Black Christ and His Invisible Brother on the Cross: Race and Religion in H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Dunwich Horror”

American gothic writer H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) is frequently labeled a racist despite the fact that he married a Jewess, Sonia Greene, in 1924. Though the two would ultimately (amicably) divorce, it would not be for reasons involving bloodlines (rather, because of Lovecraft’s regional homesickness).

The Rhode Island writer’s bigotry was driven by two factors: One, he was a staunch anglophile whose racial bias was socially accepted during the time as well as having been victim to poverty due, in part, to his inability to locate ample employment while living in New York with Greene. The latter reinforced the former as Lovecraft cited the influx of immigrants as the reason for his inability to find work. Thus, his prejudice was a consequence of economic sublimation as opposed to the more common motive involving racial factors. Interestingly, in lieu of his reputation, his 1929 tale, “The Dunwich Horror,” not only sympathizes with African Americans, but it does so using the religious archetype of the Jewish Christ figure. By the close of the text, the New England racist makes literary martyrs of the minority race.

“The Dunwich Horror” revolves around twins, Wilbur and his unnamed brother. After an intense period of study of nigromancy under the tutelage of his grandfather, “Old” Whateley, Wilbur perishes in the pursuit of forbidden knowledgethe fabled Necronomicon. Afterward, his brother, who has remained hidden from the native populace since birth, emerges before retreating into a steep dale called Cold Spring Glen. The librarian of a nearby university library, Henry Armitage, sets out to destroy the sole Whateley heir once he discovers through his own studies (as well as the Wilbur’s diary) what Wilbur’s brother is: a gargantuan, invisible monster. He, along with two other academes, awaits for the beast to mount Sentinel Hill before proceeding to kill him.

The twins’ mother, Lavinia Whateley, is “a somewhat deformed, unattractive albino woman.” Given the prevalence of albinism in the race, Lovecraft implies that the Whateleys are of African American descent as they are also individually citied as being “crinkly-haired” while Wilbur is described as having “thick lips.” The family members are frequently referred to as “black” which, though it could argued that this is made in reference to their moral standing, the context in which it appears unequivocally denotes the family’s ethnicity.Wilbur is repeatedly called a “black brat” by the people of Dunwich. The term’s semantic duality does not go ignored by its author for, indeed, the people of Dunwich and the surrounding towns eradicate the Whateley Twins believing them to be evil. However, as suggested through their pejorative use of the word when speaking of the family, the unspoken impetus for their murderous drive is a consensual ethnic bias. Also, given that attention is solely brought to the Whateleys’ ethnicity, when the people of Dunwich band together behind Armitage and his colleagues, they are brandishing “muskets” and “pitchforks” and, as such, can be said to form a makeshift posse. In essence, what ensues is nothing short of a racial lynching.

The Whateley Twins are born on February 2, 1913, to a woman who has “no known husband.” Lovecraft notes that this takes place during Candlemas, which the rural townsfolk of Dunwich, Massachusetts continue to observe. In the eyes of the superstitious populace, like Jesus Christ, the brothers are viewed as (albeit malignant) demigods, as witnessed in an unnamed character’s proclamation, “Not but what I think it’s the Lord’s jedgment fer our iniquities, that no mortal kin ever set aside.” Additionally, the monster’s dying utterance of “Eh-y-ya-ya-yahaah¾e’yayayaaaa . . . ngh’aaaaa . . . ngh’aaa . . . h’ yuh . . . h’yuh . . . HELP! HELP! . . . ff-, ff-, ff-, FATHER! FATHER! YOG-SOTHOTH!” (Yog-Sothoth being the title of the paterfamilias in absentia) astride a figurative Golgotha¾Sentinel Hill¾echoes Christ’s death-cry, “Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?” or “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

The reservation that Lovecraft’s religious parable is defied by its encompassing two sons of supernatural origin eschews the fact that the brothers play the role of the hero monomyth, thus symbolizing and representing a singular literary figure. The Whateley Brothers’ combined chronology parallels that of the Twin Cycle: miraculous conception (both), the acquisition of great wisdom (Wilbur), withdraw and preparation (both, though largely Wilbur), a great quest (Wilbur), tragic death (Wilbur and, to a lesser degree, his brother), descent into the underworld (Wilbur’s brother into Cold Spring Glen), resurrection (Wilbur-cum-his brother, who is reborn when the monster emerges from the confines of the Freudian womb of a farmhouse), and ascension (Wilbur’s brother up Sentinel Hill). Such an interpretation is further reinforced in Lovecraft’s opening quotation from Charles Lamb’s 1821 Witches and Other Night-Fears, which emphasizes the importance of archetypes in literature, “They [Greek myths] are transcripts, types, the archetypes are in us, and eternal.”

This is not the first occasion in which Lovecraft uses the iconic figure of Christ symbolically. In his novella, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (composed in 1927 but posthumously published in 1941), the titular character resurrects his great-great-great grandfather, Joseph Curwen (note the initials, “J.C.”), on Good Friday, who later dies a year to the day. Yet, whereas the reader commiserates with the Whateleys and their subsequent persecution (the only time in which irrefutable, Whateley-led human death occurs is when a person comes between Wilbur’s brother and his bovine meal¾even though Yog-Sothoth’s decedents require a vampiric blood meal for a duration of three months after their premier, their victims are left both mortal as well as alive), Lovecraft makes Curwen an unequivocal antagonist.

H.P. Lovecraft’s plea for the historic plight of African Americans not only counters his established reputation as a racist in that he makes literal martyrs of the “black” Whateley Twins, but his utilization of the Christ figure becomes befuddling thrice over in that, being racially prejudiced, he was a noted antiquarian who expressed a fondness for Roman people and history (“Lavinia” is Latin for “From Rome”), as well as an outspoken, unapologetic atheist. Thus, “The Dunwich Horror” doesn’t refute its author’s established racism so much as it dilutes his proscribed title.

© Michael Gurnow

Michael Gurnow has been published domestically as well as abroad, in translation, and anthologized.  His work may be found in such publications as Word Riot, Dissident Voice, Plain Brown Wrapper, Herbivore, The Modern Word, American Atheist, The Horror Review, among others.

Sources:
Joshi, S.T.  H.P. Lovecraft:  A Life.   West Warwick:  Necronomicon P, 1996.  366-71.
Of socio-historic interest, Lovecraft’s fictional depiction of a character of African American descent being (literally) invisible premiered 23 years before Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.

Despite the fact, through textual cross-referencing of other Lovecraft fiction, their deification is unmerited in that the Whateleys are revealed to be of extraterrestrial descent.
Mark 15:34.
Burleson, Donald.  H.P. Lovecraft:  A Critical Study.  Westport:  Greenwood P, 1983.  146-8.
Joshi.  78-9.