Symbiosis of Gothic and Narrative: A Comparative Study of Lovecraft and Hedayat

As contemporaneous writers, Howard Phillips Lovecraft and Sadegh Hedayat’s Gothic fiction has been concerned with a dramatization of the hidden fears of characters; however, their narratives go beyond a mere representation of human woes. This study explores how both authors write about minds polluted by fear, anxiety, and return of the repressed, and simultaneously reflect these afflictions in their narrative structures. Edgar Allan Poe’s Gothic tradition influenced both authors, despite their distinct cultural and geographical contexts, revealing that while Lovecraft’s Gothic leans toward cosmic horror and Hedayat’s toward realism, both are unified by a humanistic core and a profound engagement with the uncanny. In both authors’ works, upon the resurgence of the Freudian uncanny in the narrated world a concomitant shockwave is sent back onto the narrative plane, representing the depicted psychological fragmentation of the characters. This article examines how their narratives act as a symbiotic extension of the Gothic worlds they create, demonstrating how the experience of the uncanny disrupts the narrative structure, influencing both its temporality and emplotment. Through their shared narrative strategies as well as their stylistic divergences the Gothic emerges as a medium capable of transcending cultural boundaries and addressing modern anxieties.