Evolution, Psychology, and Horror, Part III

Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

 

Note: This post assumes that you have seen the movie Backcountry. If you have not, Wikipedia offers a fairly detailed, accurate summary of the film's plot.

 

 Source: boomstickcomics.com

As we saw in Part I, Alex is a foil to Jen; his traits, which are opposite to those of hers, highlight Jen's traits, or “evolved adaptations,” as they are known in evolutionary psychology. But, just as Alex is Jen's foil, Brad is a foil to Alex; Brad's traits are different from those of Alex and, therefore, highlight Alex's evolved adaptations, just as Alex's traits highlight those of Jen.

Source: netflix.com

Brad appears at Alex's and Jen's campsite while Alex is away, chopping firewood. After leaving his hatched stuck in a tree trunk, Alex returns to their campsite, where he is both surprised and annoyed to see Brad. Jen tells her boyfriend that she has invited Brad, a tour guide, to have dinner with them. Brad has offered to contribute a hefty string of fish he has caught.

Source: cinemamontreal.com

From the beginning of their encounter, Brad seeks to assert his dominance over Alex. Clearly, Brad is an alpha male, and he expects to lead, not follow, even if only during the meal he shares with his hosts. A skilled woodsman, Brad is confident, competent, knowledgeable, experienced, decisive, and aggressive.

Source: dailymotion.com

During their conversation, Brad suggests that, both as a woodsman and as a man, Alex is insecure, incompetent, ignorant, inexperienced, indecisive, and passive—the opposite of Brad himself. Brad's contribution to their meal are the fish that he himself has caught. Significantly, Jen provides her and Brad's contribution, which they bought in a store. Brad's contribution was caught, live, in the wild. Theirs was purchased in a package, already prepared. Brad's fish are animals; Jen's and Alex's contribution is bloodless vegetables harvested and packaged by strangers. When Jen offers to prepare a vegetable as a side dish, Alex chooses one kind, while Brad selects another. Jen sides with Alex, but Brad orders her to prepare the vegetable he wants, not the one Alex has chosen. Diplomatically, she says she will prepare both. Alex does not challenge Brad; he lets Jen answer their guest, despite Brad's usurpation of Alex's own authority as host.

 Source: fischpott.com

Brad also implicitly insults Brad. When Brad tells him that he plans to start a landscaping business, Brad replies, in a racist statement, that he that thought “Mexicans” did that type of work. On the other hand, Brad admires Jen's profession, law, which is, in Brad's view, superior to the manual labor that Alex names as his intended vocation. Brad has a “manly” profession: he is a tour guide with expert knowledge about the park, its trails, and its flora and fauna, a man at home in the wilderness, who can fend for himself while directing others in his charge.

Brad boldly violates propriety when he stands, his back to Jen and Alex, unzips his fly, and urinates. Most men would not only object to such conduct, but be willing to come to blows with any man who presumed to do such a thing in their girlfriends' presence. Alex neither says nothing to Brad nor reacts violently. He merely looks at Jen in disgust and says something to her: “Really?”

 Powassan, Ontario, Canada. Source: Wikipedia

Brad also impugns Alex's knowledge of the park that Alex claims to know well, asking him which side of the park's waterfall someone should climb down. When Alex correctly answers, “The right side,” Brad smirks. “Good guess,” he says.

Finally, as he is about to depart, Brad asks Alex what he'd meant when Alex had said Jen's inviting him to have dinner with them might have been dangerous. When Alex demurs from answering, Brad insists. Finally, Alex tells him that Jen did not know Brad; Brad had been a stranger. As far as Jen had known, Brad might have been “a nut.” By the time Brad takes his leave, he has dominated, insulted, humiliated, defied both Alex and Jen, but especially Alex. He has also make it clear that, in a hostile or dangerous encounter with nature, he is likely to triumph or, at least, survive; audiences cannot be as certain about Alex's fate under the same circumstances.

The conflict between Alex and Brad further defines Alex, just as his relationship with Jen defines him. In both cases, Alex loses. His traits, or evolved adaptations, might serve him well in other environments, but they are unlikely to help him survive in the wild, no matter how well he thinks he knows the provincial park or the ways of the woods and its wildlife.

Next post: Evolution, Psychology, and Final Girl.

 

Evolution, Psychology, and Horror, Part II

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

Source: Wikiepdia

Note: This post assumes that you have seen the movie Backcountry. If you have not, Wikipedia offers a fairly detailed, accurate summary of the film's plot.

 

As prompts for groups in my English 101 classes, after we had watched Backcountry (2014) and the class had been divided into groups, I would distribute these instructions:

 

Which personality traits (use nouns to identify them) are predicated or dependent upon others? Which are primary and which are secondary? In other words, can an immature person be responsible? Can a cowardly person defend someone else if doing so puts him or her in danger? In developing your thesis, you should consider these questions, so that your claim is not self-contradictory.

Fill in the three blanks with the TRAITS (use nouns to identify them) of Alex’s character that you see as related to his errors of judgment. (Make sure these errors lead to his death and to Jen’s endangerment.) Some of these errors may directly lead to consequences; others may indirectly do so. In your paragraphs, you should distinguish the former from the latter.

THESIS:  Alex’s ______________,   ______________, and ______________ lead him to make many errors of judgment that result in his death and Jen’s endangerment.

Based upon the thesis, write the body paragraph (1, 2, or 3) assigned to your group. The first sentence should be the paragraph’s topic sentence. Use simple present tense.

 

The blanks could be filled in with a variety of traits, but let's use this thesis for the purposes of this post:

 

THESIS:  Alex’s immaturity, self-interest, and impetuosity lead him to make many errors of judgment that result in his death and Jen’s endangerment.

 

If a trait is defined as an evolved adaptation, we must ask, how each of Alex's adaptations, or traits, promotes his survival and the chance that he will generate offspring through reproduction. Since he, in fact, does not survive and, therefore, cannot reproduce, the answer is apparent at once that his adaptations do not "work"; they do not enable him to survive. Quite the contrary, they are, essentially, the death of him—and nearly of Jen. Simple. Lacking the traits that do promote survival, he dies.

His girlfriend is the final girl, who survives their ordeal. Therefore, it is her traits, or adaptations, that we should examine.

In many ways, she is a foil, or opposite, to Alex. We could fill in the thesis's blanks with traits that are the opposite of Alex's own and produce a good summary of some of the adaptations that enable her to survive their ordeal:

 

THESIS:  Jen’s maturity, altruism, and caution lead her to make sound judgments that result in her survival.

 

Another way to approach our consideration is to identify the mistakes that each character makes during their visit to a provincial park in Canada.

 Source: allocine.fr

Let's start with Alex, who makes considerably more mistakes and more serious ones than Jen; as we list his errors, we will also characterize them as springing from poor judgment; an immature desire to impress Jen; inconsideration; deceitfulness; negligence; carelessness; an immature desire to focus Jen's attention on himself; or recklessness.

• He refuses the map of the camp that the ranger offers him: poor judgment; an immature desire to impress Jen. (Jen and Alex become lost and have no guidance out of the woods. His behavior could endanger their lives.)

• He leaves Jen's cell phone in the trunk of their vehicle: poor judgment; an immature desire to focus Jen's attention on himself; deceitfulness. (Without a phone, Alex and Jen have no way to call for help. His behavior could endanger their lives.)

• He neglects tending to his toe after dropping their canoe on it: poor judgment; an immature desire to impress Jen; recklessness. (He could have become incapacitated or died of an infection, so his neglect endangers himself and, possibly, Jen by making her more vulnerable.)

• He removes his clothes and leaps naked into a lake: poor judgment; recklessness. (He could injure himself on a rock in the lake and, without clothes to keep him warm, he could succumb to the cold, endangering his own life and potentially leaving Jen unprotected.)

• He leaves Jen alone to cut firewood: poor judgment. (By herself, she is vulnerable to animal attack or the assault of another camper; thus, he endangers her life.)

• He leaves his hatchet in the trunk of a tree: poor judgment. (He leaves a potential weapon behind, both depriving himself of its use and potentially arming a human predator; he thus endangers both Jen's life and his own.)

• He does not dismiss a stranger (Brad), whom, in Alex's absence, Jen invites to join Alex and her for dinner at their campsite: poor judgment. (The stranger, Brad, who happens upon Jen could be dangerous: he might have raped or killed Jen. His behavior could endanger their lives.)

• Even after learning that Brad is in the park, Alex again leaves Jen alone at their campsite, he leaves Jen alone again to retrieve the hatchet he's left embedded in a tree trunk: poor judgment. (By herself, she is vulnerable to animal attack or the assault of another camper; thus, he endangers her life.)

• He does not turn back when he sees bear prints: poor judgment; recklessness. (His inaction could endanger their lives.)

• He does not ell Jen that there is a bear in the area: poor judgment; deceitfulness. (Jen has bear spray and a traffic flare that they could use against the bear, but she is unaware of its presence. The bear could kill someone. His behavior endangers their lives.)

• He does not investigate noises that Jen hears during their first night in their tent: poor judgment. (His inaction could endanger their lives.)

• He sees a sapling's snapped-off branch, but ignores its significance: poor judgment; recklessness; deceitfulness. (His inaction could endanger their lives.)

• Even after seeing the carcass of a dead deer indicating the presence of a bear—and of a bear that is both starving (bears, otherwise, don't eat meat—and predatory)—Alex refuses to leave the park: poor judgment. (His decision could endanger their lives.)

• He continues to hike, deeper into the forest, even after he realizes he is lost: poor judgment; recklessness. (His action could endanger their lives.)

• He hastens up the trail ahead of Jen, leaving her vulnerable, as they ascend the mountainside: carelessness, inconsideration. (His inconsideration could endanger their lives.)

• Even after the bear visits their campsite, Alex refuses to leave the park: poor judgment; recklessness. (His refusal to leave the park endangers their lives.) 

• Alex leaves his axe outside the tent: carelessness. (He leaves a potential weapon behind, depriving himself of its use, which endangers their lives.)

  

  Source: showbizjunkies.com
   

Jen also makes several mistakes:

• She does not insist that Alex accept a park map from the ranger or accept one herself: poor judgment. (She and Alex could get lost. Her behavior could endanger their lives.)

• In Alex's absence, Jen invites Brad onto their campsite: poor judgment. (Since she does not know Brad, Jen could be endangering her and Alex's lives and could be putting herself in danger of being raped.)

• Jen does not insist that Alex make sure the “acorns” he says are falling on their tent really are acorns: poor judgment. (Her behavior could endanger their lives.)

• Jen does not insist that Alex take her home after she sees evidence of the nearby presence of a bear: poor judgment; recklessness: poor judgment; recklessness. (Her behavior could endanger their lives.)

• Jen returns to their campsite after the bear has killed Alex so she can retrieve the engagement ring he has shown her: poor judgment; recklessness. (Her behavior could endanger her life. lives.)

Source: anthonybehindthescenes.com

It seems that Jen's mistakes stem from her desire to support Alex and to prevent damage to his ego and self-esteem, from her needs to be friendly and to feel liked, and from her love of him.

Although she is a successful lawyer, while he plans to start a landscaping service, she often defers to his judgment and to his needs and desires, rather than pursuing or seeking to advance her own.

Rather than insisting that he accept the map of the park that the ranger offers him, Jen accepts his refusal, probably because she does not want to embarrass Alex by casting doubts on his knowledge of the park.

She invites Brad to join Alex and her because she is a friendly person.

Alex professes to be an expert on hiking and camping, especially at the park, which he implies he knows well. Jen probably refrains from insisting that Alex check out the unfamiliar sounds she hears while she and Alex are in their tent for the same reason that she does not insist that he take a map from the ranger: she does not want to embarrass Alex by casting doubts on his knowledge of the park.

It seems that, when it becomes clear they are, without doubt, lost, Jen does not insist that Alex take her home after she sees evidence of the nearby presence of a bear because she does she has feelings for him and may feel sorry for him. Likewise, after Alex's death, she returns to their campsite, despite the bear's presence, so that she can retrieve the engagement ring he has shown her, because she has feelings for Alex and wants a memento of his love for her.

Although Jen, like Alex, makes mistakes in judgment when she is with Alex, she is not a woodman and the couple's survival is not primarily her responsibility. In addition, she is not deceitful toward Alex, as he is to her.

When she is alone, after Alex's death, her decisions are wise, allowing her to survive the bear and the wilderness. The fact that she makes no mistakes when she is alone suggests that her romantic relationship with Alex clouded her judgment; without him, she makes clear, rational, wise decisions and takes prudent, effective action, which enables her to survive.

In adapting to his environment, Alex has developed traits which serve his emotional needs, but he lacks adaptations that pertain to practical, everyday matters, including traits related to analysis, evaluation, and survival. He is overconfident. He seeks to impress others, especially Jen. He wants to be the sole focus of Jen's attention. He is deceitful, often hiding the truth from Jen regarding their situation and the danger they face. He is careless at times and reckless. He is immature. He is irresponsible.

In a different environment, such as Jen's house or the city, such traits might not fail him, because his survival is protected by institutions (art and culture, commercial and industrial enterprises, economic systems, family, friends, government, hospitals, language, legal systems, mass media, military forces, penal systems, schools, scientific research laboratories, religion); organizations, such as charities, emergency responders, and fraternal societies; an infrastructure (energy, highways, railroads, rivers, warehouses).

Jen, on the other hand, although not without flaws of her own, is cautious, mature, responsible, and resourceful. She is a thinker; she analyzes, evaluates, and plans.
In the city, society has individuals' backs. In the wilderness, individuals need to be able to take care of themselves. Those who can, as Jen does, are likely to survive; those who cannot, as Alex does not, will probably die.

By putting to opposite characters side by side in an environment different that their typical surroundings, Backcountry tests the effectiveness of the respective characters' evolved adaptations. The unfamiliar surroundings, the remoteness of the park, the rugged terrain, the stranger Brad, and, of course, the bear all pose threats or potential threats; each tests the evolved adaptations, or the traits, and the behaviors of the couple. One perishes; the other survives. The reason for one's failure and the other's success is that Jen had evolved adaptations that are effective for survival in the wilderness, whereas Alex has not. Without the support of society, civilization, and culture, Alex cannot survive and dies; Jen can and lives. The park is an environment, an arena, a laboratory, that puts traits to the test. Jen passes, but Alex receives the Darwin Award.

Source:  alenatedinvancouver.blogspot,com

Next post: Evolution, Psychology, and Horror, Part II

"Backcountry": A Study in the Causes and Consquences of Poor Judgments

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

 

In Backcountry, in Powassan, Ontario, and Caddy Lake, Manitoba, Alex convinces his girlfriend Jenn to go camping with him in one of Canada's remote provincial parks. She's a lawyer, while he's a landscaper. He believes his expertise as a woodsman will allow him to shine once he's in his element, and he wants to impress her, because he plans to pop the question while they're on their trip. Nothing goes as he'd hoped, and, despite his rudimentary skills as a woodsman—he can pitch a tent, chop wood, start a fire, and read sign—it's soon clear he's in over his head. In fact, once she's forced to fend for herself, Jenn, ironically, proves herself to be more competent than Alex, whose vanity, eagerness to impress Jenn at any cost, and minimal woodcraft, led him to make a series of poor judgments that, if it were not for their catastrophic consequences, might have made the film a comedy. He makes at least a dozen serious errors in judgment:

He refuses a ranger's offer of a park map. He's been to the park so many times, he says, he has no need of a map. As a result, when he later becomes lost, he and Jenn have no guidance out of the forest.

Annoyed that Jenn returns telephone calls during their trip to the park, Alex removes her cell phone from her backpack, leaving it behind, in the trunk of his car. Once the couple becomes lost, they have no way to call for help.

He leaves Jenn alone when he goes to chop wood for their campfire. In his absence, a stranger, Brad, happens upon Jenn. As Alex himself later points out, both to Jenn and to Brad, Brad could have been a dangerous “nut” who might have raped or killed Jenn. Despite this realization, Alex again leaves Jenn alone when he goes to retrieve the hatchet he left in the side of a tree at the site at which he'd chopped the wood.

When he spies a bear print, Alex doesn't share this sign with Jenn. Jenn has bear spray and a traffic flare that they could use against the bear, but she is unaware of its presence. The bear could (and, later, does) kill someone.

Although he is uncertain of the correct path to the lake, Alex continues their trek through the forest, despite his not having a map, a cell phone, or a weapon (other than, perhaps, his hatchet).

During the night, Jenn hears mysterious sounds. Without investigating, Alex tells Jenn she's hearing nothing more than acorns falling from the trees, onto their tent. He may believe the sounds are the effects of falling acorns, as he says, or he may not want Jenn to think the sounds are caused by a bear, whether to keep her from being afraid or to prevent her from wanting to leave, in which case he is also being deceitful.

After hearing the sounds of what be a bear, instead of falling acorns, Alex refuses to leave the park.

After seeing a broken tree branch indicative of a bear's nearby presence, Alex refuses to leave the park.

After seeing the carcass of a dead deer indicating the presence of a bear—and of a bear that is both starving (bears, otherwise, don't eat meat—and predatory)—Alex refuses to leave the park.

Even after the bear visits their campsite, Alex refuses to leave the park.

Early in the movie, Alex injures himself by dropping the canoe in which he and Jenn arrive at their initial campsite on his foot. He doesn't tend to the injury for over a day, by which time his sock is soaked in his blood. He hangs the sock in a tree, and the blood attracts a hungry black bear.

Alex leaves his hatchet outside the couple's tent. Had he brought the hatchet inside the tent, he would have had a weapon with which to fight off the attacking bear; without it, he has nothing but his hands and feet.

Jenn also makes several errors in judgment. She is mindful of Alex's need to assert his masculinity and defers to his wishes and judgments, which, under other circumstances, might not have life-and-death significance; in the wilds of the Canadian park they visit, such deference can, and does, have such consequences. These are the more significant errors in judgment Jenn makes:

She does not insist that Alex accept a park map from the ranger or accept one herself.

In Alex's absence, Jenn invites Brad into their campsite.

She does not insist that Alex make sure the “acorns” he says are falling on their tent really are acorns.

She does not insist that Alex take her home after she sees evidence of the nearby presence of a bear.

She returns to their campsite after the bear has killed Alex so she can retrieve the engagement ring he has shown her.

Although Jenn, like Alex, makes mistakes in judgment, she is not a woodman and the couple's survival is not primarily her responsibility. In addition, she is not deceitful toward Alex, as he is to her. When she is alone, after Alex's death, her decisions are wise, allowing her to survive the bear and the wilderness.

Despite these mistakes, Jenn also makes wise decisions, even in the face of danger and under the pressure of stress:

She has the presence of mind to use her bear spray and her whistle to twice frighten off the bear before it can attack her.

She bathes her right arm, which was injured in the bear attack, and bandages it.

She sleeps in the fork of a tree's high branches.

She uses her flare to signal for help.

She recalls Alex's advice about eating spearmint berries and Brad's counsel that hikers should climb down the right, not the left, side of the park's waterfall.

She follows a buck, hoping it will lead her to water or out of the forest. The animal leads her to the waterfall.

She makes a splint and sets the leg she breaks in a fall during her descent of the cliff beside the waterfall.

Despite her amateur status as a woodsman, Jenn is more successful in navigating the forest and escaping the bear than Alex had been. His decisions endangered their lives. Some of hers did as well, although most of them helped her to survive her ordeal.

The movie does a good job of depicting the consequences of the characters' respective behaviors, suggesting that what one does results from his or her character no less than his or her motives.

Alex wants to impress Jenn, but he wants to do so because of his own insecurities. He feels inferior to her, because, in the everyday world in which they live the majority of the time, she, as a lawyer, occupies a position of greater status that he has as a landscaper.

Although she frequently defers to him and is eager, most of the time, to support his sense of himself and to shore up any doubts he may have of his masculinity or personal worth, she seems ambiguous about these aspects of his character. When she loses her temper after they become lost in the park, she says she wants to speak honestly to him “for once,” calling him a “loser” who always manages to mishandle or otherwise botch “everything.”

Alex also seems to care less about Jenn than he does about his own fragile self-image. He often rushes up and down the trail, leaving Jenn in his wake to fend for herself in the rough terrain, among tree branches, logs, brambles, and other obstacles. Even after he knows that a dangerous bear is following them and lurks in the vicinity of their campsites, he continues, without regard for his safety of her own, to proceed on their misguided journey, endangering their lives. In preparing for their trip, he took no precautions, failing to bring bear spray, a whistle, or a rifle.

In his mind, he is too macho to need such provisions or to heed the danger signs he sees in the forest. His poor judgment, however, is no match for the starving bear. The animal's ripping and tearing him apart, which is shown in grisly detail, is proof that he is no match for nature. In trying to impress Jenn by proving his manhood, Alex endangers both his life and hers.

At the beginning of the movie, as they are driving to the remote park, Jenn gives Alex a multiple-choice “boyfriend test” published in an issue of a women's magazine she's brought with her. Many of the items deal with consideration. Alex fails the test miserably, suggesting he isn't considerate at all of Jenn. He cares more about himself than he does her. Although he dies protecting her, giving her an opportunity to escape, it is he who, through his own insecurities and poor judgments, put her—and himself—in such a dire situation to begin with. As the test predicted, Alex was poor boyfriend material. Chances are, he'd have been poor marriage material as well. Jenn was lucky to survive the bear, as she was lucky to survive Alex.

Guest Speaker: Robert Bloch

Poe & Lovecraft

Robert Bloch, author of Psycho

Comparisons between Edgar Allan Poe and Howard Phillips Lovecraft are, I suppose, inevitable; seemingly, in recent years they are also interminable.

I shall not, therefore, repeat the usual recital of similarities to be found within their work--there will be no mention of black cats, revenants, or Antarctic settings per se.

But at the same time I have no intention of making a calculated bid for attention by deliberately asserting, as some have also declared, that no real resemblance exists aside from superficial employment of stock characters and themes common to virtually all stories in the genre.

To me, this is an untenable statement: Lovecraft, like every writer of fantasy and horror fiction subsequent to Poe, was necessarily influenced by the work of his predecessor--and to certain extent his work needs must be derivative in some slight sense. Actually, Lovecraft's homage to Poe in his essay "Supernatural Horror In Literature," indicates a degree of appreciation and admiration which leaves no doubt as to the profound impression made upon him by the earlier master.

But to me the most fruitful area of comparison lies within an examination of the backgrounds and personalities of the writers themselves.

Consider the facts. Both Poe and Lovecraft were New England born. Both were, to all intents and purposes, fatherless at an early age. Both developed a lifelong affinity for poetry and the elements of a classical education. Both utilized archaisms in their writing styles and affected personal eccentricities which in time became consciously cultivated.

Although Poe spent a part of his youth in England and traveled along the Atlantic seaboard in later life--and while Lovecraft ventured up into Canada and down into Florida on vacations a few years prior to his death--neither man ever ventured west of the Alleghenies. Lovecraft, on one occasion, did skirt them to visit E. Hoffman Price briefly in his New Orleans home, but essentially he and Poe were Easterners. Their outlook was, to a marked degree, provincial; even parochial.

Both men distrusted "foreigners" in the mass: both retained a profound admiration for the English. These attitudes are plainly evident in their work, which is many particulars removed and remote form the main current of American life.

A reader attempting to capture some glimpse of the United States in the 1830-1850 period would gain small enlightenment from the poetry and fiction of Poe.

At a time when the entire nation was engaged in a westward thrust, beginning with the peregrinations of the mountain men and ending with the Gold Rush in the year of Poe's death, one searches in vain for a wet which does not seemingly even exist in his literary compass.

Byronic heroes sequestered in British and continental locales scarcely reflect the American attitudes or aptitudes in the era of Old Hickory, Davy Crockett, the fall of the Alamo, the Mexican War and the growing turmoil over slavery.

Nor would a reader find more typically American protagonists amongst the pendants, professors and regionally-oriented recluses of Lovecraft's tales, in which there's scarcely a hint of the manners and mores of the Roaring Twenties or the Great Depression which followed in the ensuing decade. Aside from a few remarks regarding the influx of immigrants and concomitant destruction of old folkways and landmarks, plus brief mentions of the (intellectually) "wild" college set, Lovecraft ignores the post WW1 Jazz Age in its entirety: Coolidge, Hoover, FDR, Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, Al Capone, Valentino, Mencken and the prototypes of Babbit have no existence in HPL's realm. It is difficult to believe that Howard Phillips Lovecraft was a literary contemporary of Ernest Hemingway.

And yet a further comparison between Lovecraft and Poe remains; one of profound importance in any consideration of their work, because it softens any charge that two writers were totally unaware of the actual world and unrealistic in their treatment of their times.

I refer, of course, to their mutual interest in science. Both Poe and Lovecraft were acute observers of the scientific and pseudo-scientific developments of their respective days, and both men utilized thee latest theories and discoveries in their writing. It is only necessary to cite Poe's use of mesmerism, his employment of the balloon hoax, his detailing of data in the Arthur Gordon Pym novella, to prove the point.

Lovecraft, for his part, relies on scientific background material in his Pym-like At the Mountains of Madness, "The Shadow Out of Time" and other efforts; notable is his immediate adoption of the newly discovered "ninth planet" in "The Whisperer in Darkness."

Lovecraft's interest in astronomy undoubtedly led to his increasing interest in other fields of scientific endeavor, just as Poe's early experiences at West Point must have fostered his preoccupation with codes an ciphers. And both men, as professional writers, were well and widely-read in the contemporary work of their day: Poe as a working critic, demonstrates his knowledge in his nonfictional efforts and Lovecraft, in his correspondence, proves himself no stranger to Proust, Joyce, Spengler and Freud.

But the point is that Poe and Lovecraft deliberately chose to turn their backs on contemporary styles and subject-matter and created their own individual worlds of fantasy. In this above all else they were similar.

And in this, above all else, we readers of Poe and Lovecraft are fortunate indeed.

We shall never know, and never care, what Edgar Allan Poe thought of Andy Jackson's "kitchen cabinet" or how H. P. Lovecraft regarded the Teapot Dome scandal. Small loss, when both have given us glimpses of worlds peculiarly and provocatively their very own.

For the final similarity is this--Poe and Lovecraft are our two American geniuses of fantasy, comparable each to the other, but incomparably superior to all the rest who follow in their wake.

This article was first published in Ambrosia #2 (August, 1973), © 1973 Alan Gullette and Robert Bloch. It was subsequently revised slightly by the author and reprinted in H.P. Lovecraft: Four Decades of Criticism, ed. S. T. Joshi (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1980), pp. 158-160, © 1980 Ohio University Press.