The Dunwich Horror: Difference between revisions

← Older edit

The Dunwich Horror (view source)

Revision as of 17:21, 25 October 2022

725 bytes added , 1 year ago

no edit summary

VisualWikitext

Lequinni

Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Confirmed users

5,100

edits

Revision as of 09:12, 7 June 2014 (view source) Dai-Guard (talk \| contribs) m (update links) ← Older edit		Latest revision as of 17:21, 25 October 2022 (view source) Lequinni (talk \| contribs) No edit summary
(11 intermediate revisions by 5 users not shown)
Line 1: {{work}} {{Infobox book \| title = The Dunwich Horror \| image = Hugh Rankin - The Dunwich Horror.jpg \| caption = Illustration from the original publication \| author = H.P. Lovecraft \| central theme = the lengths people go to feed the evil \| elevator pitch = The creepy and weird child of an occultist family keeps taking care of the horror that lives in his house; when he decides to go for a book he thinks can assist on his mission things spiral out of control \| genre = Horror \| franchise = Cthulhu Mythos \| preceded by = The Colour Out of Space \| followed by = The Whisperer in Darkness \| publication date = April 1929 \| source page exists = \| wiki URL = \| wiki name = }} The town of [[Lovecraft Country\|Dunwich, Massachusetts]] was thoroughly unremarkable until Wilbur Whateley was born. The family was already unpopular due to their dabbling in the occult, and when Lavinia Whateley gave birth to a strange-looking child and refused to say who the father was, it didn't improve anyone's opinion of them. Wilbur grew incredibly fast - he began talking at 11 months; by the time he was three, he looked ten years old; and at four and a half, around 15. The townsfolk didn't trust him; he gave them the creeps even more than the other Whateleys. For all that, though, they were still willing to sell cows to the Whateley mansion; money was money, after all, even if it was in weird antique gold coins. Though for some reason despite the number of livestock they bought, the herd never seemed to get bigger... The household only got more suspicious with time. The farmhouse always seemed to be mysteriously under construction, with more and more windows being boarded up; the townsfolk also suspected that interior walls were being knocked out. When Wilbur was ten, Old Whateley died, shrieking instructions to Wilbur on his deathbed; two years later, Lavinia Whateley disappeared on Halloween night and was never found. It was around this point that Wilbur began to search for an unabridged copy of [[Tome of Eldritch Lore\|the Necronomicon]]. He had learned all of what he knew from his grandfather's library, but his copy of that book was a shortened English version, which he apparently found insufficient. He ~~discovers~~discovered that nearby Miskatonic University has a copy, but the librarian ~~refuses~~refused to loan it out to him. {{spoiler\|So he ~~breaks~~broke in to steal it, only to be killed by a guard dog}}. And that's when things get ''really'' weird. One of [[H.P. ~~Lovecraft\|HP~~ Lovecraft]]'s most famous stories, it"'''The Dunwich Horror'''" was adapted to film twice: as a [[So Bad It's Good]] [[Cult Classic]] in 1970, and a remake by the [[~~Sci Fi Channel~~Syfy]] in 2009. It has also been adapted ''thrice'', generally more faithfully, as a [[Radio Drama]], first as an episode of the long running ''[[Suspense]]'' series in the 1940s starring [[Ronald Colman]], later by the Atlanta Radio Theater Company, and yet again by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society for their ''[[Dark Adventure Radio Theater]]'' series. You can read it [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Dunwich_Horror here].▼ ▲One of [[H.P. Lovecraft\|HP Lovecraft]]'s most famous stories, it was adapted to film twice: as a [[So Bad It's Good]] [[Cult Classic]] in 1970, and a remake by the [[Sci Fi Channel]] in 2009. It has also been adapted ''thrice'', generally more faithfully, as a [[Radio Drama]], first as an episode of the long running ''[[Suspense]]'' series in the 1940s starring [[Ronald Colman]], later by the Atlanta Radio Theater Company, and yet again by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society for their ''[[Dark Adventure Radio Theater]]'' series. You can read it [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Dunwich_Horror here]. ---- {{tropelist}} ~~=== This story includes examples of: ===~~ * [[Alien Blood]]: Yellow-green "ichor." * [[Animals Hate Him]]: Dogs ''loathe'' Wilbur Whateley, to the point where he has to start carrying a gun to defend himself from them. {{spoiler\|In fact, it's a dog that eventually kills him.}} Line 14 ⟶ 31: * [[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever]] * [[Author Avatar]]: Disturbingly enough, Wilbur may have been one. {{quote\| "Wilbur's being raised by a grandfather instead of a father, his home education from his grandfather's library, his insane mother, his stigma of ugliness (in Lovecraft's case untrue, but a self-image imposed on him by his mother), and his sense of being an outsider all echo Lovecraft himself." - Robert M. Price in the introduction to ''[http://www.amazon.com/Dunwich-Cycle-Where-Cthulhu-Books/dp/156882047X The Dunwich Cycle]''.}} ** [[Reality Subtext]] * [[Badass Bookworm]]: The professors. Line 29 ⟶ 46: * [[Evil Smells Bad]]: "''By Their smell can men sometimes know Them near, . . . As a foulness shall ye know Them.''" * [[Half-Human Hybrid]] * [[~~Hot~~Improbable ~~Skitty-On-Wailord~~Species ~~Action~~Compatibility]]: An [[Eldritch Abomination]] who is coterminous with all time and space yet locked outside the universe we inhabit somehow impregnates a human woman. * [[Humanoid Abomination]]: Wilbur Whateley. * {{spoiler\|[[I'm Melting]]}} * [[Interspecies Romance]]: Um. . . {{quote\| "I dun't keer what folks think—ef Lavinny's boy looked like his pa, he wouldn't look like nothin' ye expeck. Ye needn't think the only folks is the folks hereabouts. Lavinny's read some, an' has seed some things the most o' ye only tell abaout. I calc'late her man is as good a husban' as ye kin find this side of Aylesbury; an' ef ye knowed as much abaout the hills as I dew, ye wouldn't ast no better church weddin' nor her'n."}} * {{spoiler\|[[Invisible Monster]]: The titular horror.}} * [[Lovecraft Country]]: [[Trope Namer\|Natch]]. Line 46 ⟶ 63: * [[Scenery Porn]]: The opening descriptions of the country around Dunwich. * [[Shout-Out]]: To [[Arthur Machen]]'s ''[[The Great God Pan]]'', Lovecraft's primary inspiration for "The Dunwich Horror." {{quote\| "Inbreeding? . . . God, what simpletons! Show them Arthur Machen's ''Great God Pan'' and they'll think it a common Dunwich scandal! But what thing - what cursed shapeless influence on or off this three-dimensional earth - was Wilbur Whateley's father?"}} [[Fridge Brilliance]]: Wilbur is often described as "goatish." The Classical Pan is [[wikipedia:Pan (mythology)\|often depicted]] with the [http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&sa=N&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1280&bih=831&tbm=isch&tbnid=VG7w0DFkP5qrQM:&imgrefurl=http://outlandish-knight.blogspot.com/2011/06/great-god-pan.html&docid=cmg29SjEiJ7lxM&imgurl=http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lLGajAt96BQ/TffPU9U7jeI/AAAAAAAACv4/rv2AKZh88h8/s1600/Pan%25252BGod.jpg&w=313&h=411&ei=5EnBTpiVNMjy0gH7mpzvBA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=242&sig=113862698477808175622&page=1&tbnh=129&tbnw=98&start=0&ndsp=32&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0&tx=56&ty=54 attributes of a goat], similar to fauns, satyrs, and, of course, [[Satan]]. Armitage's brief monologue that closes the story also recalls some of the speeches by Dr. Raymond in ''Great God Pan''. Line 56 ⟶ 73: {{reflist}} [[Category:~~Literature~~{{PAGENAME}}]]▼ [[Category:Literature of the 1920s]] [[Category:Horror Literature]] [[Category:~~The~~Short ~~Dunwich Horror~~Story]] {{DEFAULTSORT:Dunwich Horror, The}} ▲[[Category:Literature]]