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ENG2l36A Essay Topics

Select one of the following topics and write a 2,000 word essay about it.

The essay must argue an interpretation of one or more of the assigned readings, supporting the
argument by analysing details from the story.

No research is necessary, but if you wish you may research any CONTEXT vital to the topic you
select. Consult authoritative, scholarly sources of information.
Avoid reading actual interpretations of the assigned readings.

Due date: See course outline and calendar.

Length: Approx. 2,000 words (give or take 15%)

Format: MLA

Additional information to be posted separately on Brightspace.

1. In adventure fiction, the hero slays the monster, affirming the triumph of good over evil.
In horror fiction, the main character may become or discover himself to be the monster.
Analyse and interpret the characterization of one such protagonist in one of the stories
studied this term.

2. In horror fiction, even the home can become an unsettling, dangerous place. Analyse and
interpret the way in which the home is transformed into a nightmare space in one of the
stories studied this term.

3. In horror fiction, intimate personal relationships become twisted beyond recognition into
something physically and/or psychologically destructive. Select one type of relationship:
parent/child, friendship, courtship, marriage, sibling, etc., and analyse and interpret what
one of the stories studied this term suggests about society and/or human nature by
twisting it.

4. The monster, especially when supernatural, figuratively expresses literal fears. Monsters
have been described as “meaning machines,” i.e., multivalent, open to multiple
interpretations. As such, they raise multiple troubling questions about important matters
we often prefer to take for granted, like social traditions and institutions, politics and
history, human nature or identity, and more. Select, analyse and interpret the multiple
implications of a monster in one of the stories studied this term.

5. Much horror fiction emphasizes our mortality, reminding us of the many and varied
physical threats to our lives. Some horror fiction goes further, speculating about the
extinction of humanity as a species and even suggesting that we ourselves will be the
authors of our own destruction. Select, analyse and interpret what one of the stories
studied this term has to say about mortality.

6. The monsters in some horror fiction call attention to the human capacity to dehumanize

other human beings and the disastrous consequences thereof. Analyse and interpret the
depiction of the process of dehumanization in one of the stories studied this term.

7. In horror fiction, human characters unwisely make a deal with the devil or invite evil in,
and usually come to regret it (not always). Analyse and interpret what one of the stories
studied this term suggests about the reasons for and/or consequences of such choices.

Important Tip

Do not assume that the more ideas covered by an essay the better.
Rather focus on exploring the ideas that you consider most important as thoroughly as

possible. Being selective and exclusive leads to greater originality.
Start by narrowing whichever of the topics you choose.

Page 1 of 4

Notes on Horror as a type of fiction

“Horror is not a genre, it is an emotion. It is a progressive form of fiction, one that evolves to
meet the fears and anxieties of its times.” (Douglas E. Winter)

Definitions of “horror” fiction usually focus on reader response, specifically disturbing emotions.
Because interpreting literature requires, above all, paying close attention to literature itself rather
than speculating about hypothetical readers, in this course we concentrate on that which provokes
reader response, the horrifying phenomenon described or implied in the story. Given that the
concept “horrifying phenomenon” is unhelpfully broad and vague, we focus on a more
manageable, narrower concept of the phenomena which horrify or terrify, such as the “monster”
and the “monstrous.”

What is a ‘monster’?

Recent dictionary definitions are surprisingly limited and literal, focusing largely on physical
traits, and reinforcing the unhelpful assumption that by definition monsters are supernatural.

The very earliest definitions of the terms “monster” and “monstrous” by contrast provide less
limiting guidance to reading horror fiction.

Samuel Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language
(1755)

MO’NSTER. n.s. [monstre, Fr. monstrum, Latin.]
1. Something out of the common order of nature.
2. Something horrible for deformity, wickedness, or
mischief.

To MO’NSTER. v.a. [from the noun.]
To put out of the common order of things. Not in use.

MONSTRO’SITY. MONSTRUOSITY
MONSTRU’OSITY. n.s. [from monstrous.]
The state of being monstrous, or out of the common order of the universe. Monstrosity is more
analogous.

MO’NSTROUS. adj. [monstrueux, Fr. monstrosus, Latin.]

1. Deviating from the stated order of nature.
2. Strange; wonderful. Generally with some degree of dislike.
3. Irregular; enormous.
4. Shocking; hateful.

Page 2 of 4

MO’NSTROUSLY. adv. [from monstrous.]

1. In a manner out of the common order of nature; shockingly; terribly; horribly.
2. To a great or enormous degree.

MO’NSTROUSNESS. n.s. [from monstrous.]
Enormity; irregular nature or behaviour.

Joseph Campbell
The Power of Myth

(1988)

“By monster I mean some horrendous presence or apparition that explodes all of your standards
for harmony, order, and ethical conduct” (Campbell 222).

Horror Fiction

According to Stephen King, horror is generated when “our confidence in the sane, predictable
cosmic order is suspended” and we move “beyond the safe, normal confines of [our] everyday
world” (Dans Macabre)

BUT what exactly constitutes
• “the common order of things”?
• “standards for harmony, order, and ethical conduct”?
• “sane, predictable cosmic order”?
• a “safe, normal . . . everyday world”?

Horror raises and addresses such questions through its use of monsters and monstrous elements,
and also through its use of the various types of irony.

1 World view: shared perception of and beliefs about the world, our selves, social norms
and codes of conduct, etc. Way of making sense of human experiences. Culture-specific.

Page 3 of 4

Important background information to bear in mind when considering the characteristics and role
of the monster in any horror story:

Divergent Western World Views1

Divergent Western Definitions of Natural and Moral Norms

Age of Faith Age of Science

spiritual/religious secular (God is dead)

theocentric – God = central focus anthropocentric – humanity = central focus

history = a linear descent, starting with
humanity’s eviction from Eden

history = a linear ascent – evolutionary
“progress” (ongoing “improvement”)

humanity is imperfect, fallen from a state of
grace (original sin)

humanity is primal, central, the most highly
evolved of all species

soul mind, reason

soul, faith, need and ability to seek
redemption = humanity’s definitive traits

mind, intellect, intelligence, capacity for
reason = humanity’s definitive traits

childlike traits, especially emotions, can bring
humanity closer to God

emotions & imagination = weaknesses,
childish or feminine distractions

stewards of the earth rulers of nature

Free will – capacity to choose freely Determinism – human identity shaped by
biology and environment – limited or no free

will

Code of conduct based on morality – belief in
the existence of good and evil

Survival of the fittest
Enlightened self-interest

neither good nor evil exist

Page 4 of 4

According to Stephen King: Horror “can be divided into two groups, [“inside evil”] in which
horror results from an act of free and conscious will – a conscious decision to do evil – and
[“outside evil”] in which horror is predestinate, coming from the outside like a stroke of
lightning” ( Dans Macabre)

This definition presupposes a world view in which good and evil exist, and humans can and
should exercise free will (choose to be heroes or villains). Do all the assigned readings reflect
such a world view?

An alternative definition is that horror fiction can be divided into two groups, one in which
monsters/the monstrous merely threaten/challenge an implied world view, another in which
monsters/the monstrous horrifyingly expose the unreliability of a world view.

Works Cited

Campbell, Joseph . The Power of Myth . NY: Doubleday, 1988.

Delahoyde, Michael A. “Introduction.” Monsters. Department of English. Washington State
University. http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/monsters.intro.html February 17, 2017

King, Stephen. Dans Macabre. London: MacDonald, 1985.

Interpretive Essay — Grading Criteria

U of O System of grading

Letter grade Percentage Point Value Definition

A+ 90%-100% 10 exceptional

A 85%-89% 9 excellent

A- 80%-84% 8 excellent

B+ 75%-79% 7 very good

B 70%-74% 6 very good

C+ 65%-69% 5 good

C 60%-64% 4 good

D+ 55%-59% 3 passable

D 50%-54% 2 passable

E 40%-49% 1 failure

F 0%-39% 0 failure

Please Note

Interpretive essays argue informed opinions based on evidence drawn from primary sources (the
literature studied in the course).

Secondary sources, especially sources of factual information, may also be necessary, depending
on the choice of primary source, and the topic. For example, an essay that argues an opinion
about what a novel reveals about a specific society (e.g., Victorian England) will require research
into 19th-century culture.

Secondary sources that argue interpretations of the literature studied in this course should be
used sparingly – if at all – to avoid misusing them (for further details see descriptions below).

A- to A+ Papers (80-100%)
 Have a very clear aim. The thesis identifies the topic in specific, accurate language. The

thesis does not simply make an assertion that can be substantiated in the body of the
paper, but opens up a thought-provoking, plausible argument.

 Have exceptionally strong introduction and conclusion. The introduction moves
gracefully from the general (context of topic) to the specific (thesis statement). It is at
least ½ a page long. It should leave no doubt where the argument is headed and why. The
conclusion is thoughtful and ties together the argument, unobtrusively summarizing what
ground has been covered and why.

 Well-chosen quantity & quality of supporting detail drawn from the primary source.
Quotations are not left to speak for themselves, but are explicitly tied to the argument,
i.e., analysed and interpreted.

 Well-chosen quantity and quality of secondary source material. Any requisite factual
information has been derived from authoritative, scholarly sources, such as the Oxford
English Dictionary, peer-reviewed journals, and the like. If opinions drawn from
scholarly interpretations have been used – which is by no means essential – they have
either been debated, or built upon.

 Quantity of evidence is appropriate. Quotations, paraphrase, and other evidence comprise
no more than ½ of the body of the essay.

 Development of argument is logical and well-organised. Topic sentences should be
strong, and implicitly or explicitly relate to the thesis.

 Tone is formal and objective. Ideally, while the writer’s commitment to the thesis comes
across clearly, the reader is convinced of the plausibility of the argument by careful, even
rigorous, development of ideas/opinions. No slanted language or emotive rhetoric has
been used.

 Show stylistic maturity and confident facility with language. Writer demonstrates an
ability to use a variety of sentence structures, but does not lapse into unnecessary
prolixity. Vocabulary is sophisticated, but not pretentious (polysyllables & jargon used
only when necessary). Above all, the style is both precise and concise, using the
minimum number of well-chosen words necessary to communicate ideas and information
effectively.

 Are virtually free of surface errors. Essay has been thoroughly proof-read and carefully
edited. Almost no typos, spelling mistakes, etc.

 Documentation is present and virtually 100% correct.

B to B+ Papers (70-79%)
 Have a clear aim. The thesis identifies the topic in specific, accurate language. The

opinion voiced in the thesis is clear, but can be substantiated so thoroughly that there is
little room for debate (could be more argumentative).

 Have strong introduction and conclusion. The introduction moves gracefully from the
general (context of topic) to the specific (thesis statement). It is at least ½ a page long.
The reader has little doubt where the argument is headed and why. The conclusion ties
together the argument.

 Fairly well-chosen quantity & quality of supporting detail from the primary source.
Sometimes quotations are left to speak for themselves, or have not been tied to the
argument clearly enough.

 Fairly well-chosen quantity and quality of secondary source material. Some requisite
factual information may be missing and/or may have been derived from problematic
sources, such as popular web sites or magazines rather than journals. Opinions drawn
from scholarly interpretations may have been inappropriately used as supporting
evidence.

 Quantity of evidence may be problematic. Quotations, paraphrase, and other evidence
may comprise more than ½ of the paper.

 Development of argument is reasonably logical and well-organised. Sequence of

paragraphs is acceptable. Topic sentences may be a little general or vague. Minor lapses
in logic, and/or unity, and/or coherence at the paragraph level.

 Tone is at least partly formal and objective. Sections of the essay may be too emotive.
Minor lapses into informality may occur.

 Lack the stylistic maturity and confident facility with language of the A paper. Minor
problems with either sentence structure and/or diction. The style may be wordy at times.
The ratio of abstract and general to concrete and specific words may be problematic.

 Are largely free of surface errors. Essay gives every indication of having been proof-read
& edited. Some typos, spelling mistakes, etc.

 Documentation is present and 80% correct

C to C+ Papers (60-69%)
 Lack a clear aim. The thesis fails to argue an informed opinion but rather states the

obvious or makes a point not open to debate.
 Have an introduction and conclusion. Introduction & conclusion contain one or more of

the following problems: too long/short, too vague/too specific, lacking in
unity/coherence/development.

 Some supporting detail from the primary source, but little to no analysis and
interpretation thereof. Too much of the essay either explains or paraphrases the contents
of the text.

 Problematic quantity and quality of secondary source material. Essay may draw heavily
on popular sources of information and opinions. It may also re-write lecture notes.

 Development of argument is flawed. One or more of the following problems may occur:
sequence of paragraphs is not 100% logical/coherent; topic sentences general/vague, or
missing; lapses in logic, and/or unity, and/or coherence at paragraph or essay level. Too
much plot summary.

 Tone is somewhat formal and objective. Sections of the essay may be too emotive.
Lapses into informality may occur.

 Indicates basic competence in sentence structure & diction. Wordiness is often a
problem, as is overuse of general and abstract words.

 Many surface errors. Essay gives every indication of not having been proof-read & edited
carefully enough. Multiple typos, spelling mistakes, etc.

 Documentation is present and 70% correct.

D to D+ Papers (50-59%)
 Inappropriate or missing aim. Topic is too broad, and/or unsuitable, and/or unclear.

There is no sense of a thesis.
 Introduction and/or conclusion problematic. Introduction & conclusion marred by most

of the following problems: too long/short, too vague/too specific, lacking in
unity/coherence/development. Conclusion may be absent.

 Supporting detail from primary source conspicuous by its absence.
 Extremely problematic use of secondary source material. Essay may consist of a

patchwork of information and opinions drawn from popular sources and/or lecture notes
 Development of argument is seriously flawed. One or more of the following problems

may occur: sequence of paragraphs is illogical; topic sentences general/vague, or missing;

lapses in logic, and/or unity, and/or coherence at paragraph or essay level.
 Tone is insufficiently formal and/or objective. May be largely informal and/or emotive.
 Sentence structure & diction seriously flawed, and compromise the intended meaning.
 Many surface errors. Essay gives every indication of not having been proof-read & edited

at all.
 Documentation is present but less than 60% correct. . Student fails to use MLA format.

E to F Papers (0-49%)
Contain one or more of the following problems
 Much too short – less than half the assigned length
 Wildly off topic, i.e. ignores instructions provided
 No argument, analysis or interpretation whatsoever..
 Tone is completely inappropriate.
 Stylistic flaws obscure the intended meaning.
 Many, many surface errors. Essay gives every indication of not having been proof-read &

edited at all.
 Documentation is present but less than 40% correct

0%
• Completely inaccurate, absent, or fraudulent documentation.

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I repeat to you, gentlemen, that your inquisition is fruitless. Detain me here forever if you
will; confine or execute me if you must have a victim to propitiate the illusion you call justice;
but I can say no more than I have said already. Everything that I can remember, I have told
with perfect candour. Nothing has been distorted or concealed, and if anything remains vague,
it is only because of the dark cloud which has come over my mind—that cloud and the nebulous
nature of the horrors which brought it upon me.

Again I say, I do not know what has become of Harley Warren; though I think—almost
hope—that he is in peaceful oblivion, if there be anywhere so blessed a thing. It is true
that I have for five years been his closest friend, and a partial sharer of his terrible researches
into the unknown. I will not deny, though my memory is uncertain and indistinct, that this witness
of yours may have seen us together as he says, on the Gainesville pike, walking toward Big Cypress
Swamp, at half past eleven on that awful night. That we bore electric lanterns, spades, and
a curious coil of wire with attached instruments, I will even affirm; for these things all played
a part in the single hideous scene which remains burned into my shaken recollection. But of
what followed, and of the reason I was found alone and dazed on the edge of the swamp next morning,
I must insist that I know nothing save what I have told you over and over again. You say to
me that there is nothing in the swamp or near it which could form the setting of that frightful
episode. I reply that I know nothing beyond what I saw. Vision or nightmare it may have been—vision
or nightmare I fervently hope it was—yet it is all that my mind retains of what took place
in those shocking hours after we left the sight of men. And why Harley Warren did not return,
he or his shade—or some nameless thing I cannot describe—alone can tell.

As I have said before, the weird studies of Harley Warren were well known to
me, and to some extent shared by me. Of his vast collection of strange, rare books on forbidden
subjects I have read all that are written in the languages of which I am master; but these are
few as compared with those in languages I cannot understand. Most, I believe, are in Arabic;
and the fiend-inspired book which brought on the end—the book which he carried in his
pocket out of the world—was written in characters whose like I never saw elsewhere. Warren
would never tell me just what was in that book. As to the nature of our studies—must I
say again that I no longer retain full comprehension? It seems to me rather merciful that I
do not, for they were terrible studies, which I pursued more through reluctant fascination than
through actual inclination. Warren always dominated me, and sometimes I feared him. I remember
how I shuddered at his facial expression on the night before the awful happening, when he talked
so incessantly of his theory, why certain corpses never decay, but rest firm and fat in their
tombs for a thousand years. But I do not fear him now, for I suspect that he has known horrors
beyond my ken. Now I fear for him.

Once more I say that I have no clear idea of our object on that night. Certainly,
it had much to do with something in the book which Warren carried with him—that ancient
book in undecipherable characters which had come to him from India a month before—but
I swear I do not know what it was that we expected to find. Your witness says he saw us at half
past eleven on the Gainesville pike, headed for Big Cypress Swamp. This is probably true, but
I have no distinct memory of it. The picture seared into my soul is of one scene only, and the
hour must have been long after midnight; for a waning crescent moon was high in the vaporous
heavens.

The place was an ancient cemetery; so ancient that I trembled at the manifold
signs of immemorial years. It was in a deep, damp hollow, overgrown with rank grass, moss, and
curious creeping weeds, and filled with a vague stench which my idle fancy associated absurdly
with rotting stone. On every hand were the signs of neglect and decrepitude, and I seemed haunted
by the notion that Warren and I were the first living creatures to invade a lethal silence of
centuries. Over the valley’s rim a wan, waning crescent moon peered through the noisome
vapours that seemed to emanate from unheard-of catacombs, and by its feeble, wavering beams
I could distinguish a repellent array of antique slabs, urns, cenotaphs, and mausolean facades;
all crumbling, moss-grown, and moisture-stained, and partly concealed by the gross luxuriance
of the unhealthy vegetation. My first vivid impression of my own presence in this terrible necropolis
concerns the act of pausing with Warren before a certain half-obliterated sepulchre, and of
throwing down some burdens which we seemed to have been carrying. I now observed that I had
with me an electric lantern and two spades, whilst my companion was supplied with a similar
lantern and a portable telephone outfit. No word was uttered, for the spot and the task seemed
known to us; and without delay we seized our spades and commenced to clear away the grass, weeds,
and drifted earth from the flat, archaic mortuary. After uncovering the entire surface, which
consisted of three immense granite slabs, we stepped back some distance to survey the charnel
scene; and Warren appeared to make some mental calculations. Then he returned to the sepulchre,
and using his spade as a lever, sought to pry up the slab lying nearest to a stony ruin which
may have been a monument in its day. He did not succeed, and motioned to me to come to his assistance.
Finally our combined strength loosened the stone, which we raised and tipped to one side.

The removal of the slab revealed a black aperture, from which rushed an effluence
of miasmal gases so nauseous that we started back in horror. After an interval, however, we
approached the pit again, and found the exhalations less unbearable. Our lanterns disclosed
the top of a flight of stone steps, dripping with some detestable ichor of the inner earth,
and bordered by moist walls encrusted with nitre. And now for the first time my memory records
verbal discourse, Warren addressing me at length in his mellow tenor voice; a voice singularly
unperturbed by our awesome surroundings.

“I’m sorry to have to ask you to stay on the surface,” he
said, “but it would be a crime to let anyone with your frail nerves go down there. You
can’t imagine, even from what you have read and from what I’ve told you, the things
I shall have to see and do. It’s fiendish work, Carter, and I doubt if any man without
ironclad sensibilities could ever see it through and come up alive and sane. I don’t wish
to offend you, and heaven knows I’d be glad enough to have you with me; but the responsibility
is in a certain sense mine, and I couldn’t drag a bundle of nerves like you down to probable
death or madness. I tell you, you can’t imagine what the thing is really like! But I promise
to keep you informed over the telephone of every move—you see I’ve enough wire here
to reach to the centre of the earth and back!”

I can still hear, in memory, those coolly spoken words; and I can still remember
my remonstrances. I seemed desperately anxious to accompany my friend into those sepulchral
depths, yet he proved inflexibly obdurate. At one time he threatened to abandon the expedition
if I remained insistent; a threat which proved effective, since he alone held the key to the
thing. All this I can still remember, though I no longer know what manner of thing
we sought. After he had secured my reluctant acquiescence in his design, Warren picked up the
reel of wire and adjusted the instruments. At his nod I took one of the latter and seated myself
upon an aged, discoloured gravestone close by the newly uncovered aperture. Then he shook my
hand, shouldered the coil of wire, and disappeared within that indescribable ossuary. For a
moment I kept sight of the glow of his lantern, and heard the rustle of the wire as he laid
it down after him; but the glow soon disappeared abruptly, as if a turn in the stone staircase
had been encountered, and the sound died away almost as quickly. I was alone, yet bound to the
unknown depths by those magic strands whose insulated surface lay green beneath the struggling
beams of that waning crescent moon.

In the lone silence of that hoary and deserted city of the dead, my mind conceived
the most ghastly phantasies and illusions; and the grotesque shrines and monoliths seemed to
assume a hideous personality—a half-sentience. Amorphous shadows seemed to lurk in the
darker recesses of the weed-choked hollow and to flit as in some blasphemous ceremonial procession
past the portals of the mouldering tombs in the hillside; shadows which could not have been
cast by that pallid, peering crescent moon. I constantly consulted my watch by the light of
my electric lantern, and listened with feverish anxiety at the receiver of the telephone; but
for more than a quarter of an hour heard nothing. Then a faint clicking came from the instrument,
and I called down to my friend in a tense voice. Apprehensive as I was, I was nevertheless unprepared
for the words which came up from that uncanny vault in accents more alarmed and quivering than
any I had heard before from Harley Warren. He who had so calmly left me a little while previously,
now called from below in a shaky whisper more portentous than the loudest shriek:

“God! If you could see what I am seeing!”

I could not answer. Speechless, I could only wait. Then came the frenzied tones
again:

“Carter, it’s terrible—monstrous—unbelievable!”

This time my voice did not fail me, and I poured into the transmitter a flood
of excited questions. Terrified, I continued to repeat, “Warren, what is it? What is it?”

Once more came the voice of my friend, still hoarse with fear, and now apparently
tinged with despair:

“I can’t tell you, Carter! It’s too utterly beyond thought—I
dare not tell you—no man could know it and live—Great God! I never dreamed of THIS!”
Stillness again, save for my now incoherent torrent of shuddering inquiry. Then the voice of
Warren in a pitch of wilder consternation:

“Carter! for the love of God, put back the slab and get out of this
if you can! Quick!—leave everything else and make for the outside—it’s your
only chance! Do as I say, and don’t ask me to explain!”

I heard, yet was able only to repeat my frantic questions. Around me were the
tombs and the darkness and the shadows; below me, some peril beyond the radius of the human
imagination. But my friend was in greater danger than I, and through my fear I felt a vague
resentment that he should deem me capable of deserting him under such circumstances. More clicking,
and after a pause a piteous cry from Warren:

“Beat it! For God’s sake, put back the slab and beat it, Carter!”

Something in the boyish slang of my evidently stricken companion unleashed
my faculties. I formed and shouted a resolution, “Warren, brace up! I’m coming down!”
But at this offer the tone of my auditor changed to a scream of utter despair:

“Don’t! You can’t understand! It’s too late—and
my own fault. Put back the slab and run—there’s nothing else you or anyone can do
now!” The tone changed again, this time acquiring a softer quality, as of hopeless
resignation. Yet it remained tense through anxiety for me.

“Quick—before it’s too late!” I tried not to
heed him; tried to break through the paralysis which held me, and to fulfil my vow to rush down
to his aid. But his next whisper found me still held inert in the chains of stark horror.

“Carter—hurry! It’s no use—you must go—better
one than two—the slab—” A pause, more clicking, then the faint voice of
Warren:

“Nearly over now—don’t make it harder—cover up those
damned steps and run for your life—you’re losing time— So long, Carter—won’t
see you again.” Here Warren’s whisper swelled into a cry; a cry that gradually
rose to a shriek fraught with all the horror of the ages—

“Curse these hellish things—legions— My God! Beat it!
Beat it! Beat it!”

After that was silence. I know not how many interminable aeons I sat stupefied;
whispering, muttering, calling, screaming into that telephone. Over and over again through those
aeons I whispered and muttered, called, shouted, and screamed, “Warren! Warren! Answer
me—are you there?”

And then there came to me the crowning horror of all—the unbelievable,
unthinkable, almost unmentionable thing. I have said that aeons seemed to elapse after Warren
shrieked forth his last despairing warning, and that only my own cries now broke the hideous
silence. But after a while there was a further clicking in the receiver, and I strained my ears
to listen. Again I called down, “Warren, are you there?”, and in answer heard the
thing which has brought this cloud over my mind. I do not try, gentlemen, to account
for that thing—that voice—nor can I venture to describe it in detail, since
the first words took away my consciousness and created a mental blank which reaches to the time
of my awakening in the hospital. Shall I say that the voice was deep; hollow; gelatinous; remote;
unearthly; inhuman; disembodied? What shall I say? It was the end of my experience, and is the
end of my story. I heard it, and knew no more. Heard it as I sat petrified in that unknown cemetery
in the hollow, amidst the crumbling stones and the falling tombs, the rank vegetation and the
miasmal vapours. Heard it well up from the innermost depths of that damnable open sepulchre
as I watched amorphous, necrophagous shadows dance beneath an accursed waning moon. And this
is what it said:

“YOU FOOL, WARREN IS DEAD!”

 

 

The Statement of Randolph Carter By H. P. Lovecraft
Return to “The Statement of Randolph Carter” Page Last Revised 20 August 2009 URL: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/src.aspx
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Page 1 of 8

Short Notes on the Elements of Fiction
(the building blocks of all types of fiction)

1 Plot

plot = “the organization of incidents in a narrative. . . .The governing word in this definition is
organization” (Beckson & Ganz 203)

Elements of plot structure/organization:
 exposition, or introductory information
 complication(s), series of events caused by the central conflict
 climax, the moment of crisis in the story–point of no return
 denouement/resolution, the untangling of the complications
 foreshadowing, clues of events to follow
 flashback, shift back to the past
 juxtaposition

The most important key aspect of plot, however, is conflict whether it be an actual physical battle
between good and evil, or inner psychological turmoil.

A mere string of events does not constitute a plot, that is simply a narrative sequence. (See the
definition of narration in any writer’s handbook.)

The king died and the queen died. Simple narrative sequence.
The king died and the queen died of grief. A plot.

Plots may be comic – move from disorder to order – the resolution of the conflict affirms that
the world we live in is orderly, and the roles we play in it effectual and meaningful

Plots may be tragic – move from order to disorder – the resolution of the conflict suggests that
the world we live in is chaotic, hostile and the roles we play in it meaningless, or ineffectual

2 Characterization

characterization = the technique(s) used to create a character.

Texts can TELL us about characters (intervene to describe & evaluate characters) or
SHOW us characters (present dialogue & action without overt judgement).

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Texts can TYPIFY OR INDIVIDUALIZE

‘Flat’ characters: representative, generic,
static (incapable of growth & change)

‘Round’ characters: unique, distinctive,
capable of growth and change

Few characteristics (often physical) Many characteristics (physical & emotional)

Representative (stock) Individual

Stereotype (reflects shallow prejudices–facile
judgement ) or archetype (full of symbolic
resonance)

Unique: depiction of human being as a social
being with a distinct personality (social &
psychological depth)

We come to understand a character through the following:
 what the text tells us (physical descriptions, moral judgements, etc)
 what the character does (plot)
 what the character says & thinks (dialogue)
 what other characters say about him/her (dialogue)

Important categories of character:
 hero or protagonist
 villain or antagonist
 heroine

3 Setting

setting = the natural and artificial scenery or environment in which the characters in literature
live and move, together with the things they use. It establishes the time, place & social reality
within which the story takes place.

Setting = all physical and temporal objects and artifacts found in the story:
 times of day
 weather
 hills & valleys
 trees & animals
 sounds outside & in
 smells
 walking sticks, necklaces, clothing

Types of setting
 natural: nature as a shaping force in the characters’ lives , e.g., a moral testing

ground
 manufactured: manufactured things reveal the personalities of makers and

buyers/owners

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Uses of setting
 credibility of detail – verisimilitude
 metaphor and symbolism
 provides context for characters’ behaviour – motivation & choices

4 Point of View

Point of view = the perspective from which details in narrative are perceived and related
to the us–the voice, speaker, centralizing intelligence, narrative personality.
Synonyms: viewpoint, perspective, angle of vision, mask, centre of attention, focus.
(NB: Do not confuse this term with ‘point of view’ meaning “opinion.”)

4.1 First person point of view

perspective = I (rarely we)

always consider what the writer tells us/implies about the speaker(s)’
 social & educational background
 age and gender
 bias

speaker(s) may be
• a major participant in the story
• a minor participant
• reporting a story (hearsay)

speaker(s) may be given
 complete understanding
 partial or incorrect understanding (the fallible or unreliable narrator)
 no understanding at all

4.2 Third person point of view

Perspective = he, she, it, they

4.2.1 Third person omniscient point of view

Techniques: writer creates an intrusive narrator who knows all about the characters and
tells us what to think of them. All narrator’s reports and comments are taken as
authoritative. (NB NO USE OF ‘I,’ ‘ME,’etc.)

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4.2.2 Limited omniscient point of view

Techniques: focuses on thoughts, feelings and actions of a very limited number of
characters, usually just one.

4.3 Dramatic point of view

Techniques: resembles a tracking cine camera or video, reporting actions and
conversations (not thoughts). Shows us the characters, does not tell us what to make of
them.

5 Tone

Tone = techniques and methods of presentation that reveal or create attitudes (e.g., joy, rage,
sadness), not the attitudes themselves. An analysis of tone should focus on (1) how the text
establishes a given effect, not the effect itself, (2) the ways in which tone shapes or influences the
meaning (themes) of the work. For example, irony may be used to call attention to, even criticize,
individual, social, political flaws.

VAST range of tones: admiring–strident–forceful–ironic–bitter–jubilant–violent–serious–
comic

5.1 Laughter, comedy, farce

Methods/techniques:
 creating an object of laughter, e.g., person, place, thing, situation, custom, habit

of speech, arrangement of words, e.g., Mr. Bean
 blending incongruous elements, e.g., Americans bringing skis to the Chateau

Laurier in July
 suspending natural consequences in favour of safety and/or goodwill, e.g., the

indestructible coyote in the Road Runner cartoons.

5.2 Irony

Irony = “a device by which an author expresses a meaning contradictory to the stated or
ostensible [apparent] one” (Beckson & Ganz 132)
Irony involves a discrepancy between appearance (“stated or ostensible meaning”) and
reality (‘true’ meaning); forces us to read between the lines, to question who is blind to
the contradiction and who sees it.

Sarcasm = the crudest form of irony = “bitter, derisive expression. . .whereby what is

Page 5 of 8

stated is the opposite of what is stated” (Beckson & Ganz 247). (Does not require any real
reading between the lines–frequently referred to as the ‘lowest form of wit.’)

5.2.1 Verbal irony

Manipulation of language so that the writing initially appears to mean one thing but
actually means another (demands a very sophisticated reader who understands that what
the writer is ‘pretending’ to say is not actually what is being said). Speaker/authorial
voice and reader share the ‘joke.’

Possible techniques:
 understatement
 overstatement
 double entendre

Example: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a
good fortune must be in want of a wife” (Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice).

5.2.2 Situational irony

Invokes the idea of forces (psychological, social, political, or environmental) that
transcend and overpower human capacities

5.2.2.1 Cosmic irony

God(s) manipulate(s) the fates of the characters

5.2.3 Structural irony

Complete work is ironic; meaning is double from beginning to end.

5.2.4 Dramatic irony

Technique: juxtaposition of two perspectives. Character(s) perceive events in a limited
way– but the text strongly implies the bigger picture.

6. Imagery, Figurative Language

6.1 Imagery

Concrete and specific words have the power to create pictures in the mind’s eye; they also
have the ability to conjure up smells, tastes, sounds, even tactile sensations. Writers are
therefore able to capture in language written descriptions of literal sensory experiences

Page 6 of 8

familiar to us all – images. Precisely because images are so immediately accessible to us,
human beings have long since used them as analogies, i.e., used them figuratively, rather
than literally.

Example: “How did you do in the exam?” “It was a train smash.”

In the example, the image of a commonplace literal disaster, involving extensive
physical damage and suffering, is used figuratively to convey a personal “disaster.”

If the analogy is implied, as in the example, the image is used as a metaphor. If the
analogy is explicitly stated, usually by using “like” or “as” the image is used as a simile.

Example: “How was the exam?” “Dreadful. The questions were as clear as mud.”

As the example above indicates, similes may be original or much-used (cliched?) Much-
used similes are often idiomatic,

Example: “How was the exam?” “Great! I am feeling happy as a clam about it.”

6.2 Symbolism

Similes are the most overt form of figurative language, and therefore usually require less
thoughtful analysis than other types of figurative language. Those which are idiomatic in
particular should probably be taken at face value. It is possible, but highly unlikely, that
deep meaning has been buried in expressions such as “happy as a clam.”

Metaphors, unlike similes, often lurk unseen in literature and usually require a fair
amount of thoughtful analysis. Unpacking the implications of the implied comparison
(analogy) embedded in a metaphor can be important in reading between the lines to
discover and make sense of themes.

The most thought-provoking and challenging form of figurative language, however, is the
symbol.

A symbol = an object, action, or situation which stands for some
experience/belief/emotion so complex that it would be difficult to express directly.

A symbol = any of the following:
 a single word
 action(s)
 setting
 character
 situation

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but it is always concrete (something we can conjure up a sensory impression of, e.g., a
mental picture), representative, and highly connotative (has many connotations).

The more ideas/meanings a given word or object in a story evokes, the more likely it is a
symbol.

Most cultures develop their own vocabulary of symbols. In Western literature much is use
is made of symbols drawn from Judaism and Christianity (Judaeo-Christian symbols).
Writers assume that readers will be familiar with and therefore understand the
significance of symbols such as the dove, the cross, the number 3, etc.

Analysing symbolism is frequently an essential – and challenging – part of reading
between the lines in fiction.

7. Style and diction

Style consists of selecting the right words and placing them in the right order — easier said than
done. Choice of words is known as diction. Appropriate use of diction involves understanding
not just the ‘denotation,’ or literal meaning of a word, but also the ‘connotations,’ or subjective
associations a word has gathered through use.

• Denotation = what a word means.
• Connotation = what a word suggests.

8. Theme

Theme = both thematic concept and thematic statement

• thematic concept = subject (topic) covered by a work
• thematic statement = the central idea or thesis explored by a work (Beckson &

Ganz 281).

The term “theme” therefore requires reaching an informed opinion about what precisely the text
has to say (thematic statement) about a subject/topic (thematic concept) – simple identification
of the topic is not enough.

Important: all other elements of fiction – plot, characterization, setting, figures of speech
develop, shape and communicate the themes(s) in any given work.

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Reading between the lines for meaning is reading to find and understand thematic concepts and
statements

Many works (arguably most works) contain more than one thematic concept and thematic
statement.

Finally

Plot, characterization, setting, etc. can be considered the basic building blocks of fiction, but
there are many types of fiction: novels, novellas, short stories, ghost stories, fantastic stories,
science fiction, horror fiction, and so on.

When reading between the lines for implied meaning, each type of fiction requires to be
approached on its own terms. No type of fiction can simply be taken at face value, and read for
information the way one reads an encyclopedia, but some types of fiction require to be read more
figuratively than others.

It is helpful to think of fiction in terms of a spectrum which ranges from “realism” – to
“romance.”

• “Realism” = fiction which depicts the world as it is to some extent, i.e., describes
an actual time and place with some degree of verisimilitude. Most importantly,
characters in realistic fiction are “round” characters (see notes on Characterization
above). Realistic fiction can be read at least partly literally.

• Romance = fiction which depicts the world as it should be to some extent, i.e.,
describes a fictional, even fantastic, place. Most importantly, characters in
Romance are types (see notes on Characterization above). Romance must be read
at least partly figuratively (see notes on Imagery and Figurative Language above).

Works Cited

Beckson, Karl and Arthur Ganz. Literary Terms: A Dictionary. 3rd ed. New York: Noonday
Press, 1989.

Copyright © 2019 for the Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research. Content in Fafnir is
licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC 3.0):
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/). ISSN: 2342-2009. Fafnir, vol. 6, iss. 1, 2019, pp. 28–40. 28

Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science
Fiction and Fantasy Research

journal.finfar.org

“The Mindworm”:
C. M. Kornbluth’s Post-War American Vampire Tale at the

Dawn of the Atomic Age

Kristin Bidoshi

Abstract: Through a close reading of C. M. Kornbluth’s “The Mindworm”
(1950), this paper focuses on the socioeconomic and political anxieties of post-
war America including: fears of uncontrolled technological development
(nuclear weapons), pathologies of consumerism (material affluence), and the
McCarthyite suppression of dissent (the second Red Scare and government
surveillance) to reveal the author’s significantly veiled anti-authoritarian
message. Published during the height of revived anti-Communist hysteria,
Kornbluth’s story challenges the legitimacy of American values of the 1950s,
including consumerism, patriotism and conformity. A reworking of the
traditional science-fiction narrative where the enemy represents the fear of the
Other (i.e. Communists), Kornbluth’s story exposes the real threat to American
democracy: the American government’s suppression of its citizens’ rights.

Keywords: science fiction, supernatural, post-war America

“The Mindworm” appeared in the first issue of the science-fiction magazine Worlds
Beyond (Dec 1950), edited by Damon Knight. Knight is said to have suggested to C. M.
Kornbluth the title and story, which would center on “a mental vampire” (Rich 151).
Upon first read, “The Mindworm” appears to be typical of the pulp science fiction
stories of the Golden Age: the characters seem to be almost indistinguishable and the
plot is relatively simple – a mutant vampire protagonist stalks and kills his prey and is
himself killed at the end.1 Kornbluth’s story, a beautifully crafted tribute to the author’s
conviction that science fiction can and should function as social criticism, is in fact a

1 This era was also noted for science-fictional vampires in films including The Thing (1951), Not of this
Earth (1956), and It (1958).

Kristin Bidoshi “The Mindworm”: Kornbluth’s Post-War
American Vampire Tale at the Dawn of the Atomic Age

Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research 29

critique of numerous aspects of post-war American culture. Through a close reading
of Kornbluth’s story, this paper focuses on the socioeconomic and political anxieties of
this “Age of Anxiety”, including fears of uncontrolled technological development,
pathologies of consumerism, and the McCarthyite suppression of dissent, to reveal
Kornbluth’s significantly veiled anti-authoritarian message. In Our Vampires,
Ourselves, Nina Auerbach famously declares that “every age embraces the vampire it
needs” (145). Careful attention to Kornbluth’s portrayal of the supernatural suggests
to what end his vampire reflects anxieties of the late 1940s and early 1950s. In
challenging the legitimacy of American values of the 1950s, including patriotism and
conformity, Kornbluth reworks the traditional science fiction narrative where the
enemy represents the fear of the Other (i.e. Communists) to reveal the real threat to
American democracy: the American government’s suppression of its citizens’ rights.

Kornbluth (1923–1958), who was of Polish Jewish descent, joined the Futurian
Science Literary Society (FSLS), a group of New York science-fiction fans and writers,
when he was 15 (Rich 10).2 He authored numerous short stories and several novels in
collaboration with fellow Futurians including Frederik Pohl, Judith Merril, and
Donald Wollheim. Most of the Futurians were interested in the political applications
of science fiction. Kornbluth’s biographer Mark Rich explains that they valued global
awareness, activism, and democratic participation; he writes, “they were called
Communists … since one or two of them attended Communist meetings in the same
meeting hall, other evenings” (14). Wollheim, the founder of FSLS, was attracted to
Communism and believed that science-fiction writers and fans “should actively work
for the realization of the scientific world-state” (Carr 430). Some members took this
call very literally – Merril, for example, supported Trotskyism, and Pohl was a member
of the Communist Party. Other science-fiction authors of the 1950s who were
especially skeptical, like Kornbluth, took a “debunking position on society’s
infatuation with technological development”, usually, as Jonathan Lethem points out,
“in light of some instinctively Marxist sense of how capitalism corrupts the reception
of radical technology” (Luter 23).

Kornbluth’s most popular works, including the short stories “The Little Black
Bag” (1950) and “The Marching Morons” (1951), reprinted in The Best Science Fiction
Stories of C. M. Kornbluth, portray the United States as a “cynically conformist,
economically corrupt, militarily aggressive and politically authoritarian society”
(Latham 134). The novel he penned with Pohl, The Space Merchants (1953), about two
enormous advertising agencies and their domination of the future world, is “an
effective satire of the anticommunist oppression of the McCarthy era in which the book
was written” (Booker, Monsters 40). Kornbluth’s Not This August (1955; UK title
Christmas Eve [1956]) portrays a US that is invaded, divided, and enslaved by Sino-
Soviet armies (Seed, “Constructing” 75). Isaac Asimov and others have asserted that
“Kornbluth was a brilliant writer, and perhaps the most brilliant of them all” (qtd. in
Rich 5).

Kornbluth’s “The Mindworm” was published in 1950, during the height of
revived anti-Communist hysteria that had gripped the United States after World War
II. Very little critical attention has been paid to the story. In Monsters, Mushroom
Clouds and the Cold War, M. Keith Booker calls for “a more sophisticated – and more
political – reading of the science fiction of the 1950s than has generally been

2 Deborah, Kornbluth’s mother, was born in Kalisz, Poland; his father, Samuel, was a second-generation
American of Polish descent (Rich 16).

Peer-Reviewed Article

30 Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research

attempted” (Booker, Monsters 3). David Seed writes extensively on the Golden Age of
science fiction, and specifically on Kornbluth, yet his manuscript American Science
Fiction and the Cold War: Literature and Film, which includes a lengthy chapter on
Kornbluth, makes no mention of the “The Mindworm” whatsoever. Rich’s 451-page
seminal study of Kornbluth’s life and works devotes one brief sentence to the story (on
page 158) and offers no critical analysis.

Kornbluth’s sometime collaborator Pohl has himself declared that “there is no
good science fiction at all that is not to some degree political” (7). Seed’s article on Pohl
and Kornbluth delineates how “the authors substantiate this conviction in their fiction
dealing with the area where politics and economics intersect” (Seed, American 93).
The central strategy of science fiction, as Darko Suvin has famously argued, is
“cognitive estrangement”. Derived from the Russian formalist concept of ostrananie
(defamiliarization), the literary technique of “making strange”, cognitive
estrangement in science fiction can be effective as a method of political commentary.
Booker explains that science fiction uses unusual settings (distant times and galaxies)
to “provide fresh perspectives from which to view the author’s (or reader’s) own time
and place” (Booker, Dystopian 27). Writing about science-fiction films of the long
1950s, which is generally considered to span the late-1940s beginnings of the Cold War
to the assassination of John F. Kennedy (Booker, Post-Utopian 1), Susan Sontag comes
to a similar conclusion: these films, she writes, “inculcate a strange apathy concerning
the processes of radiation, contamination, and destruction …. The naïve level of the
films neatly tempers the sense of otherness, of alien-ness, with the grossly familiar”
(Sontag 225). Science-fiction writer and editor Barry Malzberg claims that during the
1950s science fiction was “among the very few mass markets where, sufficiently
masked, an antiauthoritarian statement could be published” (34). That Kornbluth
engages in implicit social criticism in his works can hardly be contested. In a letter to
Pohl dated July 30 1953 Kornbluth writes of a critic:

He doesn’t seem to realize, as Advertising Age, or Tide, or whoever it was, did, that
we are Consies pure and simple, out to bring down American Advertising even if we
are crushed in the ruins of the temple. Any other theory – e.g., that we were writing a
story for $10,000.00 and were interested mainly in giving editors and readers value
for the dough – is preposterous. (qtd. in Rich 201)

In his January 11, 1957 lecture at the University of Chicago, Kornbluth declared that
“science fiction … should be an effective literature of social criticism” and that “science
fiction … does contain social criticism, explicit and implicit” (Kornbluth, “Failure” 55,
75). Kornbluth’s recurrent concerns in his fiction are political and economic in nature;
he writes about the deep conflict created by the existence of weapons of mass
destruction and the crisis of American consumerism (see, for example, Take Off, Not
This August, “The Doomsman”, “The Words of Guru”, “The Marching Morons”, and
“The Last Man Left in the Bar”).

Kornbluth’s “The Mindworm” reflects the anxieties of his day: fear of possible
nuclear catastrophe, the second Red Scare, surveillance, and guilt at increasing
material affluence. The direct fear was of nuclear Armageddon based on the knowledge
of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In post-war America, anxiety about the
arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union was rampant. In 1947
American President Harry S. Truman introduced the Truman doctrine to fight
Communism, and defined post-war US policy by pledging support for any nation
defending itself against communism (Fink 63). The spread of Communism abroad

Kristin Bidoshi “The Mindworm”: Kornbluth’s Post-War
American Vampire Tale at the Dawn of the Atomic Age

Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research 31

only served to increase anxieties and frustration at home. Anxieties about
collaboration with the enemy and the US government’s surveillance of its own citizens,
for example, reached new peaks of intensity in the US during this time. President
Truman signed the National Security Act, establishing a National Security Council in
1947. Steve Budianksy’s Code Warriors: NSA’s Codebreakers and the Secret
Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union examines the clandestine surveillance
activities that the government was conducting during this time (including Project
Shamrock, which operated uninterrupted for 30 years, from 1945 to 1975). In a 1948
article entitled “Loyalty among Government Employees” in the Yale Law Journal,
Professors Thomas I. Emerson and David M. Helfeld conclude that “no precedent is to
be found in foreign experience, outside the totalitarian states, for a comprehensive,
continuous system of loyalty surveillance similar to that instituted by the Loyalty
Order in the United States” (67).

The unique urgencies of the Cold War, and particularly fear of nuclear war,
affected writers’ perceptions of the changed status of science fiction. Isaac Asimov
dated the shift precisely: “The dropping of the atomic bomb in 1945 made science
fiction respectable” (qtd. in Seed, American 8). In “Empire of Liberalism: Cultural War
on the Social under Cold-War Liberalism and Neoliberalism” Miura Reiichi identifies
a Cold War literature of freedom that emphasises individualism against the social; of
the culture of the Cold War 1950s, he writes that it is “epitomized by the notorious
McCarthyism, suppressive, or even ironically and virtually totalitarian with its
recourse to the aggrandized threat of the Soviet Union and its totalitarian
communism” (11). Kornbluth’s story can certainly be classified as “literature of
freedom”, as in its criticism of the culture of the Cold War, it indirectly advocates for
an apolitical regime, or a more “perfect liberalism” (Reiichi 44). Sarah Daw, in Writing
Nature in Cold War American Literature, argues that many Cold War writers engage
in a subversive reexamination of the human relationship to its environment that was
occasioned by the dropping of the atomic bombs; these authors portray nature “as an
infinite ecological structure that is capable of containing both the human and the
nuclear within its expansive dimensions” (109). Her analysis highlights overlooked
literary portrayals of Nature as an “infinite ecology” and of nuclear science as
“something other than a final conquest of Nature” (300).

My analysis is informed by theory from the field of nuclear criticism. Jacques
Derrida famously claims that “nuclear war has no precedent. It has never occurred,
itself; it is a non-event” (23). Science fiction, Grace Halden writes, seeks to “represent
the future ‘non-event’ and craft a reality out of it” (5). In his examination of post-war
fiction in States of Suspense, Daniel Cordle asserts that cultural anxiety about nuclear
attack, along with the continued deferral of that attack, is the “signature mindset” of
the Cold War period (1). Post-war fiction, he writes, is “nuclear anxiety literature”,
fiction that exists in “states of suspense” and expresses “the experience of living in
extended anticipation” (2). Especially pertinent to my own analysis is Cordle’s
assertion that nuclear criticism can be understood as social criticism.3

3 For an insightful study on recent work in the field of nuclear criticism, see Kristin George Bagdanov’s
“Atomic AfroFuturism and Amiri Baraka’s Compulsive Futures”, in which the author discusses Atomic
Afrofuturism as a “historically specific affirmation of black existence that was forged while facing
nuclear apocalypse” (51). Bagdanov posits a new life for nuclear criticism that proceeds from Derrida’s
work to include Baraka’s “anti-nuclear jazz musical” Primitive World; Bagdanov theorises a new
grammatical category, the future compulsive tense, which she asserts allows Baraka to “rewrite the
future at stake, rather than merely readjusting its already present structures” (52).

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32 Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research

Kornbluth’s Mindworm is a mutant conceived during the first test of the atom
bomb at Bikini Atoll on July 1, 1946. A reinvention of the “supernatural vampire in
science fiction terms”, Kornbluth’s vampire is a fantastic representation of the new
alien: a direct result of biological and genetic engineering gone wrong (Meehan 51).4
The story opens:

The handsome j.g. and the pretty nurse held out against it as long as they reasonably
could, but blue Pacific water, languid tropical nights, the low atoll dreaming on the
horizon – and the complete absence of any other nice young people for company on
the small, uncomfortable parts boat – did their work. On June 30th they watched
through dark glasses as the dazzling thing burst over the fleet and the atoll …. Unfelt
radiation sleeted through their loins. (347)

The Mindworm attacks by scanning minds, feeding on the extreme emotions of his
victims and then killing them. As a psychic sponge, the Mindworm also threatens
individual identity as he drinks in, feeds upon, and ultimately destroys one’s most
intimate hopes and desires. At first he is a figure of pity: both his father and mother
abandoned him and he was forced to live with horrific foster parents as a child.
However, after the Mindworm’s first “attack”, in which he uses his powers to avoid
gang rape, he immediately becomes a predator. Of the first attack, Kornbluth writes:

He could read the thoughts of the men quite clearly as they headed for him. Outrage,
fear, and disgust blended in him and somehow turned inside-out and one of the men
was dead on the dry ground, grasshoppers vaulting onto his flannel shirt, the others
backing away, frightened now, not frightening. He wasn’t hungry anymore; he felt
quite comfortable and satisfied. (351)

Kornbluth’s vampire, a product of the atomic bomb, scans the thoughts of the people
around him, catching random inner monologues, ultimately using this information to
stalk and kill his prey. The fragments of thought that the Mindworm feeds on become
his means of introduction to his victims. The dialogue typically leads to an explosion
of uncontrolled emotion (lust, grief, love) in the victim and ultimately the victim’s
death. The atomic energy that surges through the Mindworm is a metaphor of
unlimited human technological capacity as it challenges humanity’s capacity to control
its force. The atomic bomb was, as Leonard Isaacs asserts, “humanity’s transcendent
creation” (66). At a 1949 Atomic Energy Committee meeting at which the hydrogen
bomb was being considered, one member commented of the bomb’s monstrous
potential that “we built one Frankenstein” (Reid 172).5 Time magazine, in its first
coverage of the bomb, declared, “With the controlled splitting of the atom, humanity
… was brought inescapably into a new age in which all thoughts and things were split
– and far from controlled” (“The Bomb” 19). Loss of control was one fear, and
fragmentation was another. The atomic bomb symbolised these two fears in one.

The Mindworm’s first use of telepathic force, on the drifters he encounters, is
accidental and almost forgivable. There is no question in the second attack, though,

4 In pop culture this was the great age of the superhero comics Superman, Captain Marvel, and the
British character Marvelman, whose magic word was “kimota!” – atomic backwards (Roberts 324). In
film, it was the age of science-generated monsters like the Thing, Godzilla, and the Giant Ants (“Them”),
most of which were said to be a direct result of nuclear attack. For a comprehensive study of 1950s Cold
War science-fiction films, see Cynthia Hendershot’s Paranoia, the Bomb, and 1950s Science Fiction
Films (1999).
5 The quotation is preserved as written; a more accurate statement is “We built Frankenstein’s monster”.

Kristin Bidoshi “The Mindworm”: Kornbluth’s Post-War
American Vampire Tale at the Dawn of the Atomic Age

Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research 33

that the Mindworm goads the elderly widowed glass-sculptor Sebastian Long into a
heightened emotional state:

Sebastian Long stared at him. “What the devil do you know about my Demeter
Bowl?” … As Long started for him, the stranger darted to the workbench and brought
the crescent wrench down shatteringly on the bowl. Sebastian Long’s heart was
bursting with sorrow and rage; such a storm of emotions as he never had known
thundered through him.

Paralyzed, he saw the stranger smile with anticipation. The engraver’s legs
folded under him and he fell to the floor, drained and dead. (353)

As the Demeter Bowl is symbolically smashed, the reader comes to understand that
Kornbluth’s transcendent creation wields power even over Demeter, the goddess who
presides over the natural sacred cycle of life and death.6 Kornbluth’s Mindworm preys
exclusively on the vulnerable: he attacks the drifters, the elderly widower Long, the
poor immigrant Dolly, and finally a community of marginalised Polish immigrants
(including a prostitute). Kornbluth’s narrative focuses on the home as the location of
the Mindworm’s attacks; the Mindworm breaks into Long’s workshop, which is
attached to his home; he picks Dolly up from the steps of her home; and he attacks the
Polish girl just outside her home. Cordle identifies the home as a key motif of Cold War
ideology; he writes, “nuclear anxiety was frequently expressed in images of threatened
domesticity” (126). Cordle further asserts that “family breakdown and self-
fragmentation are common tropes that symbolize the potential of nuclear weapons to
destroy both the individual and society” (127). The Mindworm’s third victim, the
young, naive Delores, a Spanish-speaking immigrant from Central or South America,
who prefers to go by the more Americanised “Dolly”, is preoccupied with domesticity.

Dolly, who “practices sexy half-smiles like Lauren Bacall in the bathroom
mirror” and can’t wait to get out of her mother’s home, is already at a ripe emotional
crisis when the Mindworm comes upon her. Her final words, as she storms out of the
house, are “‘I don’t know how many times I tell you not to call me that Spick name no
more!’” (353). Dolly is eager to embrace what she believes to be the American dream:

Then the miracle happened. Just like in the movies, a big convertible pulled up before
her and its lounging driver said, opening the door: “You seem to be in a hurry. Could
I drop you somewhere?” … Dazed at the sudden realization of a hundred daydreams,
she did not fail to give the driver a low-lidded, sexy smile … He wasn’t no Cary Grant,
but he had all his hair … kind of small, but so was she … and jeez, the convertible had
leopard-skin seat covers! (354)

The Mindworm uses Dolly’s innermost thoughts and desires to craft himself into the
man of her dreams: Mr. Michael Brent, convertible-driving, sweet-talking advertising
man, who is looking for a wife with whom to “share his town house in the 50’s, his
country place in Westchester, his lodge in the Maine woods” (355). They drive down
Long Island, lunch at Medford and find themselves at Montauk Point. As Dolly looks
out over the “last bit of the continent before blue water and Europe”, she answers the

6 Demeter is the Greek goddess of fertility and the harvest who presided over the sacred law and the
cycle of life and death. Mary Kornbluth was a potter and ceramicist (Rich 145). In 1950 the Kornbluths
moved from a Polish neighborhood to an upscale storefront apartment with a glass engraver for a
neighbor, where Mary pursued ceramics (D. Knight 198). “The Mask of Demeter” by Kornbluth and
Wollheim was published in Fantasy & Science Fiction (Jan 1953) without Kornbluth’s consent (Rich
221).

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34 Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research

Mindworm’s question “Darling, will you marry me?” with an emphatic “Oh, yes!”, and
then dies (355). On one level, Dolly’s story is a striking reminder that the threat of the
bomb (the Mindworm) is real and final, but unseen. Moreover, the Mindworm’s attack
comes from nowhere; it is sudden and finite. Kornbluth’s depiction of Dolly’s death
forges a direct connection between the Mindworm and the atomic bomb. Like the
threat of nuclear war, there’s an ominous intangibility to the Mindworm’s deadly
attack on Dolly; the effects of the attack are not directly experienced until it is too late.

Kornbluth devotes just two pages to Dolly’s story: a subtle but profound
depiction of the degradation of public life under the shadow of the bomb and a critique
of post-war consumer capitalism. Specifically, Dolly’s story focuses on the power of
advertising to corrupt and to promote conformity. Kornbluth places subtle hints
within the text that allude to this. Dolly is fascinated with American film stars: she
dreams of becoming Lauren Bacall, notices that the Mindworm “smiles shyly, kind of
like Jimmy Stewart”, and thinks that although the Mindworm “wasn’t no Cary Grant,
he’s still got all his hair” (355). Dolly’s sole desire is to live the American dream she
reads about in the magazines and sees on the big screen. Dolly is thrilled to learn that
the Mindworm likes “dark girls” and thinks that “the stories in True Story really were
true” (355). As a reader of True Story, Dolly would be familiar with the feature stories
of girls who had married wrongly as well as the numerous shampoo, toothpaste, make-
up items, and feminine-hygiene products advertised in its pages. 7 The Mindworm
anticipates Dolly’s deepest desires and fulfils her every wish:

“Advertising!” Dolly wanted to kick herself for ever having doubted, for ever having
thought in low, self-loathing moments that it wouldn’t work out, that she’d marry a
grocer or a mechanic and live forever after in a smelly tenement and grow old and
sick and stooped. She felt vaguely in her happy daze that it might have been cuter, she
might have accidentally pushed him into a pond or something, but this was cute
enough. An advertising man, leopard-skin seat covers … what more could a girl with a
sexy smile and a nice little figure want? (354)

Dolly’s story is an illustration not of conformity of the Soviet totalitarianism type, but
rather of the perceived loss of American individualism at the hands of new mass
standardisation. Kornbluth captures the essence of the corruption of American values
as he draws attention to the all-consuming power of the media and advertising to
shape Dolly’s thoughts and nourish her obsession to conform by concealing her ethnic
identity to “fit in”. Just after having learned that the Mindworm’s name is Michael
Brent, for example, Dolly “wished she could tell him she was Jennifer Brown or one of
those cute names they had nowadays” (354). Fiona Paton and Booker describe the
general tendency of Cold War science fiction to focus on the fear of exclusion. The
1940s and 1950s, Booker claims, developed a reputation for homogenisation, “not only
of material life, but of thought itself” which ultimately led to the fear of exclusion, a
fear of not fitting in (10). In her critique of William S. Burroughs’s controversial Naked
Lunch (1959), Paton points out that “1950s America also appears compellingly Gothic:
the monstrous rhetoric of anti-communism sets up a rigid opposition between
American and un-American, and into the category ‘un-American’ fell not only political
but also ethnic and sexual difference” (51). Dolly’s obsession with domesticity and

7 True Story, the first of the confession magazine genre, depicts the heroine as “a battered victim of
cruel forces beyond her control, which made a strong male leader upon whom she could depend for
strength an attractive source of salvation” (Honey 213).

Kristin Bidoshi “The Mindworm”: Kornbluth’s Post-War
American Vampire Tale at the Dawn of the Atomic Age

Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research 35

consumerism is especially telling as it alludes to the sense of meaninglessness that
nuclear threat was casting over everyday life.

The Mindworm’s ultimate undoing occurs as he moves from threating
individuals to attacking a whole community. The wary predator is aware of drawing
too much attention to himself, yet is ignorant of the historical precursors of his
presence. The modern American society off which he feasts appears equally ignorant
of this and is unable to recognise the nature of the vampire in its midst. Instinct tells
him that he is safe in his pursuit of the young Polish virgin, but he is mistaken. His last
two attacks, and his own demise, occur in a small West Virginia town. Kornbluth
writes, “He got off at a West Virginia coal and iron town surrounded by ruined
mountains and filled with the offscourings of Eastern Europe. Serbs, Albanians,
Croats, Hungarians, Slovenes, Bulgarians, and all possible combinations and
permutations thereof” (358).8 The first victim is a jealous young Eastern European
boy; the final death in this community is of a prostitute. Of these attacks, Kornbluth
writes, “The Eastern Europeans of the town, he mistakenly thought, were like the
tramps and bums he had known and fed on during his years on the road – stupid and
safe, safe and stupid, quite the same thing” (359). It is significant that the community
is comprised of Eastern Europeans; Kornbluth hits this home in the last line of the
story:

The sharpened stake was through his heart and the scythe blade through his throat
before he could realize that he had not been the first of his kind; and that what clever
people have not yet learned, some quite ordinary people have not yet entirely
forgotten. (361)

The final word the Mindworm hears is Wampyir, the Polish literary term for the word
vampire derived from the Russian term upior’ (Perkowski 185); the Mindworm is
unable to comprehend the danger he’s in because he doesn’t understand Polish.

Andrew Ross, among others, notes the tendency in 1950s discourse to connect
social difference and disease: this is especially true in the genre of science fiction film,
where the ‘alien’, an embodiment of “biological or genetic engineering gone wrong”,
also represents “a pan-social fear of the Other – communism, feminism and other
egalitarianisms foreign to the American social body” (45). Kornbluth rejects the
traditional discourse that the alien represents the fear of the Other (in this case,
Communists) as he engages on a much deeper level with the socio-political fears of the
day. There is an obvious parallel between the Mindworm, who looks like any normal
American but who invades and controls the minds of innocent people in order to harm
them, and the typical American post-war view of Communists. Seed points out in
“Constructing America’s Enemies: Invasions of the USA” that in the period after the
Second World War, “the American identification of an enemy shifted to that of the
Russians” (Seed, “Constructing” 74). Although it would be two months following the
1950 publication of “The Mindworm”, in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia that
Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed to have a list of 205 Communists working in the US
State Department, the McCarthyite suppression of dissent was already a very real
concern for Kornbluth and other science-fiction writers of that time (P. Knight 71).

8 The town that Kornbluth depicts here echoes the “fantastic old neighborhood of Polish immigrants”
that his wife describes their having lived in in Chicago. In an interview Mary recalls, “When he wrote
that story he was attending the University of Chicago. There was a housing shortage and we were stuck
back at the stockyards in a fantastic old neighborhood. There were ancient Polish people there, whom
he described in ‘The Mindworm’” (Platt 63).

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36 Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research

Kornbluth would engage with this threat just two years later in The Space Merchants
(1952), his influential novel co-authored with Pohl. Booker believes it to be one of the
most important novels of the 1950s to “counsel against Cold War hysteria” (Booker,
“Science Fiction” 180).

“The Mindworm” is about a world under constant surveillance, a political
nightmare of total control signified by an elaborate system of monitoring. Upon first
glance, it would appear that Kornbluth’s vampire anthropomorphises the fear of the
Other in an area obsessed with conspiracy theories. This specific fear is that one may
never quite know what is lurking in the minds of others. Kornbluth’s Mindworm,
though, is a different type of post-war enemy: he is a prime representation of US
bravado as a product of a US military officer and medical nurse, born in the aftermath
of the bombing at Bikini Atoll. As a mutant product of the Atomic Age who has
telepathic abilities to scan others’ minds, the Mindworm, in its constant mode of
surveillance, exemplifies for Kornbluth the problems of scientific progress, as well as
the very immediate concern of government control. The Mindworm’s use of his
telepathic abilities to eavesdrop on the orphanage attendants signals the beginning of
this surveillance:

The doctor told the boy: “Three pounds more this month isn’t bad, but how about you
pitch in and clean up your plate every day? Can’t live on meat and water; those
vegetables make you big and strong.” The boy said: “What’s ‘neurasthenic’ mean?”
The doctor later said to the director: “It made my flesh creep … and inside my head I
was thinking ‘we’d call him neurasthenic in the old days’ and then out he popped with
it. What should we do? Should we do anything?” (350)

With his ability to read minds, the Mindworm also represents the clandestine
operations US secret services were conducting on their own people. Kornbluth
emphasises this just after the Mindworm has killed Dolly, as he casts his “tentacles”
through the city for his next victim:

“die if she don’t let me…” “six an’ six is twelve an’ carry one an’ three is four…”
“gobblegobble madre de dios pero soy gobblegobble.” “O God I am most heartily
sorry I have offended thee in…” “talk like a commie…” “… just a nip and fill it up with
water and brush my teeth.” “habt mein daughter Rosie such a fella goobblegobble.”
(355–56)

The Mindworm indiscriminately listens in on conversations that span multiple
languages (English, Spanish, and German) and highlight a fear of communism. While
Dolly’s story centers on a culture obsessed with consumerism and a domestic ideal,
this passage illustrates Kornbuth’s ability to significantly alter the ideologically
powerful trope that links deviancy with communism. In his story the enemy is not a
Communist, but rather a purebred American.

Kornbluth calls upon the literary device of ostrananie in his reworking of Bram
Stoker’s traditional story of the sinister Eastern European vampire invading the West.
In a subtle, but important, reversal of the nationality of the vampire and the hunters,
the Mindworm (100% American) is ultimately killed not by enlightened Westerners
with the aid of modern scientific progress, but by Casimir, an old Polish man, through
traditional Eastern European folkloric methods – the vampire is staked through the

Kristin Bidoshi “The Mindworm”: Kornbluth’s Post-War
American Vampire Tale at the Dawn of the Atomic Age

Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research 37

heart and his head is severed.9 This curious turn of events is significant as it forces the
reader to contemplate a new type of post-war hero. Seed observes of Cold War invasion
narratives, “If the enemy is some kind of subhuman creature, that might carry an
evolutionary consolation, but it also cues in an essential role for the specialist”;
typically, protagonists of these narratives tend to be “experts in different fields” (83–
84). They are members of elite intelligence agencies, scientists, doctors, detectives,
physicists, etc. It is significant that Kornbluth’s vampire is defeated by Casimir, a
political outsider located in the margins of society. The Polish “Kazimierz” is derived
from the words kazit’ (to destroy) and mir (peace).10 It is Kazimierz (the one who
destroys peace, that is, the great warrior) who defeats the vampire, not with scientific
prowess, but by calling upon his old-world beliefs to identify and then destroy the
enemy who is hiding in plain sight.

“The Mindworm” challenges the validity of American values of the 1950s and
offers ripe material for understanding the socioeconomic and political anxieties of the
post-war era, including fears of uncontrolled technological development, pathologies
of consumerism, and the McCarthyite suppression of dissent. Kornbluth’s portrayal of
the highly materialistic, compulsively patriotic American immigrant “Dolly”, who
fantasises about her American dream but will not live to experience it, is highly critical
of traditional family values, capitalism, and consumerism (355). By reversing the
ethnicities of the vampire and the hunters, Kornbluth’s text calls to question the
demonisation of the enemy (in this case, the Communists). The author reworks the
traditional science-fiction narrative to redirect the reader’s focus toward the real
threat: the measures members of the US government were taking, in the name of
democracy, to significantly curtail the rights of its own people. The story is more than
a cautionary account of the dangers inherent in a particular scientific creation: it serves
as a warning about the political and social structures that allow for such a creation and
that threaten American democracy at its core.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the reviewers for their careful reading and insightful
comments on drafts of this article.

Biography: Kristin Bidoshi is an associate professor of Russian and director of the
Russian and East European Studies Program at Union College, where she teaches
courses in Russian language, literature and culture. Bidoshi conducts fieldwork in
Eastern Europe and publishes on subjects including the use of the oral tradition in the
works of Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol, and Liudimila Petrushevskaia and Russian
language pedagogy. She is currently working on a program that will allow students to
train on Russian verbs of motion in virtual reality.

9 Jan Perkowski’s Vampire of the Slavs is the definitive source of essays and primary texts
documenting Slavic vampire traditions. “Slavic Folk Culture” by Kazimierz Moszynski outlines Polish
folk customs related to vampires. Moszynski writes, “The aspen or other type of stake was usually
driven into the heart … drove a sharpened aspen state into the head” (183).
10 See Różycka’s Księga imion polskich for a detailed history of the origin of the name.

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38 Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research

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