Constructing Fear. Cosmic Indifference and Literary Strategies in H. P. Lovecraft's Fiction

This following study focusses on two of Lovecraft’s most conceptually rich and formally distinct stories: "The Call of Cthulhu" (1926) and "The Colour out of Space" (1927). While both are ideal examples of his vision of a universe governed by cosmic indifference, they contrast in structure, setting, and narrative technique. The narrative of "The Call of Cthulhu" is characterized by a multi-layered collection of fragmented reports and testimonies which sketch the discovery of a reality that is impossible to comprehend. "The Colour out of Space", by contrast, leads the reader through the slow erosion of perception and coherence within a rural landscape, where horror manifests as an all-surrounding force. In both texts, fear is enacted through narrative form, structural disintegration, linguistic failure, and the gradual collapse of meaning.

The chosen investigative focus will lay on how H. P. Lovecraft narratively constructs cosmic indifference, and to what extent this method can be understood as a literary representation of Naturalist and Sublime ideologies. These aspects combined are theorized to be the core of what Lovecraft’s idea of Cosmicism refers to. The main aim is to explore the mechanisms through which his fiction produces fear by utilizing a unique narrative design, stylistic choices, and aesthetic devices. Horror in this reading is not just regarded as pure transfer of content characterized by symbolisms or emotional effects. The analysis of his fiction will present how fear is deliberately built into the framework of Lovecraft’s storytelling. To that end, the study considers two literary traditions to be the most influential in that regard: Naturalism, with its emphasis on determinism, material limits, and the destruction of agency; and the philosophical Sublime, which covers disorientation, excess, and the collapse of comprehension. These frameworks offer a lens through which Lovecraft’s narrative techniques can be read not just as “fancy” stylistic choices, but as structural strategies that perform ontological conflicts.