External and Internal Horror Objects : Analysis of the "objects of horror" in H.P Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu and Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Abstract: Both Lovecraft and Stevenson have earned their respective fame as horror writers.However, it is interesting to compare their separate approaches to creating fear. The purposeof this essay is to show how there are different kinds of horror objects within the respectivestories of Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu and Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Throughclose analysis of passages from the text, the external and internal origins of the respectivehorror objects are displayed, analyzed and compared. In the novels, there are distinctidentifiable types of horror objects within the respective narratives of The Call of Cthulhu andDr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. However, despite the sources of horror being vastly different betweenthe narratives, the threats which they facilitate are similar. In addition to covering somegeneral traits which pertain to each type, a more specific comparison between Cthulhu and MrHyde is provided. In the end, it is clear that despite being different in execution, the differenttypes of horror objects are not meant to be viewed as restricting in what they can fulfill withina given narrative. Instead, they simply lend themselves to certain themes better but can stillachieve similar results.