Howard's Fear - Reanimated / Lovecraftian Racism: Black Representation in American Horror Literature
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2021-06-30
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en
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Abstract
This thesis explains how extensively the more problematic forms of Black iconography are
passed on from one literary horror work to another. Its four chapters respectively deal with the
general history of the literary horror genre, the general representation of Black Americans in
American horror literature, the representation of Black Americans in the horror works of H.P.
Lovecraft, and the representation of Black Americans in one particular horror work of Stephen
King. H.P. Lovecraft is known to have influenced many writers of horror over the entire last
century and to also have owned an extremist fear of racial Others; Stephen King is one of the
most successful American (horror) writers of all time and has claimed multiple times how
Lovecraft was his greatest source of inspiration. To argue that not just Lovecraftian horror but
also Lovecraftian racism has managed to significantly inspire Stephen King, this thesis analyzes
the interconnection, primarily in terms of anti-Black iconography, between H.P. Lovecraft’s
interwar period horror stories and Stephen King’s 1978-1990 horror novel The Stand.
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