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H. P. Lovecraft was not the first writer to explore the darkest depths of Horror or Gothic literature, but he understood certain aspects of the imagination that few are willing to acknowledge.

Although tales of the Cthulhu Mythos have gained a substantial following over the years, not all of his writing has been met with the same success. His greatest work, “The Colour Out of Space” is often neglected.

On the surface, the story describes a malevolent alien presence that invades Earth via a small farm in Massachusetts owned by the Gardner family told to the narrator by a witness many years later.

Unseen except for other-worldly colors existing beyond human comprehension, the presence drains the life out of the lonely farm and its inhabitants before seemingly returning to space. It is a dark and brooding story that turns every aspect of nature on its head. However, Lovecraft’s tale is about the imagination and literature as a whole, especially the darker aspects.

Imagination Gone Dark

Throughout Lovecraft’s story, the narrator repeatedly discusses the the use of “imagination.” The imagination is a mental faculty unique to humanity. It is a strength of the mind that allows us to rewrite the natural world and determine a new way to approach life.

The great Samuel Coleridge, in Chapter 13 of Biographia Literaria, explains how the imagination operates:

The Imagination then I consider either as primary, or secondary. The primary Imagination I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I Am. The secondary I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to re-create; or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still at all events it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead.

This connection to the infinite, to the creator, is an important aspect of Lovecraft’s use of the term. But the imagination is not properly wielded or controlled by most people, as Coleridge explains in Chapter 17:

The best part of human language, properly so called, is derived from reflection on the acts of the mind itself. It is formed by a voluntary appropriation of fixed symbols to internal acts, to processes and results of imagination, the greater part of which have no place in the consciousness of uneducated man; though in civilized society, by imitation and passive remembrance of what they hear from their religious instructors and other superiors, the most uneducated share in the harvest which they neither sowed nor reaped.

It takes a strong mind to understand the proper use of the imagination, and weak minds can only parrot the words of others. Lovecraft’s Arkham, Massachusetts is a place that preys on the weak minds, and the narrator begins his story with a warning: “The place is not good for imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at night.”

There is something that the human mind cannot, or should not, attempt to grasp. It is a fragile, delicate thing, and there is no “educated man” before it.

There are only secrets, and those secrets should not be approached: “And the secrets of the strange days will be one with the deep’s secrets; one with the hidden lore of old ocean, and all the mystery of primal earth.”

The imagination allows one to connect to the divine, but the divine within Lovecraft’s world is something dark and ominous. Ammi Pierce, who relates the dark events that occurred at the Gardner farm years before, was left maddened by his experience.

His mind was ruined, and his ability to understand the world was destroyed. He was transformed into a state similar to Coleridge’s uneducated man: “Often I had to recall the speaker from ramblings, piece out scientific points which he knew only by a fading parrot memory of professors’ talk, or bridge over gaps, where his sense of logic and continuity broke down.”

The power of the imagination is reversed: instead of aiding the educated to understand complex ideas, allowing them to approach a higher level of thought, the imagination revolts against humanity and destroys the mind.

Even a secondary experience of the events causes distress, as the narrator admits, ” When he was done I did not wonder that his mind had snapped a trifle, or that the folk of Arkham would not speak much of the blasted heath. I hurried back before sunset to my hotel, unwilling to have the stars come out above me in the open.”

Dark Fruits

The universe is a dark place, and the narrator wishes that clouds could serve as a buffer to hide him from it. This is a child-like approach, clouds serving as a metaphorical blanket to hide one from ghosts or demons. But nothing can hide one from the malevolence. The imagination turned against humanity, and there was no going back.

As a metaphor, it lacks a direct object for the darkening of the imagination. Is Lovecraft criticizing some cheap debasement of the mind caused by popular entertainment? Or is he taking on how horror writers pervert and ruin the imagination through their writing? Are religion or the occult the object of his derision? Or is there no metaphor, and Lovecraft is just explaining that the imagination was always a dark force? There are no answers, and Lovecraft sought only to raise the questions.

Without answers, our horror at the various possibilities is compounded, allowing our imagination as readers to turn on us. We are pulled into Lovecraft’s reality, and we are forced to share in its eternal misery.

Although most writers and poets have been described as dreamers, there were those, like John Keats, who warned about imagination run wild. Dreams can take one from reality and steal away the soul, and there are many similarities between the destruction caused by Lovecraft’s unknown monster and Keats’s seductive Lamia.

After the meteor containing the creature arrived, it dissipated and infected all of the surrounding land. It altered reality, growing things rapidly but wrongly. The “fruits” of this action are both literal and metaphorical:

Then fell the time of fruit and harvest. The pears and apples slowly ripened, and Nahum vowed that his orchards were prospering as never before. The fruit was growing to phenomenal size and unwonted gloss, and in such abundance that extra barrels were ordered to handle the future crop. But with the ripening came sore disappointment, for of all that gorgeous array of specious lusciousness not one single jot was fit to eat.

The dark imagination offers a lot at first glance, with its fullness and seductive qualities. It appears to be great, prosperous, and exactly what any farmer would desire, but it is unable to satisfy. However, the unnatural dream is unable to satisfy natural desire, denying the essential sustenance of life .

It is after this moment that a dream seemed to settle on the land and on the minds of the family: “The entire Gardner family developed the habit of stealthy listening, though not for any sound which they could consciously name. The listening was, indeed, rather a product of moments when consciousness seemed half to slip away.”

They are trapped, unable to live and unable to escape. Although the story does not end at this moment, the lives of the Gardner family do.

Everything from this point of the story builds to the ultimate horrific reveal, but we, the readers, already know that the Gardner family is lost. We are in denial at this point, unwilling to admit what is lurking at the back of our conscious thought.

The End of Sanity

Just as the colors were beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend, so too are the horrors that exist within the universe.

It is a truth too dark for us to handle, and we are left with a vital question: what if the universe is uncaring, and what if our very imagination, so fundamental to our humanity, is only a conduit for malevolent forces to destroy us?

The cattle and vegetation at the farm is merely warped and consumed, drained of their essence. The family, however, is driven mad. They begin to see what does not exist, and it is uncertain where reality, horrific pseudo-reality, and insanity differ.

But what if there is no difference between reality and insanity? What if reality is insanity, and the insane are those who have not yet realized the truth?

Lovecraft always refuses to answer his questions because there are no easy answers. We are led down that dark path and abandoned, left, if possible, to find our own way back.