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Writers sometimes
"cannibalize" their own works, either rewriting the stories, or using
short pieces as episodes in larger works. Robert E. Howard did this, using a
couple of his earlier Conan stories as chapters in his only Conan novel The
Hour of the Dragon. We suggest that H. P. Lovecraft did the same thing,
rewriting his early story "Dagon" as the third major section of
"The Call of Cthulhu", namely "The Madness from the Sea". Actually the
relationship between the two is obvious; all we need do to establish this is to
review briefly the plot outline, adding illustrative quotations.
Both narratives commence with a naval
confrontation. In "Cthulhu", it is a battle between the commercial schooner
Emma and the Alert, a boatload of degenerate cultists and outlaws.
In "Dagon", it seems to have been a relatively peaceful capture of an
unnamed commercial vessel by a "German sea-raider" in the early days
of World War I. Both ships are lost, either sunk or captured, and the
protagonist escapes (alone or with other survivors) in another boat. He winds up
on an island, newly thrust up from the ocean floor by a volcanic upheaval. It is
covered with sea-bottom ooze and slime. In both cases, there is visual
distortion while looking at the sun. "The very sun of heaven seemed
distorted when viewed through the polarizing miasma welling out from this
sea-soaked perversion. . . ." ("The Call of Cthulhu"). "The
sun was blazing down from a sky which seemed to me almost black in its cloudless
cruelty; as though reflecting the inky marsh beneath my feet"
("Dagon").
Both Johansen and the anonymous
narrator of "Dagon" discover prehuman masonry described in both cases
as "cyclopean". There is one "monolith" in particular which bears
strange "hieroglyphs" and, most ominous of all, a bas-relief depicting
a huge humanoid figure with fish-like ("Dagon") or octopoid
("Cthulhu") features on the face and head. Suddenly the
flesh-and-blood prototype of the colossus appears, and is compared by the
narrator to the Cyclops of Homer. "Vast, Polyphemus-like and loathsome",
recalls the narrator of "Dagon", while the writer summarizing Johansen's
tale in "The Call of Cthulhu" says that "the titan Thing from the
stars slavered and gibbered like Polypheme cursing the fleeing ship of
Odysseus."
The sight of the monster sparks similar
reactions in observers in both stories. "Dagon's" narrator states
simply that "I think I went mad then." Johansen, on the other hand, keeps
hold of his sanity, but his sole surviving crewman is not so lucky. "Briden
looked back and went mad, laughing at intervals, . . ." just like
"Dagon's" protagonist: "I believe I sang a great deal, and
laughed oddly when I was unable to sing." Both Johansen and his counterpart
are eventually picked up by a friendly ship and brought back to civilization.
Both know too much, however, and having written their memoirs, are suddenly
killed, Johansen by a suspicious "accident" engineered by Cthulhu
cultists, "Dagon's" author by the very monster he had seen. It had
apparently followed him back stateside.
The tellers of both tales reflect with
horror on what must happen should the sea floor fully unlock its secrets.
"I cannot think of the deep sea without shuddering at the nameless things
that may at this very moment be crawling and floundering on its slimy bed. . . .
I dream of a day when they may rise above the billows to drag down in their
talons the remnants of puny, war-exhausted mankind --- of a day when the land
shall sink, and the dark ocean floor shall ascend amidst universal
pandemonium" ("Dagon"). In "The Call of CthuIhu" this
dreadful soliloquy has been abridged to the following: "When I think of the
extent of all that may be brooding down there I almost wish to kill
myself forthwith."
Of the two, "The Madness from the
Sea", even if it stood as a complete story in its own right, would have to be
judged the better tale. Not only does it avoid the implausibility of the monster
tracking the narrator back to civilization, but as a narrative it has a good
deal more action and excitement. And the setting is more effectively handled,
e.g., the unearthly geometry characterizing the ruins, which cements the utter
alienness of the place. The only remaining question is whether having pieced
together the frightful secret of "Dagon" and "The Madness from
the Sea", we may avoid the awful fate of Johansen, Professor Angell, and the
others who knew too much.
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