The Dunwich Horror

The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft

The birth of Wilbur Whateley in Dunwich is obviously a disturbing event. On the night of his birth, strange noises roar through the hills, all the dogs in the neighborhood continuously bark and a hideous howl is heard. In fact, the whole Whateley family is pretty weird. Lavinia, Wilbur's mother, is a deformed and unattractive albino. Lavinia's father, Old Whateley, is feared by locals for his practice of black magic, while Wilbur's father is completely unknown.

This disturbing note continues as the child grows. Wilbur is described as a "goatee" in appearance, although he has the Whateley mark of a chinless face. He can already walk at the age of seven months and speak at eleven months. He is very particular in keeping his body well covered in clothes, unlike the rest of the Whateleys. Every May eve and Halloween, the boy and his mother are seen ascending to the top of Sentinel Hill and apparently performing strange rites, accompanied by bursts of flame and underground rumbling.

At the same time, the boy's grandfather played an active role in his development. He teaches the boy the old traditions, incantations and formulas from the old books he keeps. He continually buys cattle with an endless supply of ancient gold coins, but the size of his herd never increases. He also feverishly rebuilds the second floor of the house and builds a wooden ramp that leads to it from the ground. The few visitors to the house are invariably disturbed by extremely strange noises upstairs.

After Old Whateley's death and his daughter's disappearance, there is a change of scene, as Lovecraft offers the reader a view of Wilbur, now fourteen years old and eight feet tall, looking like a huge gargoyle. dark, at the library of Miskatonic University in Arkham., hastily copying a few missing formulas he needs into a rare book, the Necronomicon. The alert librarian, Dr. Henry Armitage, reading the Latin text over Wilbur's shoulder, sees references to the Elders, beings who are apparently ready to "break through" and destroy the earth. He associates this with the mysterious events of Dunwich and Wilbur's dark and hideous aura, and he immediately denies him access to the book.

Now comes the story's first climax, which serves as a preview of Dunwich's true horror, which the reader has yet to see. Wilbur is desperate to get the formula he needs, even though he seems afraid to be off the farm for too long for some reason. He eventually breaks into the library in an attempt to steal the book, but is killed by the watchdog. As he lies on the floor with his clothes torn apart, Dr. Armitage sees him as the monster he really is - tentacles with red, sucking mouths protruding from his stomach. Dr Armitage and the reader realize that, terrible as it is, something much worse awaits on Dunwich Farm.

In the last section of the story, the horror has already unleashed itself. Whateley Farm, which had previously had all of its interior partitions removed by Wilbur to make it a huge two-story space, has literally been destroyed ...