The Thing About Conan Is . . . By Todd B. Vick

What follows below is an extremely condensed version of the article I presented at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Conference in Seattle, Washington. The entire paper—in much greater detail—will be published in an upcoming edition of The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard Studies. The article is titled "The Mistaken Identity of a Barbarian: Conan, Hero or Anti-Hero?" For this post, I have added a few paragraphs & rearranged a few details. I highly recommend getting a copy of the upcoming Dark Man journal & reading the entire article to get a better understanding & more detailed account of why I think Conan has been mistakenly identified as a hero. 

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      “Conan the Cimmerian is the hero of over two dozen stories by Robert Ervin Howard (1906-36).”[1] Thus begins L. Sprague de Camp’s introduction to Conan the Conqueror in 1967 and all subsequent Lancer and Ace editions. There’s no explanation for the claim, it’s just there—in print—for all to see. Of course, de Camp’s not the first to ever call Conan a hero nor is he the last. Many others have called Conan a hero.

The Frost Giant's Daughter
Illustrated by Frank Frazetta

      Through the years, and in the various media through which Conan has been presented, the character has been widely known as a barbarian hero. In fact, this description has been used so frequently over the last sixty or more years that Conan is almost universally considered a hero without question or further thought. However, closer examination of Howard’s most popular character raises several questions. Does Conan exhibit traditional heroic qualities that are demonstrated by other heroes from literature? And, what exactly is a hero? Is Conan something other than a hero?

     In the mid-20th century (1949), Joseph Campbell developed what is known as the monomyth.[2] Campbell examined mythology, folk-tales, and fairy-tales, as they had been handed down either orally or in written form for the last two-thousand or so years. Joseph Campbell’s research took an in-depth look into not only the hero’s journey, but the specific personality traits of heroes. According to Campbell's research, a hero undergoes trials and tests to emerge a better person. And a hero typically places others above his or her self.

      Additionally, a hero rarely ever acts independently and will always welcome reliable help. A hero is also typically not at odds with the law, and is usually merciful and not vengeful or wrathful. The hero also typically shares the spoils of his or her adventure with society (civilization).

   

Les Liaisons Dangereuse

According to early 20th century literary scholar Sean O’Faolain’s work titled The Vanishing Hero, the first European novel to be without a social hero[3] is Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ Les Liaisons Dangereuse, published in 1782. From 1782—with the publication of Les Liaisons Dangereuse—to the 1920s a type of ambivalence crept into fiction. Writers began to question social structures and the behavior of humans in their work. This also led to a change in the interest of not only the writer but the reader as well. They were both becoming “enormously interested in the emotional “tug-of-war between the ‘soul’ and ‘imperfection’” (xv).

     The previous formula in literature had been the struggle between the hero (the protagonist) and the villain (the antagonist). “The Hero, and his opposite number, the Villain, represented in the traditional novel conflicts which they more or less clearly defined” (xiii). The ambivalence that slowly crept into works of fiction began to divide “admiration and sympathy, virtue and pleasure” (xv). The hero and the villain slowly began to change sides, but no one at this stage in the history of fiction was willing to admit it.[4]

   

Conan the Cimmerian
Illustrated by Frank Frazetta

The interesting aspects of this gradual shift in literature reside in the writers’ angst against social norms, social contracts, social conventions that have, as they believed, been blindly accepted. This caused a shift in the perspective of the protagonist who is “about to discover that his opposite number is not the Villain but himself imbued by new and disturbing forms of discontent” (xx). The ideals in fiction shift from social-centric heroes who sacrifice themselves for the good of mankind and the well-being of others, to the anti-hero who acts according to his or her needs, to rise above social conventions which they deem are wrought with problems, thus needing to be exposed and/or changed. And thus, the anti-hero is created.

     The literary hero follows a specific pattern in a given story: a call to a type of supernatural adventure, facing trails in this adventure to emerge as a better person, and then returning home. All this is in service of the hero’s homeland and people. Thus, the hero gives his or her life to something bigger than self. While the details vary from story to story, these essentials are always present. Additionally, a hero rarely ever acts independently and will always welcome reliable help. A hero is also typically not at odds with the law, and is usually merciful and not vengeful or wrathful. The hero also typically shares the spoils of his or her adventure with society (civilization).

   

Conan the Cimmerian
Illustrated by Frank Frazetta

While the anti-hero developed in literature as the new protagonist, an attitude of discontent progressively surfaced. Viewing society as a type of enemy—or at least something untrustworthy—the anti-hero trusts only him or herself. The anti-hero typically acts independently according to his or her own needs. Frequently, the anti-hero sees civilization and the social code as either hypocritical or in need of change, and finds no satisfaction in the social structures or patterns of society. Deprived of social sanctions and definitions, the anti-hero creates his/her own order or law of life. So how does Conan stack up? Is he a hero or an anti-hero?

     After Howard created Conan, he declared—in a letter to Clark Ashton Smith—that the character was an amalgamation of “the dominant characteristics of various prizefighters, gunmen, bootleggers, oil field bullies, and honest workmen” (Howard 367-68) that he had encountered. Conan certainly reflected this diverse set of influences. In his career, Conan was a thief, a pirate, wanderer, and sometimes a mercenary. He also decries civilization and its weak men by demonstrating a strong angst about civilization.

     Howard often uses Conan as an indictment against civilization. This use reflects an ongoing debate Howard was having with fellow pulp writer H.P. Lovecraft. The debate, amongst the many other topics they discussed, dealt with the issue of barbarism and civilization; the merits and woes of each. Several ideas from this debate made its way on the printed page in the Conan stories. Howard frequently pits his barbarian against civilized men in the various Conan stories. And, of course, the civilized men pale in comparison. This is because they're described as soft and weak. Conan as a barbarian, will always be superior, civilization will always pale in comparison to Barbarism. Ironically, Howard uses a civilized character to say as much in "Beyond the Black River":

"'Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,’ the borderer said, still staring somberly at the Cimmerian. ‘Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.'" (Howard 100) 

Additionally, a mere cursory reading of the Conan stories demonstrates that Conan is also an existentialist nihilist, a loner with no real attachment to anyone, and a character who maintains ulterior motives when he shows “loyalty” to any other character.[5] These actions are not the actions of a hero, but of a different kind of protagonist—an anti-hero. In the 1930s anti-hero protagonists were not near as pervasive as they are today. Moreover, the kind of protagonist (anti-hero) that Howard created Conan to be[6] was one that was 40 years ahead of its time.

It should also be noted that the term anti-hero does not mean against the hero. To eliminate any confusion, the anti-hero is always the protagonist in the narrative (story) who combats a real enemy (antagonist). Therefore, the anti-hero is not the antagonist of a given story/narrative. Way too many people have fallen prey to this confusion. In the end, Conan does not follow the typical heroic pattern or have the standard heroic characteristics. Rather, Conan’s autonomous behavior, nihilistic philosophy about life and strong discontent with civilization make him an anti-hero. But despite these glaring facts, Conan has been mistakenly identified as a hero for the last seventy to eighty years. With the evidence presented above, my hope is that we can put to rest the faulty idea that Conan is a hero and finally recognize his true role as an anti-hero.


[1] Howard, Robert E., and De Camp L. Sprague. Introduction. Conan The Conqueror. Twelfth ed. New York: Ace, 1986. 8. Print.
[2] Joseph Campbell. The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Third ed. Novato, California: New World Library, 2008. Print..
[3] A social hero is a hero for society or for the people. This is equivalent to the previous classic heroes who experienced/endured their adventures for the people or for society.
[4] It should be pointed out that the roles of the characters do not change in literature, the protagonist (who was typically the hero) remains the protagonist and the villain continues as antagonist. The shift is a subtle one in literature where the protagonist begins to feel or act like the antagonist through a demonstration of discontent with society or himself. Even so, the antagonist is still present in the story, thus contrasting the two. Attitudes simply change within the thinking and actions of the protagonist.
[5] See my upcoming article in The Dark Man Journal for detailed examples from Howard’s Conan stories that support these claims.
[6] I do not think Robert E. Howard set out to intentionally create Conan to be a hero or an anti-hero. Conan is simply of reflection of Howard's experiences with various kinds of people in his life and a multifarious mixture of his opinions and philosophies. When applied to a character in a narrative, the end result is a protagonist who is an anti-hero.

Works Consulted for this Research:

Anderson, Jennifer Joline. The Antihero. Minneapolis, MN: Essential Library, an Imprint of Abdo, 2016. Print.

Brombert, Victor. In Praise of Antiheroes: Figures and Themes in Modern European Literature, 1830-1980. Chicago, IL: U of Chicago, 1999. Print.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Third ed. Novato, California: New World Library, 2008. Print.

Campbell, Joseph, and Bill D. Moyers. The Power of Myth. Ed. Betty Sue Flowers. New York: MJF, 1988. Print.

Howard, Robert E. The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard Volume Three: 1933-1936. Ed. Rob Roehm. Plano, TX: Robert E. Howard Foundation, 2007. Print.

_____. The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian. New York, NY: Del Rey/Ballantine, 2003. Print.

_____. The Bloody Crown of Conan. New York, NY: Del Rey/Ballantine, 2004. Print.

_____. The Conquering Sword of Conan. New York, NY: Del Rey/Ballantine, 2005. Print.

Lovecraft, H. P., and Robert E. Howard. A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard 1930-1932. Ed. S. T. Joshi, David E. Schultz, and Rusty Burke. New York, NY: Hippocampus, 2011. Print.

_____. A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard 1933-1936. Ed. S. T. Joshi, David E. Schultz, and Rusty Burke. New York, NY: Hippocampus, 2011. Print.

Lubin, Harold, ed. Heroes and Anti-heroes. San Francisco: Chandler Pub., 1968. Print.

O'Faoláin, Seán. The Vanishing Hero; Studies in Novelists of the Twenties. Second Printing ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1957. Print.

Raglan. The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2003. Print.

Rollin, Roger B. Hero/Anti-Hero. New York: Webster Division, McGraw-Hill, 1973. Print.

Simmons, David. The Anti-hero in the American Novel: From Joseph Heller to Kurt Vonnegut. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print.

Stendhal. The Red and the Black. Trans. Charles Tergie. Franklin Center, PA: Franklin Library, 1981. Print.

Barbarism and Civilization in the Letters of REH and HPL (Part 8) by David Piske

 

Lovecraft in Brooklyn, 1922

Letter 100, HPL to REH (April 3, 1934)

This installment in the ongoing controversy with REH comes at least two months after REH's last entry. In that time the two men exchanged four smaller pieces of correspondence (two of which are lost), with (presumably) no mention of the topics of their controversy. HPL begins the letter acknowledging the impasse they have reached and expounds at length on the difficulty of conversations like theirs, which are based on values rather than facts. HPL lays out a course on which they can continue. They have no need to change each other's opinions, he says, only to make their own positions clear, and demonstrate their basis in "long and careful examination" rather than on "mere personal caprice" (730). But this seems disingenuous as HPL regularly comments on REH's resistance to being swayed by argument. With the intention of continuing their arguments, HPL identifies the core issues of their debate: "evolvedness versus unevolvedness, freedom versus order, civilisation versus barbarism" (729), and immediately turns to responding to REH's remarks.

Addressing REH's lengthy and somewhat bitter retort to the claim that he "refused to accept the basic standards of human development," HPL says that his intention was not that REH denied all values. Even though REH had indicated a belief that all values are"a meaningless jumble," HPL recognizes that this was hyperbole, and that REH surely holds a functional value system. His main concern is that REH overemphasizes certain secondary values, clouding his recognition of primary ones:

"I thought you were so strongly influenced by certain personal likings for things which might or might not be high in the organic scale, that you had come virtually to deny the existence of any basic organic scale. . . . You did certainly give signs that your personal likes were entirely disregardful of this scale . . ." (731).

From here he goes on to argue for a distinction between important human pursuits and trivial ones (731-4). Based on the intrinsic difference between simplicity and complexity, sensation and consciousness, there is an objective difference between merely simian activity, and human activity. By analogy, human activities can be classed from low and animal-like, to high and worthy.

He counters REH's claim that "a caterpillar is as important as a man" by first agreeing that the distinctions he is drawing are not cosmically significant. Indeed, to the universe a man is no more significant than any other creature. However, the distinction itself is intrinsic, and therefore even cosmically, absolute (731-2). To illustrate his point he says:

"We may like bulldogs better than men. . . . [But] to call a bulldog 'higher' than Xenophanes, Aristotle, Bacon . . . would be to strain our natural sense of proportion and probability to a rather grotesque extent" (733)

He concludes his lengthy argument by coming back around the the initial point (that REH's preferences for certain activities and qualities seems to disregard an objective standard of value):

 "It may seem strange and unacceptable to you, at present, to have a distinction drawn between the human effort which seeks to measure the universe, or crystallise a phase of beauty, or evolve a more harmonious social order, and that which seeks to apply science to the mutual slugging of two sullen giants—but that is something which must be left to time and to your instinctive sense of proportion. If what I have somewhat clumsily tried to outline above is not sufficient . . . then I greatly doubt whether I could in any way make this point clear at the present state of the debate" (734).

HPL's exasperation seems well-founded as it seems that REH does not fully grasp the argument from complexity/consciousness. But in any case, his exasperation shows that,despite his earlier claim, he does care about changing REH's mind.

Robert E., Howard

Previously, REH claimed that HPL too narrowly associated art with human superiority, and pointed to other professions (i.e., physician and football coach) which equally display human superiority. HPL clarifies that he does not consider the formal, professional activity of art as the highest form of human activity. Rather it an example of "a very typical aspect of human aspiration at its best," because of its "intrinsically rewarding" position as an "end in itself" (735). He acknowledges, as he has before, the value of, and even the skill and intelligence involved in certain other forms of effort (such as management of a business or a government), but implies that their value is instrumental, being concerned with "the mechanics of mere survival" and the necessity "to keep civilisation going." While formal art is not necessarily the highest form of human effort, "pure art and science more emphatically and conveniently illustrate the principle of reward—of a purpose in organised human life" (735).

Barbarism and Civilization in the Letters of REH and HPL (Part 7) by David Piske

The 2015 Cross Plains Postal Cancellation
artwork by Mark Schultz

Almost a year and a half into the controversy between Howard and Lovecraft in their correspondence, the conversation has already taken several turns and led to flared tempers. The degree of resentment, especially on REH's part, seems to rise with every cycle of letters. As does HPL's exasperation. At the end of his last letter, HPL admitted to some misgivings about the effect of mechanization on culture, and worries about the future of civilization as mechanization progresses by the hands of an "already somewhat tainted race." Such a candid confession of doubt about the progress of civilization could be received favorably by REH, especially considering HPL's usual haughty optimism about civilization.

However it may be a matter of 'too-little, too-late,' as REH's resentment is already roused, and it seems like he may not even grasp all of HPL's arguments, even though he would never admit it. Indeed, instead REH seems to back off from arguing vigorously against civilization (perhaps seeing himself at a disadvantage on HPL's turf), and fall back onto his original statement—that his preference for barbarism is personal, not absolute. But first there are several accusations and misunderstandings that must be addressed.

Letter 95: REH to HPL (ca. January 1934)

Coming back to address their lengthy controversies, REH turns first to the topic of art and its relative place in the human scale of values. REH says that he finally understands the idea behind HPL's objections to his arguments: "You say I 'refuse to accept the basic standards of human development" (693). REH denies this charge and claims only to question HPL's ideas about what constitutes the criterion of development.From a cosmic perspective he believes all values are irrelevant:

"I am convinced that things are a meaningless jumble, that a caterpillar is as important as a man, that a baboon is as significant as an artist, and that it means absolutely nothing to the universe whether a man is an imbecile or a genius" (693).

But he does recognize a scale of values in human affairs, and claims that all of his actions reflect recognition of this scale. He speculates that HPL came to his inaccurate conclusion about him based on disparaging remarks about supposedly "superior" men in a previous letter (Letter 87). However, REH claims, he never denied the superiority of some types of men; he only questioned what he thought was HPL's narrow identification of superiority with the arts, and with the formal occupation of art, specifically.

In defense of his previous denial that art is higher than (at least) some other types of human activity, he points out that HPL has admitted as much when he said that various intellectual activities (e.g., science, statesmanship) are equal to art. REH implies that this is what he had meant in the first place, for he certainly did not mean to equate art with "the making of mud pies or the twiddling of one's thumbs" (694). But he says further that HPL too narrowly identifies superiority with intellectual pursuits. A superior man, he says, is one who, regardless of his line of work (from physician to football coach), attains the highest possible degree of development in his field. Then he says that HPL admitted as much in a previous statement when he stated that art is "merely one of the several manifestations of the highest state of development" (694).

REH concludes the matter denying that he repudiates "human values" and claims that they both agree that other things occupy the same level as art (694). REH seems to overstate the level of agreement between them here. First, HPL's argument is that certain types of human activity are higher. Excelling in one's profession is not necessarily a sign of the superiority HPL has in mind. Second, the particular kinds of activity that they each would consider on par with art has not been agreed upon.

Robert E. Howard

As noted before, human freedom has been one of the the most important topics in REH's controversy with HPL. The amount of ink spilled by REH on this topic attests to its importance to him; in A Means to Freedom this section covers over 12 pages, most of which follows a point by point rebuttal of HPL's arguments. He begins by correcting HPL's misunderstanding. Previously, HPL had stated that there is no "perfect liberty," and that the degree of man's liberty in any age is a result of social and economic conditions. REH admitted that freedom is relative, but seemed to conflate HPL's view with that of philosophical "sophists" who say that freedom is a myth, and he countered with the analogy of a philosopher forced out of his contemplative profession to work at hard labor for long hours. HPL, in turn, mistook the meaning of the analogy, taking it instead as a new angle to the argument. In his response here, REH says "there is no need to get a new slant on my conception of [freedom]—which is simply that there was more personal freedom on the frontier than there is in modern life" (697).

HPL on the shore of Magnolia, MA
in August of 1922

He acknowledges HPL's hope that mechanization will "usher in an age of leisure," but observes that it has not yet arrived. And merely "in passing" he observes that mechanization did not work out well for farmers. The tractor reduced the farmer's work, but prices for finished commodities increased while cost for the raw product did not, forcing farmers to double and triple their yields, and leaving many in debt and bankruptcy (697). Returning to the main thrust of his response, he reiterates that his previous analogy was a reply to HPL's claim that liberty is a myth (something which HPL did not say!).

He expresses resentment that his desire for freedom is considered merely romantic whim. He asserts that his motivation for writing is purely because of the freedom it gives him, and he mocks artistic aspiration. He caustically reiterates his view of philosophers theorizing away freedom, and likens his own craving for freedom with that of his forefathers who left Ireland for America: "An ideal that rules the lives of generations is no empty pose" (697).

Others and Skull-Face By Karen Joan Kohoutek

"We found ourselves instinctively suspicious of anything out of the ordinary." —Robert E. Howard, from "Skull-Face," Tales of Weird Menace (58)

        In the story “Skull-Face” (originally published in 1929), Robert E. Howard spends some time making sure we know that its narrator, Steve Costigan, is an exile from society, set apart from decent or normal people. He is "a dirty, ragged renegade" (5), "a wounded soul" (37), addicted to hashish, who has "crossed an ocean over which I could never return," and whose “moral sense had been blunted" (6, 20).

 

Ken Kelly's depiction of The Tomb of Deception

Significantly, he is also a shell-shocked veteran of World War I, where he had been "shot and bayoneted to shreds of gory flesh" (7). In the opium den, we overhear a sailor cry out "Muster all hands on deck" (8), reminding us that Costigan isn't the only traumatized veteran to have found refuge in this Temple of Dreams. They fought for a cause, for their country, and they have been tossed aside, the same way "the men who died beside me in No Man's Land" were (33).

Unknown to the everyday opium-eaters, however, this particular den is the headquarters of a global conspiracy to "drive the white men into the sea" (48). Led by Kathulos, a mysterious skull-faced survivor of Atlantis, the political situation is described as one of "widespread unrest" among different groups, mostly in countries that were at the time under British rule or influence; one passing example given is that "the African cauldron began to seethe" (64).

When Costigan encounters the conspiracy, he is tempted into cooperating with it, not by the promise of riches or power, but with the question "Would you like to be a man again? … I am a friend to all broken men" (9). The larger world didn't have any patience for the brokenness of men like Costigan. Seeing him as a useless addict, rather than someone who lost everything in the war, "normal" society hasn't cut him any slack. Offered the chance to make something of himself again, the protagonist turns against "normal" society, and aligns himself with the masses against it, at least temporarily.

In a 1923 letter to Tevis Clyde Smith, Howard asked, "Who will our invaders be? From whence will they come? Where but from Asia? Can a nation ally the Tartars, the Mongols, the Indians; the tribes of Asia? Buddhist, Bonist, Bramin, Erlikist, Mohammedan? Unite them and hurl their united strength against the rest of the world? Such a nation would rule the world" (Collected Letters 14).

In another letter a few weeks later, Howard says "a color-war I would enter gladly with no scruples or any thought except to get as many as possible" (15). This sounds wildly racist, but it's followed up with a whole list of reasons why Asia has the advantage over the West, with many of the examples -- such as "Before the time of Alexander the Great, China had a civilization nearly equalling any today" (16) -- painting it as a superior culture. And the original musing on these hypothetical future invaders followed a list of who'd conquered whom throughout history: "England had her Norsemen, her Scots, her Normans…" (14). 

Norman assault on the army of King Harold in 1066

The real mood here is one of historical reflection, with the recognition that all empires are vulnerable, and all civilizations eventually meet an enemy which can cause their downfall. Howard logically follows this by facing the implications for the civilization of his own time. If the pattern were to be repeated in his lifetime, with one group of people forcing out another, then to fight on one side of this "color-war" would be a matter of survival, with one’s personal prejudices or lack thereof being a moot issue.

If Kathulos, for example, had been successful in his worldwide revolution, it wouldn't bode well for the white population. Where the conflict specifically involves the choice between a white Empire and a black Empire, then the main basis most people would use to support one side or another is whether they are white or black. Self-interest is an understandable, instinctive reaction, albeit one that doesn't showcase humanity at its best.

Kathulos is, in a sense, doing what's natural, working for the survival of his own people. His ultimate goal is to preserve his own race. "I must work and labor for the good of the race at large. Aye, I must toil and sow the seed of glory against the full coming of the imperial days" (84). The villain’s race loyalty makes him an enemy to the whole of humanity.

Many people wouldn't want to live in an empire whose rulers and privileged classes are all of a single racial group that they don't belong to. That recognition may provide an uncanny, if not consciously recognized, twinge of empathy for how it feels for the people who are already in that situation: in this case, the natives whose uprising the story’s British agent John Gordon is trying to thwart. The fear of being white in a black-ruled world may suggest that, deep down, people realize there's something wrong with a system that ascribes merit to race, applicable to the already existing situation of those who are black in a white-ruled world. After all, one's race is arbitrary, a fluke of fate.

Too often, unfortunately, when the interests of different groups are in conflict, individuals align on the basis of biased self-interest, and what will benefit them most. In cases where one race is in power over another, as in the British Empire of "Skull-Face," one of the justifications frequently invoked is the idea that one group is intrinsically superior to the other. Often, that superiority is morally defined: thus, the Empire justifies subjugating native people in their own countries because the British deserve to rule them -- they're bringing civilization to the savages.

The ruling class of African natives

This notion, however, puts a burden on the group in power to actually be morally superior. The cornerstone of Kathulos' plot is "dope! … with this he ensnares and enslaves men and women” (Tales 49) The ruling class, the superior people who deserve to rule the world, are easily lured into drug addiction, while at the same time, the different minority groups under their rule are able to put aside their conflicts with each other and rally for their own liberation.

  When Gordon recruits Costigan to become a double agent, it’s because the addict's alienation from society has accidentally put him in a position to infiltrate that society’s enemies. Costigan doesn’t hesitate when offered the chance to redeem himself by working again on behalf of the mainstream. This is depicted pretty unambiguously as in aid of "civilization" against native unrest and a conspiracy to overthrow the rule of white men: "Here, in the very heart of civilization's metropolis, the direct enemy of that civilization commits crimes of the most outrageous nature…" (56)
 

        Eventually, however, the definitions change. Kathulos says that Costigan is "always the barbarian" (81), and refers to the dangers of "lift(ing) the savage from his savagery." The shift becomes more explicit when Kathulos refers to "you white barbarians, whose ape-ancestors forever defied my race and me" (83). In relation to the Atlanteans, all the other races are barbarians, and the ones who rebel against the rule of a self-defined superior race are the ones the story positions as heroic.
    

        As Kathulos tells Costigan, "I have created a Frankenstein monster. I made of you a superhuman creature to serve my wishes and you broke from me" (8). This cry could just as easily come from a Bearer of the old-fashioned White Man's Burden. Colonizers have long justified their actions by stressing what they gave to the colonized, making them what they are, and long believed the native peoples should be grateful for what they’ve done, instead of rebelling.
 

In fact, Kathulos could easily have referred to those humans who resist Atlantean slavery as a seething cauldron of unrest, the way Gordon refers to other nations’ resistance to British rule. The return of the "ancient masters" would mean the enslavement of the rest of humanity, and those slaves probably aren't going to appreciate that "civilization," which raises the question of whether the British Empire presented civilization in its best possible light to the native populations of the countries that were in on Kathulos' conspiracy, and how wrong they really were to lack appreciation, instead choosing to rebel.

        An important part of the story is that Kathulos has united different groups against a common enemy, an act which Gordon calls a "monstrous conspiracy" (49). They come from Afghanistan, China, Senegal, Haiti, Morocco, India, and "secret native societies of West Africa" (51). There's no corner of the globe where the British haven't made deep-seated enemies. Unfortunately for all sides, Kathulos, the being who is uniting these disparate peoples, is a killer who seeks to enslave all of humanity. Liberation is a dream, promoted by exploiters who dupe the exploited for their own ends.

       

        Howard presents a cynical view of the world in this story, suspicious of the Utopian impulse, and certainly of Messiah figures. This story's scenario is reminiscent, for example, of "Black Canaan," albeit on a much grander scale. A group of people, who certainly have legitimate grievances, are being manipulated by someone with sinister, selfish intentions, who doesn't really care about the well-being of his followers, and who will readily turn on them. There's always an agenda based on the desire for personal power.

        In the case of Kathulos, he openly says: "These brown and yellow people, what care I for them?" (83) His black followers, who think they're rallying to gain the power they've been denied, are really just pawns, trading in one kind of oppression for a more blatant kind of slavery.

        As for the race which had previously enslaved the black one, Kathulos crows that "when I mount my universal throne, the only whites shall be white slaves!" (83) Since he's a megalomaniacal pulp villain, and not a real-life politician, he doesn't feel the need to justify his enslavement of other races in any way, but he clearly believes that the people he's enslaving are inferiors, those "barbaric races" whose history is made up of "long years of savagery" (83). He believes his civilized Atlantis is superior to barbaric human culture. All of this echoes the sort of rhetoric historically used by the white races to justify slavery and colonization.

In other words, Western Civilization is in the same relationship to the Atlanteans as the seething cauldron of native populations are to the British Empire. So while the story started out with the British Empire defending white civilization from barbaric hordes, made up of people from races that are perceived as more primitive, it ends up as a contest between the "barbarism" of those same white men versus the civilized, but blatantly evil, Kathulos. With "barbarism" being the preferred state.

  The parallel works both ways, so the story also links the heroic "barbarism" of white men fighting ancient evil with the uprisings against that same white civilization. In contemporary sociology and literary theory, there is a popular notion of “the Other.” J.-F. Staszak has succinctly described this as “applying a principle that allows individuals to be classified into two hierarchical groups: them and us.” In this framework, “the out-group is only coherent as a group as a result of its opposition to the in-group,” and “the in-group constructs one or more others, setting itself apart and giving itself an identity.” He adds, “Dominated out-groups are Others precisely because they are subject … to the dominant in-group” (43).

       

        However one feels about the validity of the idea, it is an influential one in critical circles, and can provide a useful lens for looking at issues of difference (including racial difference) and social power imbalances. It also describes the layers of differentiation that occur between racial groups in Howard’s tale: the taken-for-granted “othering” done by the white, British population to other races and nationalities mimics the position they’re going to be in vis-à-vis the Atlanteans.

        So on the surface, the plot of "Skull-Face" can easily be seen as an example of white society's fear of the Other, as represented by those diverse races dominated by the British Empire. But once it introduces Kathulos’ assumption of racial superiority, his ascending to power would equally position white society as the Other, and the whole interpretive framework turns topsy-turvy.

        This illustrates that there is no intrinsic or immutable superiority in one group or the other, but merely historic forces and generations of time in which positions may switch, so that one generation’s primitive savages could, in the far future, complacently believe themselves the epitome of civilization.

The central situation of the story reveals both barbarism and civilization to be a matter of perspective. If that's true, and the perspective depends on which group you happened to be born into, what does it even mean? A few years after writing this story, Howard would ask Lovecraft that very question: "Just what is civilization? Where does barbarism leave off and civilization begin?" (A Means to Freedom 547).

        In the example of "Skull-Face," if someone new can come to power and re-define the race-based class structure, what validity does that structure even have? Especially when the race that was presumed to be "superior" has become decadent, losing itself in drug addiction? Howard could have written a more simplistic tale of "yellow peril," with noble white men fighting dehumanized hordes of rebellious savages, but instead he depicts a much more multilayered of racial tensions. With its mixing up the categories of civilized and barbaric, the story can be seen as identifying in some way with the rebels, and displaying a subtle distaste for the civilization the hero is defending.

       

        The events of "Skull-Face" may not make the representatives of British imperialism more sympathetic to the "unrest" of people under their dominance, once "Africa has subsided and the East seems to have returned to her ancient sleep" (92). Part of the story's irony is that the old Empire was rescued with the help of an outcast, a man who was, in a sense, betrayed by the very society he's now fighting to defend. He risked his life in war, and when he was damaged by it, the only support he found was in an opium den, with the lowest of the low.

In some respects, then, Costigan and the rebels have more in common than he'd ever realize, and one thinks they could have, in some sense, been on the same side. The Kathulos hasn't come along yet who can make the white man of "Skull-Face," who has been cast out of society, see his common cause with the Africans and Asians who share his powerlessness.

Works Cited

Howard, Robert E. Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard, Volume One. The Robert E. Howard Foundation Press.

Tales of Weird Menace. The Robert E. Howard Foundation Press, 2010.

A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Two Volumes. Edited by S.T. Joshi, David E. Schultz, and Rusty Burke.

Staszak, J.-F. Other/Otherness. International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. Vol. 8, pp. 43 - 47.  Oxford: Elsevier, 2009.

           

Barbarism and Civilization in the Letters of REH and HPL (Part 6) by David Piske

Letter 89: HPL to REH (November 2, 1933)

Before turning to meatier matters of the debate, HPL addresses REH's charge of resentment. Using the third person point of view, HPL indirectly admits that he is exasperated by "his opponent" for "contravening common reason and attack the foundations of everything which makes life valuable to persons above the simian grade," but he brushes these feelings off as a "side issue" (660). To HPL, the only thing that matters is the truth of the arguments, and resentment is irrelevant and only muddies the argument with the "waste products" of emotion which should be ignored. HPL is sincerely baffled at REH's offense. He regrets the unintentional offense and insists that he does not have an arrogant attitude.

Next HPL attempts to clarify REH's misunderstanding of his point about the superior human personality and lower forms of entertainment. He reiterates his distinction between classifying things and classifying people who like those things. Indeed, HPL had labored to make this point in his original argument, and it is unclear how REH came away with the opposite impression. HPL affirms that the wisest man can gain pleasure from the trashiest sources (but on nonintellectual or nonaesthetic grounds) (662). He is unapologetic about recognizing the relative value of different things (for example, Eddie Guest's poetry is "crap"), and he cares greatly about their relation to the larger questions of political, economic, and social order; but he does not even think of judging individuals by their taste in entertainment (662-3).

In the next several pages of the letter (four pages, as they are formatted in A Means to Freedom) HPL does not directly rebut any of REH's arguments, but develops and defends his argument for the universal and quasi-absolute value of human development (being careful to distinguish this from a cosmic or sacred value). His argument is subtle and abstract, and he restates his main point numerous times in different ways until he finally arrives (halfway through his argument) at a more succinct thesis: "Human valuation of high development is universal" (664). Acknowledging his repetition, he explains that it is necessary because REH challenges the basis for evaluating everything (665).

In brief, HPL's argument is that societies possess parallel sets of values. Some of these are relative to a given set of conditions; others are more absolute, because they have to do with the physical welfare of the race. Together these values aim at the survival, welfare, and functioning of society. Through these values a universal feeling can be observed, that becomes a separate value parallel to the others: the desirability of advancement. Because of the universality of this value for advancement, national policy should encourage aesthetic and intellectual development, which is the highest expression of this development.

HPL labors to demonstrate that this position entails no elitism or depreciation of sturdier qualities that REH holds to be paramount; these sturdier virtues support the survival, welfare, and integrity of society, parallel with the ultimate value of advancement, which gives society its purpose. He draws an analogy to a Gothic cathedral. The "sturdier" values are like the foundation stones and buttresses, while intellect and aesthetic sensitivity are like its towers, traceries, and rose windows, which represent the "emotional exaltation" which was its purpose for being built (666).

Gothic Cathedral

As a final point of clarification, HPL agrees in principle with REH, that "Art is merely one of several manifestations of the highest stage of development" (666-7). Development, itself, is general and includes many different types of activities and occupations. For instance, scientists are just as exalted as artists. Also executives and administrators are essentially scientists in their own fields. Even great military leaders occupy the edges of this class (666). With this point HPL hopes to make clear to REH that he never intended to exalt art (as a profession) as the sole instance of human development, and he supports the sincere pursuit of any "line of effort."

Barbarism and Civilization in the Letters of REH and HPL (Part 5) by David Piske

At the present point of the epistolary debate between Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft (just over a year in), the direct arguments about barbarism and civilization have become dwarfed by their debates on a wide range of other issues, most of which are related to the original disagreement. This was inevitable since the concept of barbarism for Howard, and of civilization for Lovecraft represent a broader set of values and ideals. In the interest of thoroughness, our summary and analysis of the debate has broadened, taking a look at many (but by no means all) of these other topics. In addition to a debate of ideas, in these letters we also see both men's personality on display, for better and worse. Already in the last several letters, tempers have flared and seeming cooled. And in the two letters in view here, we see REH adopting the role of the iconoclast, smashing HPL's idols, while HPL labors to establish a common framework by which to determine meaning. Despite the civil and apparently genuinely friendly conversations about each other's writings and personal lives, on the topics of their controversy, resentment has crept it and seems colors many of the arguments.

Letter 87: REH to HPL (ca. September 1933)

After several pages of friendly chatting, REH returns to the debate with HPL, first addressing the value of art and intellect. Previously, the disagreement on this matter seemed resolvable. REH himself had pointed out the minimal degree of conflict between their positions. However, here REH again seems animated by HPL's haughtiness. REH begins his response regarding their multi-faceted debate by directly addressing their mutual resentment:

"In a previous discussion you quite obviously deeply resented what seemed like an attack on artistic values and other things you prized; rightly enough; yet now you denounce me as irrational, emotional and egotistical because I resent – or seem to resent – attacks on certain things I happen to prize rather highly. . . . I fail to see that it is any less my privilege to defend my tastes and ideals than it is another man's, even if I am not an artist" (634).

It is plain that REH feels just as much resentment now as HPL seems to have felt initially. He clearly objects to the way in which HPL has framed the debate. The last clause is especially revealing: "even if I am not an artist." Warranted or not, REH feels as if HPL considers him to be unqualified to hold and defend his views.

Next, REH objects to HPL's supposed attempt to "classify an entire personality according to the sources of its pleasure" (634). But HPL did not do this; actually, he explicitly denied this could be done. He maintained that certain pleasures are inferior to others, but he explained (at length) that because of uneven and compartmentalized development personality, otherwise superior men can find pleasure in inferior diversions. As a result, HPL says, it is an error to attempt "to classify men rigidly according to their pleasures" (621). REH appears occasionally not to grasp the subtlety of HPL's arguments, and now we see he completely misinterprets what is a fairly clear position.

Regarding HPL's claim that art is a sign of man's evolution (that is, his qualitative difference from amoeba), REH affirms the bare observation, but argues for its irrelevance. Art is no more characteristic of humans than other acts, like sacrifice. Or even negative qualities that humans tend to gloss over when defining themselves as a species: like treachery or sexual perversion. Man is unique among animals not merely on account of qualities he cherishes, but also by his unique faults. Humans are the only species capable of duplicity, he says, and most animals have more honesty and decency than humans. REH's point is clear, but its force is in doubt, for the very acts of duplicity and honesty, or categories of decency and indecency require consciousness, and cannot be attributed to (at least most) nonhuman species. Besides this, REH seems to miss the real gist of HPL's argument: that man's distinction from animals is not a matter of morality, but of complexity and development.