“The Tomb” by H.P. Lovecraft
NEW ENGLAND GOTHIC BAYYYYBEEE!
This story has everything. Tombs. Thunderstorms. Padlocks. Mysterious keys in attics. Porcelain miniatures. Coffins. Marble, dusted as if snapped by a Thanos coffin wielding the Infinity Gauntlet in the Marble Cinematic Universe. Boston gentry. LARPing. New England. Tombs. Protagonist who is a dweeb and lowkey a self-conscious H.P. Lovecraft self insert. A detective that actually does his job. A loyal servant. And did I mention tombs? Well, one tomb, mainly. The big one.
This story is basically like H.P. Lovecraft’s version of “Bridge to Terabithia.” Think about it: guy has a place in the woods he goes where he fantasizes about stuff and shit does NOT end well.
I hate to assign reading (no I don’t) but you should read “Supernatural Horror in Literature” by — oh, look who it is — Howard Phillips fucking Lovecraft. YEAH BUDDY.
Essentially, in the essay, Lovecraft describes the potential basis for the House of Seven Gables as “[an] object well calculated to evoke sombre reflections; typifying as it does the dark Puritan age of concealed horror and witch-whispers” and believe me when I tell you I ATE with this quote in a few essays in university.
Basically, in understanding the Gothic, it’s important to remember its roots. Horace Walpole’s “The Castle of Otranto” came out in 1764, was written around that time, and was set in a vaguely medieval time period. Gothic fiction was very rarely contemporary fiction.
A lot of people don’t really understand the word ‘contemporary’ so let me school you. ‘Con’ = with. ‘Temporary’ = having to do with time. Something that is contemporary shares a time with something. When scholars talk about Lovecraft’s contemporaries, they are talking about people who lived at the same time as him. So, a modern day author, like Joyce Carol Oates, would not be considered one of Lovecraft’s contemporaries, because they were not active in the field at the same time. Does she write Lovecraftian work? Sure, sometimes! Is it good? Well, I embarassingly haven’t read her, but most people I talk to seem to like her! But that doesn’t make her a contemporary.
Contemporary fiction is fiction that is set at the same time as its writing. So, if a book about World War II was written today, in 2025, it would not be a contemporary work, because World War II is not happening right now.
Now, there’s no rule stating the Gothic can’t be contemporary — it just tended to be historical fiction.
I mention this because this story rather adeptly blends and blurs the lines of time, if not space. Jervas’s story doesn’t contain any descriptors that, at least to my dumbass, mark it as set clearly in the distant past or in Lovecraft’s contemporary period: there’s no mention of things like telegraph machines, but it’s clearly been “generations” since 1711, and the earliest date mentioned is 1640 — the date the first(?) Hyde came to the region.
However, Jervas’s story involves clear elements that blur time: his usage of antiquated language and accents, as far back as the Puritan era but leading to the more 'modern’ (from Jervas’s perspective) and the reliving of the night of the thunderstorm that destroyed Hyde mansion.
Thus, Lovecraft manages to make a contemporary work still technically fulfil what some(who? the HATERS) might call an essential quality of the Gothic: being set in the past. The work manages to be both (relatively) contemporary to Lovecraft’s period and also skip around time periods, making it almost hyper-Gothic.
Often times, discussions of Lovecraft focus on the blurring of space, the eldritch gods, and cosmicisim, but I think “The Tomb” is an interesting piece to study given it solely focuses on dilation of time within a very confined space, limited to a single town. I like that, unlike some other works by Lovecraft, there’s room for the reader to interpret Jervas’ condition: is he truly mentally unwell and delusion? Is his resemblance, in form and name, to Jervas Hyde a mere coincidence, given he’s part of that family line?
