The Shadow over Innsmouth

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The Shadow over Innsmouth

Illustrations by Hannes Bok for the January 1942 issue of Weird Tales
Written by:	H.P. Lovecraft
Central Theme:
Synopsis:
Genre(s):	Horror
Series:	Cthulhu Mythos
First published:	April 1936

"It's beginning to look a lot like Fishmen Everywhere I go. From the minute I got to town And started to look around I thought these ill-bred people's gill-slits showed." —Dagon Tabernacle Choir [1][2]

Innsmouth is a small, run-down village on the northern coast of Massachusetts, near Ipswich, Gloucester, and Arkham. Locals don't like it much. There are whispered rumors about dark dealings with the supernatural, the taint of foreign blood, and some sort of hereditary deformity. While touring New England, a young man learns of the town's sinister reputation and decides it's worth a visit. Curiouser and curiouser, he bribes the local drunk, said to be the only normal human left, with his favorite poison. The tale he tells is crazy yet the narrator cannot ignore the sinister atmosphere and the evidence before his own eyes. After barely escaping with his own life, our hero eventually discovers that he himself is one of the hybrid Fish People, a direct descendant of Innsmouth's most prominent family.

"The Shadow over Innsmouth" is one of H.P. Lovecraft's longest and most famous stories. Among the various beasties of the Cthulhu Mythos, the Deep Ones and their half-human spawn are among the most popular and enduring, inspiring numerous other authors (including Neil Gaiman), as well as the 2001 film Dagon and the video game Dark Corners of the Earth.

Innsmouth has also been adapted twice as an audio drama by the Atlanta Radio Theater Company and the HP Lovecraft Historical Society. It has also been adapted for stage in Spain.

The complete story can be read online here.

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Tropes used in The Shadow over Innsmouth include:

• Exclusively Evil: The Deep Ones are depicted this way, and nearly all writers since have followed suit.
  • Adaptational Badass: HPL depicted the Deep Ones as a pathetic degenerate subhuman race. Most writers since have turned them into aquatic supermen who would even give Aquaman a run for his money.
• Author Avatar: The narrator shares his antiquarian interests and frugal travel habits with Lovecraft. His horror at his inhuman heritage may also reflect Lovecraft's fear of hereditary insanity, thanks to his father's breakdown, and his shock at learning that his great-grandmother was . . . WELSH.
• Black Speech: The Deep One/hybrids' voices (which may not be speaking English) are described as full of slopping, croaking, and bleating, and being generally blasphemous to the human ear.
• Chekhov's Gun: The narrator is in Massachusetts on a genealogical tour.
• Corrupt Hick: The locals. They live in the ruined town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts. They are very secretive, do not like outsiders, walk awkwardly, and look like a human combined with a fish or a frog.
• Cosmic Horror Story: By association, since it's part of the Cthulhu Mythos.
• Driven to Suicide: The narrator's uncle, after learning of his heritage. And the narrator himself, almost.
• Dying Town: Innsmouth appears to be this.
• Eldritch Abomination: Indirectly: the Esoteric Order of Dagon worships Cthulhu and there are references to the shoggoths.
• Escalating Chase
• Evil-Detecting Dog / Glamour Failure: Animals hate the Innsmouth folk, and the town is naturally devoid of them.
• Evil Smells Bad: Innsmouth and its inhabitants emanate a nauseating fish odor.
  • You Fail Biology Forever: What we think of as the "fish odor" is actually the smell of dead fish. So unless Herbert West is up to something even worse. . .
    • The smell is present in live fish as well, as anyone who's gone fishing can attest. It just gets stronger after the fish dies.
    • Also the only remaining notable industry in town is fishing so there's a lot of fish to stink up the joint.
• The Film of the Book / Lovecraft on Film: Dagon.
• Fish People: The Deep Ones.
• Half-Human Hybrid
• Hahvahd Yahd in My Cah: The real fun of the ARTC version is hearing the cast affect some truly ridiculous New England accents.
• Hell Hotel: The Gilman House.
• Human Sacrifice
• In the Blood
• Info Dump: Zadok Allen, though arguably done right.
• Interspecies Romance: Marriage, anyway, if not quite the romance part.
• Lovecraft Country: By default.
• Mars Needs Women: Both genders, actually. (In fact, the only pairings we hear about are female Deep Ones and human men.)
• Mayfly-December Romance: One Deep One spouse was 80,000 years older than her human husband.
  • Time Abyss
• No Name Given: The protagonist of the story is never named. His name, however, is revealed to be Robert Olmstead in Lovecraft's notes.
• Not-So-Safe Harbor
• Only Sane Man: Zadok Allen, despite his drunkenness.
• Purple Prose: Trademark Lovecraft.

And yet I saw them in a limitless stream - flopping, hopping, croaking, bleating - urging inhumanly through the spectral moonlight in a grotesque, malignant saraband of fantastic nightmare.

• Religion of Evil: The Esoteric Order of Dagon.
• Scenery Gorn: Lovecraft loves describing Innsmouth's decay.
• Schmuck Bait: Innsmouth's bad reputation is precisely one of the reasons the narrator decided to go.

A town able to inspire such dislike in it its neighbors, I thought, must be at least rather unusual, and worthy of a tourist's attention.

• Sinister Minister: Zadok Allen recalls how the Esoteric Order of Dagon took over the town and Captain Marsh's crewmen were promoted as priests of the new religion. Creepy tiara-wearing priests still lurk in dark corners, and several are seen among the narrator's pursuers toward the end.
• Take Our Word for It: Typical of Lovecraft, the worst is only hinted at.
• Tomato in the Mirror: The narrator is a Deep One hybrid himself, descended from Obed Marsh and one Pth'thya-l'yi.
• Town with a Dark Secret: Probably the Trope Maker or Codifier.
• Uncanny Valley: Invoked via the "Innsmouth Look."

"There certainly is a strange kind of streak in the Innsmouth folks today - I don't know how to explain it but it sort of makes you crawl. You'll notice a little in Sargent if you take his bus. Some of 'em have queer narrow heads with flat noses and bulgy, starry eyes that never seem to shut, and their skin ain't quite right. Rough and scabby, and the sides of the necks are all shriveled or creased up. Get bald, too, very young."

• Underwater City: Y'ha-nthlei.
• Was Once a Man: The hybrids are born human but slowly transform.