History Literature / TheCallOfCthulhu

''The Call of Cthulhu'' is arguably the most famous short story by horror writer Creator/HPLovecraft. It is also the first story to refer to and the only piece written by Lovecraft himself to actually feature the famous EldritchAbomination who would later name the Literature/CthulhuMythos as other writers took over.

!!This story provides examples of:

* CosmicHorrorStory: One of the original examples and possible TropeNamer.

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

Not to be confused with the roleplaying game ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'', or the Website/YouTube series ''WebVideo/CallsForCthulhu''. Or the Music/{{Metallica}} song "Call of Ktulu."

Not to be confused with the roleplaying game ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'', or the Website/YouTube series ''WebVideo/CallsForCthulhu''.

Not to be confused with the roleplaying game ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'', or the YouTube series ''WebVideo/CallsForCthulhu''.

* BizarreAlienBiology: Cthulhu is said and hinted repeatedly to lack a skeleton. It's described as slimy, flabby, jelly, bursting like a balloon, dribbling like a cloven sunfish. No resistance from a skull, a spine or any other bony structure. A mountain-sized creature can't keep shape in air without a skeleton - unless it's made from something which is not terrestrial matter at all. This is just how the cultists describe the Great Old Ones: made form something which is not flesh and not quite matter either.

* 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]]

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

* WouldHurtAChild: The cultists in Louisiana sacrificed the children they kidnapped.

* KarmaHoudini: While a number of its members were arrested by Legrasse, the cult is still at large. It's also mentioned that the coroners examining both Professor Angell and [[spoiler: Gustaf Johansen]] couldn't determine a cause of death, removing any chance of convicting those responsible. Cthulhu himself is only temporarily stopped, and it is said to be inevitable that he will one day rise again.

* TheDeterminator: Inspector Legrasse, otherwise described in the story as a very mundane man and police officer, is so impressed with the cult's monstrosity that he invests a lot of time, energy and money to discover what lies behind it.

* HumansAreCthulhu: According to Old Castro, by the time the Great Old Ones awoke human beings would be very much like them, "free and wild and beyond good and evil", to the point that they'd welcome them as kindred spirits.

''The Call of Cthulhu'' is arguably the most famous short story by horror writer Creator/HPLovecraft. It is also the first story to refer to and the only piece written by Lovecraft himself to actually feature the famous EldritchAbomination who would later name the CthulhuMythos as other writers took over.

* 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 cultists]].

* ShoutOut: "The Call of Cthulhu" features a Scandinavian sailor whose hair turns white after a terrifying incident at sea, much like the protagonist in Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's "A Descent into the Maelström".

* KarmaHoudini: While a number of its members were arrested by Legrasse, the cult is still at large. It's also mentioned that the coroners examining both Professor Angell and [[spoiler: Gustaf Johansen]] couldn't determine a cause of death, removing any chance of convicting those responsible. Cthulhu himself is only temporarily stopped, and it is said to be inevitable that he will one day rise again.

* SignificantBackgroundEvent: In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it during the cults' arrest/beating, Shub-Niggurath's tentacles are visible in the swamp forest in the background.

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]].

* 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. This is downplayed in the movie due to the low-budget 1920s style, though strongly alluded to with frequent shots of strange angles.

* DeathByAdaptation: [[spoiler: Inspector Legrasse]] in the 2005 film, though his death happens off-screen and is only referred to at the end. Also [[spoiler: Captain Collins ''did'' die in the book, but he was killed in the battle for ''Alert''. In the movie the crewmen simply find the derelict ship abandoned at sea, meaning that Collins instead dies by the hand of Cthulhu himself]].
* DeliberatelyMonochrome: Invoked in the film in keeping with the style of 1920s cinema.
* TheDeterminator: Inspector Legrasse, otherwise described in the story as a very mundane man and police officer, is so impressed with the cult's monstrosity that he invests a lot of time, energy and money to discover what lies behind it. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in the 2005 film, when he says to the archaeologists the investigation turned into his own personal crusade.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The narrator finally understands what is really going on, but he also realizes that both the cult and Cthulhu himself are still alive, and realizes to his horror that he may die very soon. The movie expands on this by showing him to be institutionalized, and the implication that his psychiatrist will soon follow the same path]].

** This also happens to Thurston in the 2005 film.

* ReligionOfEvil: The Cthulhu Cult is built up as such. In the 2005 film one of a swamp family even mentions that they normally don't want to associate themselves with the police, but are willing to do so at this point because of them.

* SparedByAdaptation: [[spoiler: The narrator]] in the 2005 film. [[spoiler: Though the final scene implies that he won't last much longer]].

* AdaptationExpansion: The Dark Adventure Radio Theater version adds a framing device about two police officers who investigate Thurston's death.

* CompositeCharacter: The Atlanta Radio Theatre Company's adaptation has Thurston playing the role originally played by Gustaf Johansen.

** [[spoiler: Castro]] in the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company adaptation.

* GenderFlip: Castro in the Atlanta Radio Theater Company Adaptation. The nickname is changed from "Old Castro" to "Mother Castro".

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 Creator/DarkAdventureRadioTheatre. Dramatically read by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIwgXhUWt3Q Chilling Tales for Dark Nights]].

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

* TheUnpronounceable: "Cthulhu" is an approximation of an alien language, that humanity lacks the necessary body components to pronounce.

* AdaptationDistillation: [[WordOfGod Lovecraft himself]] [[http://lovecraftzine.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/hpl-cthulhu.jpg sketched Cthulhu in 1937]] with at least six eyes. Nearly all illustrators have given it two eyes, [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman to allow facial expressions readable by humans]]. So we have [[http://matthershberger.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/cthulhu_rising_by_somniturne1.jpg aggressive Cthulhus]], [[http://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120716045812/deadliestfiction/images/2/24/Cthulhu-rlyeh-rising.jpg furious Cthulhus]], [[http://api.ning.com/files/xXHg*Lq*7d6QiToU9u3T0T09vMs2-nBEYXXTGkRKtjNpA0iJXxIoH*tpTktfDbqx5EqtoPBGL9xrLe9Z95OfGuYDLXFYjeWs/MichaelDashawCthulhuBoss.jpg comic Cthulhus]], but in the author's view the entity had no understandable expression and [[EldritchAbomination it's completely alien]].

* ActionSurvivor: Johansen manages to escape from R'lyeh while his crewmates are unable to navigate its geometry and fall to their deaths, gets back to his ship, and [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu rams Cthulhu himself ''[[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu head on]].''

* ActionSurvivor: Johansen manages to escape from R'lyeh while his crewmates are unable to navigate its geometry and fall to their deaths, gets back to his ship, and [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu rams Cthulhu himself ''[[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhuhead on]].''

* DownerEnding [[spoiler:The narrator finally understands what is really going on, but he also realizes that both the cult and Cthulhu himself are still alive, and realizes to his horror that he may die very soon. The movie expands on this by showing him to be institutionalized, and the implication that his psychiatrist will soon follow the same path]].

* ActionSurvivor: Johansen manages to escape from R'lyeh while his crewmates are unable to navigate its geometry and fall to their deaths, gets back to his ship, and [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu rams Cthulhu himself ''head on'']].

* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Johansen successfully prevents Cthulhu from ending the world [[spoiler:though at the cost of his sanity and soon after his life]].

In the third and final part of the story, Thurston encounters a newspaper clipping describing the rescue of the lone survivor of the crew of ''Alert'', a Norwegian sailor named Gustaf Johansen. Thurston is eventually able to recover a journal Johansen wrote, which tells the tale of how he and his crew commandeered a yacht from a particularly sinister crew of men (implied to be cultists), and their arrival at the sunken city of R'lyeh, where Cthulhu himself is nearly released by mistake.

* {{Cult}}: The second part of the story involves a group of police officers arresting a cult of Cthulhu while investigating a series of disappearances - [[spoiler: victims of said cult, sacrifices made for Cthulhu]]. It is strongly suggested that they are behind the murders of [[spoiler:Professor Angell, Johansen, and possibly the narrator]].

->''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 light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.''