Leaving Castle: A Short Story

It was the ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity, and dissolution; the putrid dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation, the awful baring of that which the merciful earth should always hide. God knows it was not of this world—or no longer of this world—yet to my horror I saw in its eaten-away and bone-revealing outlines a leering, abhorrent travesty of the human shape; and in its mouldy, disintegrating apparel an unspeakable quality that chilled me even more. In his shock and surprise, he loses his balance and touches the creature.

Horrified, he runs from the building back to his castle, where he tries unsuccessfully to crawl back through the grate into his old world. Cast out of his old existence, the narrator now rides with the "mocking and friendly ghouls on the night wind", forever and officially an outsider, since the moment he stretched his fingers towards the creature's paw in the alcove, and felt nothing but the "cold and unyielding surface of polished glass" of a mirror.

Horror historian Les Daniels described "The Outsider" as "arguably the author's finest work". The narrator in "The Outsider" exists in a perpetual state of loneliness.

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At the onset of the story, it is revealed that he has lived for years in the castle but cannot recall any person ever being there except for himself. Neither can he recall the presence of anything alive but the "noiseless rats and bats and spiders" that surround him. He has never heard the voice of another human being, nor has he ever spoken aloud. His only encounters with the outside world are those he attains from reading the old books that have been left within the castle.

Upon encountering humanity later in the story, the narrator is left even more lonely than before. He has come to witness human life and has been immediately shunned from it due to his appearance. Being outcast from the society he longed to know forced the narrator to continue living life as a recluse.

However, this time it has been made worse because what he has lost was no longer a vague idea from a book but a tangible thing held out of his grasp. In Gothic fiction , ab-human refers to a "Gothic body" or something that is only vestigially human and possibly in the process of becoming something monstrous, [9] such as a vampire , [10] werewolf , or in this case a walking corpse. The idea of "becoming other" parallels what is happening in this story. The intensity of the process is heightened because the reader is learning of this transition from human to the ab-human right along with the narrator who is learning it himself.

Ghouls make frequent appearances in Lovecraft's work, such as in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath , although they are generally very different from the undead creatures described here. This story also mentions Nitocris and Nephren-Ka briefly. Nitocris, a legendary queen of Egypt , also makes an appearance in the Lovecraft and Harry Houdini collaboration " Imprisoned with the Pharaohs ".

Nephren-Ka is mentioned in " The Haunter of the Dark " as the Pharaoh who built "a temple with a windowless crypt" to the Shining Trapezohedron , and "did that which caused his name to be stricken from all monuments and records". From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The Library of America. Joshi and David E.

Lovecraft Encyclopedia , p. A History of Horror in the Mass Media. Da Capo Press, P. Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil page 22 Rodopi, Fantasy, Horror and the Beast Within page I. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Some Notes on a Nonentity. Lovecraft Encyclopedia Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Izzy, carrying the cups, headed for the door to the garden. You mentioned it at once. It sucks them in. Those blank windows, the front door half open, beckoning The house kills people. Someone was poking round the ruins and fell and broke their neck; someone else died of exposure.

Other people have disappeared with no trace. Olivia was still gazing over the hedge towards it. If anything, the story made it more alluring.

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I expect he panicked. A hint towards domesticity. I suspect she sensed it. Don told me he burnt the picture after she left. Olivia grinned, her eyes sparkling. See it for yourself? There are two of us. The lights were off and the place seemed deserted. He went into the kitchen and dumped his bag of sailing gear on the floor. Walking over to the sink, he was reaching for a glass of water when he glanced out of the window and saw blue flashing lights in the darkness, high on the hillside. The neighbouring farmer had called the police.

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He had seen the women climbing the hill. There was no sign of them. The front door was shut. Just to chat, you know. Give the place a bit of company. The women from his place have always gone up there in the end. You can see the house on the hill from the windows and they feel it calling.