Types of Fears: Human Failings

One of the pillars of Lovecraftian horror is the failings of human beings. It's no surprise given that his grandfather's financial failures and his father's internment in an assylum caused him to think in such a way. Many of Lovecraft's characters don't get to see the next day. Either madness consumes them or a cult or god arranges an "accident." Lovecraft's style focuses on the inability of humanity to overcome or barely survive their circumstances. It's a hostile, uncaring universe that sees humanity as but a blip on the grand scale of the universe. Lovecraft even planed for humanity's downfall by having us destroyed and replaced by giant cockroaches. What can a small human do against the pulls of the universe? Disease, disaster, death, one way or another humanity will fall in Lovecraft's fatalistic view of the world.

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