An Imagological Analysis On Lovecraft’s Deities

The Cthulhu Mythos created by Lovecraft was a marvelous masterpiece in the field of Horror and Weird Literature.As the core of the Mythos,the images of deities have become the key concept in the studies of Lovecraft and his works,which has aroused widespread concern.The images of deities were born in Lovecraft’s imagination.The cognitive attributes of these images closely connect deities with their hidden creator,which becomes the key content and entry point to study the author’s self.This thesis takes the images of deities created by Lovecraft as the object of analysis.Under the guidance of Imagology and reference to existing research results,this thesis categorizes and summarizes the images of deities in the Cthulhu Mythos series,and observes Lovecraft’s self-cognition based on taking the images of deities as instantiations of others,to explore the author’s real intention on creating the deities.Lovecraft endowed deities with the double-identity schema of pagan gods and aliens in the Cthulhu Mythos.In the construction of Azathoth,Bokrug,Cthulhu,Dagon,Ghatanothoa,Nyarlathotep,Nug and Yeb,Shrub-Niggurath,and Yog-Sothoth as main instantiations,Lovecraft showed aspects of the self which were inconsistent with the mainstream American ideology in terms of religion and race.The deities in Lovecraft’s fiction were the other instantiations of his self-reality.Their common otherness in pagan archetypes,extraordinary appearances,and non-English etymological names made them the instantiations of the double-others who were opposed to in the text reality and excluded from the mainstream in the author’s cognitive reality.In the process of shaping them,Lovecraft expressed his sophisticated self,which was manifested not only through the hatred of religious beliefs at the surface level,but also through the neutral attitude towards religion at the deep level;meanwhile it was also manifested through moving away from the support for racism at the surface level toward anti-racism at the deep level.The images of deities abstracted his complex self,on the one hand,to criticize the bounds of religious thoughts of the mainstream ideology and reshape individual religious values with the pursuit of truth as the standard;while on the other hand,they were to get rid of the control of racial discrimination of the mainstream ideology and reconstruct the racial order with communication and integration as the basis.Based on the detailed analysis of the text,this thesis points out that Lovecraft’s self-reflection through presenting deities’other-images can help restore the religious and racial reality of America in the early 20^th century by listening to the voice of witness,which enhances readers’understanding of marginalized groups.Meanwhile,by paying attention to the author’s intention to break the shackles of the mainstream authority,the understanding of Lovecraft and his work can be deepened,which can inspire readers to establish correct religious and racial ideas.