Social Isolation In H. P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror

Lovecraft and Social Isolation
H.P. Lovecraft is one of the most renowned horror authors, perhaps most well-known for the creatures in his works. For example, “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” “Dagon,” “The Dunwich Horror,” and many other Lovecraft stories involve creatures that are rejected and isolated from society because of their physical features or psychological demeanor. When reading these works, it becomes apparent that the theme of society’s treatment of people who are “different” is prevalent throughout his writings. In his stories, certain people or groups are ostracized, simply because of their looks or behavior. One example of this is the Innsmouth people, and how the people of the surrounding areas looked down on them because of their physical appearance and actions. This is one of the many examples

In the early 20th century, when Lovecraft was alive, interracial relationships were frowned upon, but were becoming somewhat frequent. Evan Lampe, a professor in the department of history at the National Chi Nan University in Taiwan, discusses the topic of interracial mixing throughout history; “In the United States, the early twentieth century saw a new phase in the discourse on race due to the obsession about race-mixing. Opposition to mixing races seems to have been connected to the rise of Mendelian genetics, which provided evidence that mixing traits in plants produced inferior offspring.” (Lampe 196). The idea of mixing races was a hot topic at the time, and this makes it very likely that Lovecraft would have wrote about something that was so relevant for his time. Hybrids of multiple races were rejected by those of a single race. As previously established, many of Lovecraft’s creatures were hybrids that were rejected by society, so it is very likely that these creatures were an allegory for the social issues of the