Abstract:

This study examines the dreams and fantasies in Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s (1890-1937) “The Dreams in the Witch House” (1933) in the context of science/myth opposition. Inspired by the idea that mythical phenomena can be explicated by science, the protagonist tries to amalgamate black magic with modern mathematics and both in his dreams and in reality achieves entering into the fourth dimension, surpassing the boundaries of time and space. Unfortunately, these scientific and fantastic travels into the cosmic/the extraterrestrial cost him death. Lovecraft signifies that even through the devices of modern science man can be helpless to surmount the supernatural phenomena. He shows that American society has deep-rooted but unspoken fears like New England witch myth and attributes the explanation of their unearthly character to the imaginary and unknowable creatures of outer-world, drawing attention to the suspending nature of them. He proves that science and mythology are absolutely separate areas, affirming the beginning point. Lovecraft wants to believe that Newtonian causality reigns in the universe. Diving into the fourth dimension becomes a source of dread for him, because neither causality nor modern science is able to explain its possibility or give a satisfactory clarification to it. The existence of the scientifically unresolved issues in the 20th century is strong enough to threaten the place of man in the universe. Lovecraft is deeply disturbed even terrified by them. The combination of the scientific with the unscientific manifests itself as a reason and element of terror. Lovecraft writes stories out of this disillusionment and dread shifting the focus of horror fiction from the earthly to the cosmic/the unknown. Although he believes in the power of science, he prescribes that man should accept the phenomena science cannot answer as unknowable.

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