The Heart of Horror

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

In previous posts, we have provided not only a justification for horror fiction but also several ideas as to its value beyond that of entertainment per se. This post discusses a similar, but broader, topic in an attempt to offer, if not the answer, at least an answer to the question of what is at the heart of fiction in general (and, consequently, of horror fiction in particular).

The answer--or an answer, at any rate--is mystery.

Mystery not in the sense that writers of mystery and detective fiction use it, but mystery in the sense that philosophers, theologians, and mystics use it. In this sense, mystery touches upon meaning and, if one sees teleology in the workings of the universe, probably, upon purpose, both of which (meaning and purpose) touch, in turn, upon value.

For some, life is invested with meaning by the creator, and this meaning is infinite and eternal. For others, life has no meaning but that which each individual imparts to his or her existence. For these folks--existentialists, for the most part--this meaning is not only finite and temporal, but it is also elusive. For others still--the absurdists, we may call them--life has no meaning. It is nothing more than a cosmic accident in which blind chance, rather than God’s will or personal choice, determines what becomes of all persons, places, and things.

Like any other genre of literature, horror is adaptable to any of these points of view, depending upon the writer’s worldview and that which his narrator adopts. Because it is so adaptable to even something as fundamental as one’s Weltanschauung, literature, horror fiction included, can address the widest array of natural, social, historical, psychological, philosophical, and theological considerations. There is room in the inn for all.

No single book, whether of science, sociology, history, psychology, philosophy, religion, or theology, can give a definitive answer to the great questions of human existence to which all will agree. Literature, however, is not this book or that book, but all books (and movies, too, for that matter). It is not only the stream of human consciousness, but the sea of knowledge and the mountaintops of wisdom and understanding as well--and the depths of the unconscious mind and the pathways to the stars. Literature is a telescope, a microscope, and a looking-glass, all in one. It is a catalogue of visions, complete with themes, or lessons, or morals.

In one story, a man may come to believe in God. In other, a man of God may lose his faith. A story may recount a knight in search of the Holy Grail, the chalice being a symbol for faith or, perhaps, for only the will to believe. A story may explain--or seek to explain--why there is no God or to show that the only gods that exist are the ones we make in our own images.

That’s what the mystery comes to, in the end. God is at the center, or, alternatively, nothing is at the center, of life. If God, he gives to existence the meaning he decrees it shall have. If nothing, either we impose meaning upon the world and upon ourselves or there is no meaning.

Horror fiction doesn’t solve the mystery of existence, nor does it demonstrate the purpose or value of life, any more than any other literary genre does. Thank God or goodness! For, if the mystery were solved, what would there be to write about? The wonder, the awe, the possibilities of existence would end. The stories would become The Story, advancing not another way of seeing or thinking or believing or hoping but simply another reiteration of the constant, unvarying refrain, and a refrain, beautiful and informative though it may be, is not a story.

How does the mystery of existence pertain, specifically, to horror fiction?

This genre addresses itself to the dark side of life, to evil and suffering, to what the Bible has called “the mystery of iniquity.” Evil is as mysterious, in its way, as life itself, for there seems to be no need for evil and no desire for it, among the normal and the sane, at least, and, yet, it exists; it persists. No one knows what to make of it. The ancients thought that it was either the result of ignorance or the result of merely negating the good. In other words, it was an act of the uneducated or it was a sin of omission. Evil was a passive phenomenon, in such conceptions, unable to do much by itself. History has since taught humanity a different lesson, not only with the holocaust, although the holocaust of itself might be a sufficient lesson--and is a sufficient lesson to those who are neither stupid nor of ill will toward others. Therefore, the question remains, Why is there such a thing as evil, and why does it persist?

Horror considers just such a mystery--“the mystery of iniquity”--and the great among its many authors have given, each his or her own, answer. None is definitive, but each is, as it were, a part of the gigantic jigsaw puzzle that is the heart of horror. In “Evil Is As Evil Does,” we mention the thoughts--or the conclusions--upon this matter of several masters of horror fiction. Is the search for the answer--or even an answer--to the question as to why evil exists itself a fruitful or a fruitless quest? The answer to this question must be answered by each individual, but we have suggested our own view concerning this question in the post “Chillers and Thrillers: The Fiction of Fear.”

In this post, we are satisfied to conclude with just a syllogism, the validity of which is to be determined as you see fit:

All phenomena have a cause or causes.
Evil is a phenomenon.
Therefore, evil has a cause or causes.

Everyday Horrors: Forensic Etomology and Putrefaction

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

In the movie Ed Gein, the protagonist (one can’t really call Ed a “hero”) disgusts everyone else at the table of the family who’s invited him to dinner by explaining the phenomenon known as slippage, which is, basically, the flaking or sloughing off of skin from the cadaver as a result of the unimpeded activity of bacteria on the skin.

Scientists don't generally have the same sort of first-hand experience as Ed had, so, to investigate the rate of decomposition under various circumstances, they operate body farms in a number of states. On such farms, corpses are buried in different types of soil or half buried or left fully exposed to the elements so as to demonstrate the time that it takes for various states of decay to occur. Insect infestation of the corpse (known as the “colonization” of the body) is also studied (a field, should you or your children or grandchildren be interested in joining its ranks) which is known as forensic etomology.

According to the experts in this discipline, blowflies are the first to take an interest in the remains, arriving “within minutes of death.” Opportunists, these flies deposit their eggs in wounds and body orifices and cavities, including the dearly departed one’s eyes, nose, and mouth. Within three days, these eggs hatch into maggots, which feed upon the body’s banquet of “soft tissues.” Forensic etomologists use these insects as timepieces to determine the time of death, as “Forensic Etomology” points out:

Since each Calliphorid species has a characteristic temperature-dependent growth rate, the larvae can be regarded as a biological stopwatch that starts ticking shortly after the victim dies. Forensic entomologists learn to read this stopwatch by determining which insect species are present and how far they have progressed toward adulthood. With good records of ambient temperature, the post-mortem interval (time elapsed since death) can be calculated to within a few hours, even when death may have occurred 2-3 weeks previously.

Moreover, although neither blowflies nor their maggoty offspring are likely to have graduated from the Harvard School of Medicine, they can also tell scientists a thing or two about wounds and toxicology and offer even detectives a clue or two about whether the body was ambulatory--hopefully not under its own power--after its demise:

In addition to post-mortem interval, fly larvae can also reveal other important information about a crime:

1. Wounds--blow fly larvae cannot penetrate undamaged skin. An infestation inside the chest or abdomen would suggest the possibility of a bullet hole or a stab wound.
2. Movement--Since local conditions (e.g. sun or shade, urban or rural) affect which species will colonize a corpse, it may be possible to determine whether or not a body has been moved since its death.
3. Toxicology--drugs or toxins from a corpse may be detectable in fly larvae even after the body tissues are too decomposed for standard toxicological tests (“Forensic Etomology”).

(Those who, in the interest of countering the problem of evil, take note: some insects, at least, maybe were put here as a result of intelligent design, serving a useful purpose.)

As the body continues to decompose, it puts on a spread for other insects with different, if not more discerning palates: “As a body continues to decay, it goes through successive stages of decomposition. Each stage is associated with a distinctive type of insect fauna.”

The body bloats from the gases that build up inside it as a result of the bacteria that are feasting upon its “moribund tissues,” until the maggots, penetrating “body cavities. . . release the gas,” in three to five days, after which “maggots, flies, ants, and carrion beetles are abundant.” Once they have stripped most of the flesh from the bones, slippage is no longer a problem, as decay really sets in, and, although “the insect fauna becomes fewer in number but there is greater species diversity: carpet beetles, ants, skipper flies, and mites are common,” at least until the body dries and “becomes skeleton zed,” after which only “ants an mites” remain as tenants, residing in the bones for another two to three years.

Other factors, such as temperature, weather, humidity, and quicklime (if it happens to be present) speed or slow the rate of decay, but, in general, on the average, for those of you who are writing a horror story or a detective story, here’s a handy, of not dandy, timeline chronicling the stages (fresh, putrefaction, black putrefaction, butyric fermentation, and skeletonization) and time intervals of decay (“Decomposition“):

1. Fresh: the body cools to room temperature, allowing bacteria to digest carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids. Insects are first attracted to the remains
   (“Decomposition”). Within a few hours of death, rigor mortis sets in, lasting about four days (Bellows).(First few days after death) “Decomposition”).
2. Putrefaction: the body turns green as bacteria break down hemoglobin. Gases expel urine, other liquids, and feces from the body, and the mouth, lips, and tongue swell (Decomposition”). The abdomen and groin also swell (Bellows). The veins marbleize, red streaks along the vessels being succeeded by green streaks as bacteria cause the blood to hemolyze (“Decomposition”). Slippage occurs, and “over several days the spongy brain will liquefy and leak from the ears and mouth, while blisters form on the skin which eventually evolve into large, peeling sheets. Often the skin from the hand will slough off in one piece, an effect known as gloving” (Bellows). The green color darkens to brown. (First 10 days after death) (“Decomposition”).
3. Black putrefaction: if “post-mortem flatulence” isn’t sufficient to release the gases inside the cadaver, the body cavity ruptures, releasing pent-up gases, and the corpse darkens further. Insects colonize the corpse (Bellows). This stage ends when the bones become apparent. (10 to 20 days after death) (“Decomposition”).
4. Butyric fermentation: the body mummifies, drying out and loses its odor as adipocerous, or “grave wax,” a cheesy substance forms on the body. Insect activity has disposed of the internal organs (“Decomposition”).
5. Skeletalization: this final period of decomposition may last years (“Decomposition”).

Sources cited:

Bellows, Allan. "The Remains of Doctor Bass." Damn Interesting 290102007 260042008 http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=924.

"Decomposition." Wikipedia. 2008. Wikipedia Foundation, Inc.. 26 Apr 2008.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decomposition

Meyer, John R.. "Forensic Entomology." General Entomology. 210012007. North Carolina State University. 26 Apr 2008 http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/course/ent425/text01/forensic.html.

“Everyday Horrors: Forensic Etomology and Putrefaction” is part of the series of “everyday horrors” that will be featured in Chillers and Thrillers: The Fiction of Fear. These “everyday horrors” continue, in many cases, to appear in horror fiction, literary, cinematographic, and otherwise.

Horror Fiction and the Problem of Evil

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

One of the arguments for God’s existence is the teleological argument (also known as the argument from design), which claims that the intricate design evident in the universe, from the microscopic to the cosmic levels, is proof that an omniscient and omnipotent God has created the universe. In other words, the order, purpose, and design that is obvious in nature shows that the universe is of a divine origin. This argument holds that the complexity, interrelatedness, and purposefulness of the universe could not have occurred as a result of chance or accident.

Among the counterarguments to the teleological argument is one that is known as “the problem of evil.” Observation shows that some incidents or conditions serve no discernable benefit but, instead, cause apparently unnecessary suffering. Examples are the suffering of animals, an infant with a birth defect, a toddler struck with cancer, an adult blinded or deafened or disfigured as a result of a natural catastrophe such as a fire, an earthquake, or a tornado. The problem of evil challenges the idea that a loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God has created the universe, for if he knows all and can do anything, how could he, if he is also loving, permit such evils as suffering animals, birth defects, diseases, and natural catastrophes?

Horror fiction is a means of exploring this philosophical problem. Although, like philosophy and theology, this genre of literature does not offer any definitive answer to the question, it does suggest some partial answers and is a concrete way of demonstrating, or dramatizing, these answers.

As we pointed out in another post, “Evil Is As Evil Does,” various writers in the horror genre have attributed evil to various origins, Nathaniel Hawthorne ascribing it to sin; Edgar Allan Poe, to passion coupled with madness; H. P. Lovecraft, to cosmic indifference to humanity; Dean Koontz, to humanity’s indifference to humanity; Stephen King, to threats to the local community; and Bentley Little, to bureaucratic and administrative indifference to individuals.

Some of these writers see evil as a consequence of individuals’ exercise of free will, whether individually or collectively (sins of commission), in part, at least, whereas others see evil as an effect of indifference, either by humanity to humanity (a sin of omission) or by virtue of humanity’s existence within a universe that is indifferent to it.

Of these writers, Lovecraft seems closest in his analysis of evil to the view of the universe that is implicit in the problem of evil. Lovecraft was an atheist. Had he been religious, he might have been, at most, a pantheist or a Deist. His understanding of a morally indifferent universe, however, would not have permitted him to be a Christian--or, at least, not in the traditional sense. For him, the idea of a personal, loving God who is active in human affairs would have been philosophically untenable. If free will is disallowed as the cause of all human suffering, one must admit culpability at the divine level, if one believes in a personal God. Either God is not loving (or he is actually sadistic), or he is neither all-knowing nor all-powerful. Otherwise, the existence of evil seems inexplicable.

Other corollaries also follow. For example, the teleological aspect of creation becomes potentially problematic. If God is too limited in either knowledge or power, or if he is not a God of love, there is no guarantee that the story of life, or the unfolding of the universe, so to speak, will work out as he has anticipated. Things may get out of hand.

Before Christianity, pagan religion posited a power above and beyond, or transcendent to, the gods. Even Zeus or Jupiter or Odin was subject to the power of the Moirae, the Parcae, or the Norns (that is, the Fates). To paraphrase Alexander Pope, the gods proposed, but the Fates disposed. It was only in Judaism and Christianity that God’s will became what is the equivalent of fate, and predestination entered the logic of theology. In Lovecraft’s world view, fate is equivalent not with God’s will but with blind chance. The universe is a great roll of the dice, and any notion of purpose or meaning is merely an illusion. The universe is indifferent to humanity.

Religious thinkers have offered refutations of the problem of evil, arguing that suffering builds character, that suffering is a result of the exercise of free will (making wrong choices), that suffering is a consequence of knowledge, and that evil happens when individuals do not act in accordance with natural laws.

Neither the argument from design nor the problem of evil is convincing to everyone, and the debate that is based upon the issues these arguments expound is likely to continue to engage both the faithful and the agnostic or atheist. Meanwhile, such writers as those we’ve mentioned (and many others whom we did not cite) will continue to explore both sides of the question. In the process, they will offer more ideas in defense of teleology and more ideas against teleology. In the process, the readers of horror fiction will continue to better understand and appreciate both the possibility of purposeful events and of the meaning, if any, of evil and human suffering.

Horror Art: Attraction and Captivation

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

A magazine artist’s task is to sell the magazine. The primary sense is vision, followed either by touch or hearing, and, of course, visual arts appeal to sight. Their images attract and captivate. There are many reasons that they do so, such as the artist’s use of intensity, color, shape, size, line, space, and a host of other principles and techniques. Not one of the least of these techniques--and the subject of this post--is the artist’s use of the incongruous, the incompatible, the inconsistent, the inappropriate, the absurd, the odd, the strange, the bizarre, the mismatched, the contradictory, the abnormal, the peculiar, the unusual, the anomalous, the fantastic, the irregular, the atypical, the uncharacteristic, the improbable, the unusual, and, of course, the horrible.

In an earlier post, “The Horror of the Incongruous,” we suggested that one of the reasons that horror fiction appeals to readers is that it represents a catalogue of the damned--of phenomena and incidents that fall outside the known, the understood, and the accepted.

We like our world to be neat and tidy. Therefore, we create categories, labeling them according to their contents, and thus, in a neat and tidy manner, classify and divide our world. This classification and division of our collective human experience we (rather arrogantly) call “reality.” Anything that doesn’t fit our schema is damned as “illusory” or “fantastic.” (In The Book of the Damned, Charles Fort explains the way in which data that don’t fit the neat and tidy schema of the sciences is “damned” by their practitioners.) If we designate the categories of human experience “the applecart of reality,” horror fiction, we may say, upsets this applecart. It makes us suppose, as Hamlet was bold enough to assert, “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in. . . [our] philosophy.”

We like to think that we know it all, because omniscience puts us in control of our lives and our destinies, enabling us to be the masters of our own fate. Horror fiction, by acquainting us with shadows, suggests that we are not yet fully the illuminati we long to be. Therefore, we are not as fully in control as we would like to be. We are dependent upon forces and powers--and--perhaps, beings--unknown as well as known that are far stronger than we. What’s worse, according to horror fiction, not all of these forces and entities are benign and benevolent; some are hostile and lethal. In short, the bogeyman is real, and he’s far more powerful than you and me--and he’s not only after us, as Stephen King has reminded his fans, but he’s gaining on us.

Since horror fiction pops the balloon of human pomposity, it’s iconoclastic (and, one might add, realistic).

But wait a minute. I thought this post was about horror art, you might be thinking. Well, literature is art, of course, but, by “art,” perhaps you were thinking visual art--drawings, paintings, and the like.

So was I.

However, to talk about visual art that depicts horror themes and images (in order, let us remember, to sell horror fiction), one must first understand what is at the root of all evil (or, at least, horror’s dramatization of evil and its consequences and how such evil may, at times, at least, be vanquished--for a time, at least). In horror fiction, the wickedness, like the horror that it produces, often derives from this uneasy sense that all may not be as neat and tidy with the world as we thought and that “reality” may not be itself all that real.

What attracts--what appeals to--one person may not attract or appeal to another, for we all have out own interests and tastes. Therefore, this post can address only certain art that has attracted and appealed to its author, yours truly. In discussing those artists’ work that I do address, I have chosen from among illustrators and painters who have worked largely, if not exclusively, in the horror genre or who have illustrated mostly the fiction of horror writers, and I have excluded computer graphics in an old-fashioned preference for pen and ink or oils.

Specifically (in this post, at least), I am considering Margaret Brundage and Virgil Finlay. (The art of Rene Magritte and H. R. Giger is considered in other posts.) Alas, even with such a small sample, I am considering only one work by each. Otherwise, this post would be a book unto itself.

Art by Margaret Brundage

Okay, Margaret Brundage, then.

Her work features scantily clad women threatened by hideous monsters--a staple theme of early horror fiction in which scantily clad women were deemed irresistible not only to all red-blooded men but also to all monsters, regardless of the color of their blood. (Think The Creature from the Black Lagoon or King Kong or even Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.)

Author L. Sprague de Camp summarizes her work’s theme as depicting “naked heroines being tortured, raped, and disemboweled,” and Forrest J. Ackerman describes her art as portraying “titillating pulchrinudes” of “naked ladies being sacrificed, semi-clad heroines being menaced by all manner of monstrous beings.”

In cover after cover of Weird Tales, Brundage reiterated this theme, seldom painting much else. In her artwork, men don’t have to compete merely with other men for the captivating women whom Brundage depicts, but they must also compete with such monstrous rivals as black gods (or their oversize idols, at any rate), shadow people, witches, and decapitated skulls. A woman’s virginity, in the late 1930’s and the 1940’s and 1950’s, was a commodity that needed to be protected from and defended against the various monsters (symbolic of rapists and lesbian seductresses) who threatened it, Brundage’s art implies, offering, at the same time, both a chance for a bit of voyeuristic ogling and sexual fantasies that stopped just short, presumably, of the rape that the images imagined as real threats, allowing virtuous adolescent readers--who tended, by far, to be males--to become the champions of these ladies in distress.

Every boy (and even a few lesbian seductresses) might be a potential rapist, her art suggested, but they can also choose to be a Sir Galahad and protect and defend a lady’s virtue. If they chose the former course, the result would be horrible, indeed, but, if they chose the latter course, the result would be chivalrous. Sex was no more horrible, in itself, than temptation; the horror lay in the choice that a boy made in relation to sex and the temptation that scantily clad women posed. The adolescent reader of the Weird Tales that Brundage illustrated could be saint or sinner or, in the parlance of horror fiction, the hero or the monster. As with so many other choices that confront a boy, the decision that he makes with regard to sexual temptations is an intersection of sorts, between good and evil, right and wrong, heroism and horror.

Art by Virgil Finlay

Next, Virgil Finlay.

His art is executed in clear, fine lines and with sharp contrasts between light and dark shapes and spaces. He also devotes much space to stippling and crosshatching to add shades, shadows, and borders. His art, much of which adorned the cover of Weird Tales, contains more than a few scantily clad, or even nude, feminine figures. However, his women are not potential rape victims. Instead, they are enchanting enchantresses or sexy sorceresses or mystical maidens. More varied than Brundage’s art, Finlay’s work is known more for his technique than for its theme. It is the quality of his work that attracts the eye more than its theme per se, although, since he often illustrated horror, many of his pieces depict images typical of the genre: disembodied eyes, fantastic landscapes, skeletal or demonic figures, skulls, giants, sword and sorcery themes, mystical and magical phenomena, scantily clad women, and blood and gore--just what the largely male adolescent readers of Weird Tales enjoyed.

Art by Frank Frazetta

Theme and technique in the service of metaphor is a good, albeit basic, description, if not definition, of art, visual, literary, and otherwise. In some artists’ work, such as that of Brundage, theme is dominant over technique, whereas, in other artists’ work, such as that of Finlay, theme is second to technique. A literary parallel is H. P. Lovecraft’s stories, which tend to emphasize theme over technique, as opposed to the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, which emphasizes technique over theme. As both Brundage’s and Lovecraft’s work, on one hand, and Finlay’s and Poe’s, on the other hand, indicate, both theme and technique are sufficient, even of themselves, to attract and captivate an audience’s interest. On occasion, as in the art of Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, or Julie Bell (or Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, or William Faulkner), both theme and technique both attract and captivate--rather like Dracula’s daughter or the sirens of old.

For those who might enjoy pursuing their own research of other artists who have been pleased to depict horrors imaginable, if not unimaginable, other artists who have made a comfortable living illustrating Weird Tales and other magazines or individual works within the genre include:

• Margaret Brundage
• Hugh Rankin
• Virgil Finlay
• J. K. Potter
• Frazier Irving
• Steven Stahlberg
• Hannes Bok
• Jason Beam
• J. Allan St. John
• C. C. Senf
• Lee Brown Coye
• Frank Frazetta
• Boris Vallejo
• Julie Bell

We may take up a few others in future posts.