behavior and perspective toward something.
Consequently,
Francis tries to explain each of his other self-defenses such as his selective
perception, denial, and avoidance with slightly logical explanations that cause
the readers to agree with his idea of xenophobic way of thinking. The reason of
why he uses the rationalization is to conceal the motives that would trigger
his fear and anxiety of his xenophobic issue and to self-justify himself.
Although that Francis does not mention directly
about his xenophobia, the way he acts and thinks does actually give clues to the readers
about the subtle symptoms of a xenophobic person. In addition, the proofs of
Francis Xenophobic behavior based on the way he thinks, narrates, and the way
he utilized the self-defense mechanisms against the things or knowledge that he
does not possess nor he
understands has been found and discussed thoroughly in this article.
The proofs that have been found in Francis narration signified that, in order to cope with the xenophobia within his mind that caused by
the conflict between his id and superego, therefore, his ego employed the 4
out of 14 self-defenses to cope with the anxiety or the fear of something that
he did not know. As a result, he chooses to deny the existence of the unknown world and appeal to this inability to
admit the existence of the unknown as mercy, denying the fact that it is not merciful at all but inadequacy in
his ideology which he believed in his denial stance. After that, He chooses to
prefer his own perception rather than to see the reality as a whole to avoid
the things that might trigger his traumatic memory or might be his fear of the
unknown in his selective perception stance. Third of all, after he chooses to
denied and prefers his own perception of the world around him, Francis chooses to avoid the things
unbeknownst to him in his avoidance stance. Then lastly, Francis tried to rationalize
all of his behavior and fear with a logical explanation to make sure that he
does fear the unknown and all of his behaviors are the correct things that he
should do in his rationalization stance.
Therefore,
the self-defense mechanisms work as a valid theory and tool to identify the
sign of xenophobia in Francis characterization since self-defense mechanisms are commonly applied by
those who suffer from phobia to keep themselves away from the sources of their
fear and anxiety. However, due to the fact that the author himself did not mention the
story about Francis’s past other than the fact that he has a granduncle and also an
anthropologist, it seems to be impossible to deduce the
original sources of his xenophobia that perhaps originated from his
childhood or other traumatic events in his lifetime.
CONCLUSION
H.P Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulu has
presented to us a fascinating case of a xenophobic character in the form of
Francis Wayland Thurston that can be analyzed using psychoanalytic literary
criticism based on the Freudian psychoanalysis method. Analyzing the psychoanalysis
method is a valid literary and psychology analysis since the fictional
character represented real human life. The character itself is an imitation of
the reality in which Francis does represents the characteristic of those who
suffer from xenophobia or fearing the unknown. In this discussion, we have
proofed that Francis does suffer from a psychological phenomenon known as xenophobia.
The result of this discussion is that Francis does utilize several types of
self-defense mechanisms to protect himself from the threats that he refers to
as the unknown. The mechanisms itself include denial, selective perception,
avoidance, and rationalization.
However, since his Cthulu narration is limited to
retelling his uncle’s notes, an inspector story, and a sailor journal, it is
difficult to find the sources and the reasons for his xenophobia. This
difficulty also supported by the absent of Francis’s background or his
childhood in the short story other than the fact that he is an anthropologist.
Although the successes and fame gained by H.P Lovecraft because of this short
story, he failed to fill in some plot holes and left a great amount of mystery surrounding
the characterization and plots of The Call of Cthulu. Lastly, the character of
Francis might have successfully represented the characteristic of a xenophobic
person and how they apply the self-defense mechanisms, but the lack of personal
narration by Francis Wayland Thurston has left some unanswered questions
regarding his psychological characterization.
REFERENCES
Berger, P.
2004. Psychoanalytic
criticism, London: Sage Publication
Cherry, K. 2019.
Freud’s id, ego, and superego , Retrieved
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2011. Metodologi
Penelitian Sastra. Yogyakarta: CAPS
Fritscher, L. 2019. Psychoanalytic
theory of phobia , Retrieved
from https://www.verywellmind.com/psychoanalytic-theory-of-phobias-2671510
Freud, J.S. (Ed). 1996. The complete introductory lectures
on psychoanalysis, New York: W.W. Norton
Freud, S. 2014. The origin and developement
of psychoanalysis’ The american journal of psychology,
(21st
ed). Retrieved
from https://www.jstor.org/table/1413001
Lovecraft, H.P.
1928. The
call of cthulu, United States: Weird Tales Magazine
Pangestu, N., &
Sunardi, F. 2016. An Incomplete Psychological Novel: a Psychoanalytical
Analysis of Hazel Lancaster in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. Journal
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Tyson, L. 2006. Critical
Theory Today. New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group
Wellek &
Warren, M.B (Ed). (1989).
Literary Theory, Jakarta: Gramedia
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TENTANG PENULIS
Muhammad Alif Faturrachman kerap
disapa dengan panggilan “Alif”, “Alep”, “Toad” adalah seorang pemuisi amatiran
serta salah satu Founder dari Mediatikusastra. Ia memiliki passion di
bidang desain grafis dan komputer dengan jejak rekam petualangan sebagai
lulusan “terbaik” dari SMK Negeri 1 Sungailiat, sebuah gelar yang sengaja ia
klaim sepihak agar terdengar prestis. Kini, takdir membawa Alif ke jurusan Sastra Inggris di sebuah
universitas negeri di Indonesia, dimana ia harus meninggalkan mimpi menjadi seorang game
developer atau seorang desainer grafis dan apalah itu mimpi-mimpi yang pernah ia
impikan.
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