The lovecraftian chronotope: a formalist analysis of "At the Mountains of madness"

H. P. Lovecraft's fiction has long fascinated critics for the portrayals of cosmic terrors and indescribable monsters. The fiction, however, betrays a common structure and conceit that manifests Lovecraft's ideological and philosophical objectives. This essay applies Mikhail Bakhtin's chronotope theory to Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" (1936) to analyze how Lovecraft formalistically constructs his fictions. Applying the chronotope concept demonstrates that Lovecraft deliberately applied different stylistic techniques to present his cosmic terrors. The spaces where those terrors appear manifest a transcendent aesthetic to decentralize human experience in the cosmos. "Mountains" constructs a Lovecraftian temporality wherein linear time explodes into a flat or circular dynamic. This essay reveals how Lovecraft's fictions structure themselves deliberately to achieve the desired effect.