by Carrie Cuinn
The last story of female domination I shall discuss in this essay is “Between a Rock and an Elder Goddess.” This story lacks the element of horror of the previous two stories because the dominating female, Circe, does not bring upon Dennis acceptance in a sudden realization, but allows him to be gradually seduced by it through his study of the Dervini Papyrus. This story is also particularly clever in its interweaving of myth, history, and fiction in a way that represents the interlacing of the ordinary and fantastic. This makes the story’s Weird elements not seem “weird” at all, but a normal part of the fictional world. In the New Weird, Miéville’s New Crobuzon invokes London as easily as it does its secondary world setting. The “intrusion” in this novel cannot be easily identified in terms of its directionality (as we can with Dracula, whose intrusion comes from a single castle and invades London) but weaves into it from many directions as the familiar and the unfamiliar twine in and out of each other. Empson’s story, through the interlacing of the story’s timelines, characters, and narratives provides the reader with a sense of the interweaving of the Weird and the mundane. Circe seduces Dennis through the very ordinary activity of his study of the papyrus just as surely as she seduced Anaximander in real life. Through the manuscript she leads him to her dwelling, where he has been prepared for what he will see. To us, the half-woman, half-monster would be an abomination; however, because Dennis has been prepared, acceptance of the Weird is met not with revulsion, but pleasure.
Though themes of female dominance and the subversion of patriarchy are by no means the only literary elements to be found within these tales (as well as those I have not analyzed), it runs as a dominant theme through many that are collected here. By merging the erotic with the Cthulhu Mythos, these stories afford the opportunity to examine gender and patriarchy in a way that allows them to remain anchored in their contemporary contexts while magnifying the themes of empowerment and transformation through the metaphor of the Cthulhu Mythos. For Lovecraft, the Mythos represented the impersonal, indifferent, and ultimately unknowable elements of the universe that terrified him. These elements extended from the sea itself - personified by Innsmouth and Dagon - to the terrors that modern science would uncover, as he made clear in the first paragraph of “The Call of Cthulhu.” Over the years, Cthulhu Mythos stories have both underscored and subverted this fear. The stories in this collection have viewed Lovecraft’s insight from both angles. The unknown can be feared or embraced.
In Cthulhurotica, this apprehension is not as much a terror of the universe’s vastness and the insignificance of man as it is the dread of social change. Literary erotica has long confronted such fears through the plot motif of initiation and transformation, illustrated above in the discussion of Empson’s story. (This theme is also present in many of the stories discussed above, in addition to “The Summoned” and “Song of the Catherine Clark,” which I sadly could not fit in to this essay’s discussion). What these stories confront instead are the social rules and the enclosures that govern our lives and prevent us from engaging in behaviors that are at once enticing and self-destructive. As the roles and relationships of men and women have changed since Lovecraft’s time, what these stories permit us to do is question the limitations placed upon us by marriage, gender-identity, gender-dominance, and even pair bonding itself. This does not mean we should surrender those rules of conduct, but we should enter a discussion about them and confront our own long-buried fears associated with issues of sex and power.
WORKS CITED
Stableford, Brian. “Science Fiction Between the Wars: 1915-1939.” Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction. Ed. Neil Barron. Westport, CT and London: Libraries Unlimited, 2004. 23-44.
Lovecraft, H. P. “Supernatural Horror in Literature.” Art and Popular Culture. 28 Oct. 2010.
Mendlesohn, Farah. Rhetorics of Fantasy. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2008.
VanderMeer, Jeff. “Introduction.” The New Weird. Ed. Jeff and Ann VanderMeer. San Francisco: Tachyon Publications, 2008.
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[1] Lovecraft porn comes in two basic flavors: manga and live action. Manga or cartoon works (often referred to as Hentai or tentacle porn that is not often Lovecraft specific but does have Lovecraft overtones) come with names such as Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend and Demon Beast Invasion while live action or movies have names such as LoveCracked.
[2] The Topping Book: Or, Getting Good at Being Bad by Easton and Liszt
[3] Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns by Miller and Devon, The Loving Dominant by Warren and The New Bottoming Book by Hardy and Easton.
[4] Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos by Carter
Table of Contents
Astrophobos
Introduction
Descent of the Wayward Sister
The C-Word
Infernal Attractors
Daddy’s Girl
Victim of Victims
The Cry in the Darkness
Riemannian Dreams
Turning On, Tuning In, and Dropping Out at the Mountains of Madness
Song of the Catherine Clark
Between a Rock and an Elder Goddess
The Fishwives of Sean Brolly
Flash Frame
Transfigured Night
The Lake at Roopkund
Ipsa Scientia
Amid Disquieting Dreams
The Dreamlands of Mars
The Assistant from Innsmouth
The Summoned
Sense
Optional On The Beach At The Festival Of Shug Niggurath
Le Ciél Ouvert
Astrophobos, conclusion
ESSAYS
Cthulhu’s Polymorphous Perversity
The Sexual Attraction Of The Lovecraftian Universe
Cthulhurotica, Female Empowerment, and the New Weird
Glyphs
Into the Darkness
The Widow's Walk
Infernal Machine
Shirley's Demon Lover
Whateley Family Portrait
Wandering Bride
Lovecraftian Love
Deep Ones
Woman, Yellow
Love from the Black Lagoon
Your Fisheater
The Whateley Estate
Anna
The Box
The Brides of Tindalos
Great Rift
Unnamed
DESCENT OF THE WAYWARD SISTER
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