History Literature / TheTemple

* AluminumChristmasTrees: The tough as iron sub commander who did not hesitate to shoot his crew when they expressed sympathy for the dead sailor "of Italian or Greek" appearance with the ivory charm, saying he was a hapless "victim of the unjust war started by English pig-dogs". This is consistent with 1914 atmosphere in UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gott_strafe_England as there was a wave of anti-British hysteria back then]], [[PatrioticFervor which pushed many young men to enlist voluntarily]] before they were conscripted.

* KillEmAll: ''Every'' character who appears in the story is dead by the end. The only person whose death is not recorded is the Captain, who will likely die from asphyxiation once the air in his suit runs out, meaning he'll probably be dead by the time his manuscript is found.

** The captain's description of certain events becomes increasingly suspect over the course of the story. When he executes the remaining crewmen for staging a mutiny, he claims they'd gone mad and that [[IDidWhatIHadToDo his hand was forced]]. However, we only have his word for it, so it's possible he's distorting what happened by chalking his crew's justified concerns up to them being weak-minded. Given how vindictive and honor-crazed the captain is, the crewmen may have been more lucid (or at least less incoherent) in demanding that they turn the ship around than he's letting on. In fact, how do we know it wasn't the captain himself who'd gone mad while his crew members tried to stop him?
** The captain is the only person on-board with a firearm, which he uses quite liberally to violently suppress any perceived insubordination. Was the damage sustained to the ship during the mutiny entirely the result of the bare-handed crewmen? Or did the captain accidentally plug a few holes in the finer mechanical workings of the ship by recklessly firing his gun?

* AllGermansAreNazis: Weird example--Karl Heinrich presents as a caricature of a NaziNobleman, yet the archetype didn't even exist yet. This is likely a result of a) Lovecraft taking American and British propaganda about WWI Germany seriously and b) Lovecraft, a noted racist, trying to create a bigoted villain and overdoing it.

* FaceDeathWithDignity: The Captain would rather his men die in the submarine than surrender to the enemy. The story ends with him accepting his inevitable death as he goes willingly into the temple.

* HonorBeforeReason: As noted before, the Captain commits war crimes, shoots members of his own crew just to maintain discipline, ignores their pleas to throw a simple trinket overboard and mocking their superstitions, and refuses to give any of them a chance at survival by surrendering to an American warship simply because he believes it to be dishonorable.

* NothingIsScarier: Just ''who'' or what, if anything, is calling out to the crew, is never explained.

** Sailing underwater from July 2 to August 20 on battery power and compressed air in the tanks is a bit far-fetched for UsefulNotes/WorldWarI sub technology, underwater range was shorter than 100 miles on battery power and air tanks were relatively small, since nobody expected the sub to stay underwater for long[[note]]Air tanks designed to store air for a full crew of 30-40 men over 1 day of underwater sailing might have been enough for 2 men over a few weeks[[/note]. The first generation of subs able to do that were the nuclear-powered boats of [[TheSixties the 1960s]].

** Sailing underwater from July 2 to August 20 on battery power and compressed air in the tanks is a bit far-fetched for UsefulNotes/WorldWarI sub technology, underwater range was shorter than 100 miles on battery power and air tanks were relatively small, since nobody expected the sub to stay underwater for long. The first generation of subs able to do that were the nuclear-powered boats of [[TheSixties the 1960s]].

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Is the submarine actually cursed or is the whole thing simply the fault of the Captain's arrogance? Is there really some unknown, inhuman entity calling to the crew, or are they just mad?

The story is presented [[LiteraryAgentHypothesis as a manuscript that has been found]] in a bottle off the coast of Yucatán. The manuscript in question contains a chronicle written by Karl Heinrich, an iron fisted officer of the [[UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany Imperial German Navy]] who commanded the submarine ''U-29'' during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. In it, he describes a series of events that occur after his crew sunk a British freighter. The corpse of one of the sailors floats toward the deck of the U-boat, and one of the crewmen finds a strange-looking trinket in his hands. The superstitious crewmen begin to worry that it is a sign of something terrible, but the officers refuse to throw the trinket overboard.

** The captain's description of certain events becomes increasingly suspect over the course of the story. When he executes the remaining crewmen for staging a mutiny, he claims they'd gone mad and that [[IDidWhatIHadToDo his hand was forced]]. However, we only have his word for it, so it's possible he's distorting what happened by chalking his crew's justified concerns up to them being weak-minded. Given how vindictive and honor-crazed the captain is, the crewmen may have been more lucid (or at least less incoherent) in demanding that they turn the ship around than he's letting on.

* CoolBoat: Subverted, the submarine is anything but.

* MessageInABottle

* TempleOfDoom

* HeAlsoDid: It may come as a surprise that Lovecraft wrote a story about a German U-Boat, especially to fans familiar with his trademark of setting his work in his native [[LovecraftCountry New England]].