History Literature / TheCallOfCthulhu

** Definitely not the reason behind the two-eyed artistic choice, but doubles as as FridgeBrilliance: Those who depict Cthulhu with two eyes are doing so because it gives them a slightly better time understanding something they could never explain. Whereas those who depict Cthulhu with six eyes CAN understand it.

** Definitely not the reason behind the two-eyed artistic choice, but doubles as FridgeBrilliance: Those who depict Cthulhu with two eyes are doing so because it gives them a slightly better time understanding something they could never explain. Whereas those who depict Cthulhu with six eyes CAN understand it.

** Definitely not the intent, but those who depict Cthulhu with two eyes are doing so because it gives them a slightly better time understanding something they could never explain. Whereas those who depict Cthulhu with six eyes, they CAN understand it.

* Definitely not the intent, but those who depict Cthulhu with two eyes are doing so because it gives them a slightly better time understanding something they could never explain. Whereas those who depict Cthulhu with six eyes, they CAN understand it.

The story is presented as a manuscript found among the belongings of the late Francis Wayland Thurston, which is used as a narrative which joins together three short stories, each bigger, darker, bleaker, and more memorable than the last. The first part begins with a document found by Thurston among the belongings of his late granduncle Professor Angell, which describes a series of conversations with a young sculptor named Henry Wilcox, who has been experiencing a series of strange dreams on March 1st 1925, which have inspired him to carve a disturbing bas-relief. Over the course of several weeks, Wilcox and Angell meet, and the former describes his bizarre dreams in which he [[EldritchLocation finds himself exploring the ruins of an unknown forgotten city]]. The next part reveals why this is of interest to Professor Angell.

[[Film/TheCallOfCthulhu Adapted in 2005 into a film]] by the Creator/HPLovecraftHistoricalSociety. There are also at least two radio adaptations; one by the Atlanta Radio Theater Company, and the other by Radio/DarkAdventureRadioTheatre. Dramatically read by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIwgXhUWt3Q Chilling Tales for Dark Nights]].

* BlackSpeech: The language spoken by the cult members, which are merely adaptations of a StarfishLanguage into the human vocal apparatus. A repeated phrase among them is ''"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."'' [[note]] In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.[[/note]]

* EldritchAbomination: Cthulhu himself. A, if not the, TropeCodifier. The story also references Arthur Machen, whose stories of eldritch abominations inspired Lovecraft in turn.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Played with. The Cthulhu Cult is described as "infinitely more diabolic than the blackest of the African voodoo circles."

** The story also makes a reference to Arthur Machen, whose stories of eldritch horror inspired Lovecraft.

* SurprisinglySuddenDeath: When the sailors accidentally release Cthulhu himself. Two die of fright on the spot, three more are "swept up by the flabby claws before anyone turned," and another is swallowed up by "by an angle of masonry which shouldn't have been there; an angle which was acute, but behaved as if it were obtuse."

->''The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either {{go mad from the revelation}} or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.''

* WritersCannotDoMath: Yeah, "non-Euclidean" means geometry in three-dimensions, such as a sphere. In other words, real-life, not AlienGeometries.

* BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu: [[spoiler:Gustaf Johansen manages to survive against all odds and presumably stops Cthulhu from bringing about the end of the world. However, Cthulhu is still very much alive, and Johansen not only goes insane as a result of the experience but it is suggested that he was murdered by the same cultists that killed Professor Angell]].

* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Gustaf Johansen. The Trope Namer. His crewmate William Briden also ends up in a similar predicament, and two of his men (Rodriguez and Hawkins) outright die from seeing Cthulhu.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Captain Collins claims that he fought the Kriegsmarine in the Great War. Assuming that he was referring to the First World War, this would be inaccurate since the Kriegsmarine (the navy of Nazi Germany) wouldn't exist until 1935, just a few years before the ''Second'' World War. Instead, he would have been fighting the Imperial German Navy.

* ShoutOut: Johansen's hair [[LockedIntoStrangeness turns white]] after a terrifying incident at sea, much like the protagonist in Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's "A Descent into the Maelström".

* HumanSacrifice: [[spoiler:The cultists in Louisiana kidnapped multiple women and children to sacrifice them to Cthulhu]].

* EldritchAbomination: Cthulhu himself. A, if not the, TropeCodifier.

* AlienGeometries: R'lyeh is said to defy any known dimensions, to the point where the sailors can't tell if a door is supposed to be a conventional door that opens horizontally, or a trapdoor that opens vertically, and a sailor is killed by Cthulhu when he fails to get past a corner which appears to be acute but acts as if it was obtuse.

* ExtraEyes: Lovecraft originally sketched Cthulhu with six eyes, but most illustrations and adaptations give him two eyes.

* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: Taken to an almost mythical extreme. The principal narrator of the story is one "Francis Wayland Thurston of Boston", but much of the narrative is simply his relating the account of his great-uncle, George Gammell Angell, who at one point acts as the literary agent for an Inspector John Raymond Legrasse, who narrates the account of a sailor and cult member named Castro, who in turn claims to have gained his knowledge from immortal cult members in China, who, arguably, received their knowledge from ''Cthulhu himself''. The final link in the chain is you, the reader, as the intro gently reminds us that Francis Wayland Thurston is in fact the ''late'' Francis Wayland Thurston, whose account closes with the ominous suggestion that anyone who reads these documents is likely to end up dead.

* ShoutOut: Johansen's hair turns white after a terrifying incident at sea, much like the protagonist in Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's "A Descent into the Maelström".

* DiesDifferentlyInAdaptation: First Mate Green survives the battle against the ''Alert'', and is the one placed in charge of the crew when his captain is dead.

* AboveGoodAndEvil: Cthulhu's cultists seem to believe they will become this if the Great Old Ones return.

* ToCreateAPlaygroundForEvil: The cult seems to have aspects of this:

The second story tells of Inspector Legrasse, a police officer in New Orleans whose investigation of a series of disappearances leads him to a rather sinister cult worshiping a strange idol. The cultists are immediately arrested and taken to prison and the idol is confiscated. Legrasse then shares the idol among various archaeologists, including Professor Angell, hoping to gain answers as to its nature. Eventually through one man's testimony and the questioning of some of the cultists, Legrasse learns that the idol is "Great Cthulhu", a being worshiped by this cult which has presumably lived for centuries.

* ArtisticLicenseMathematics: Yeah, "non-Euclidian" means geometry in three-dimensions, such as a sphere. In other words, real-life, not AlienGeometries.