At the Mountains of Madness

“Our good luck and efficiency had indeed been almost uncanny.”

The early days of the expedition seem almost too efficient and fortunate. Dyer is writing from a distant perspective, providing a warning to his audience. As such, anything other than pain and failure seems positive to him. The routine arrival of a scientific expedition is uncanny in light of what was to follow. Though this fortune and efficiency is normal, Dyer cannot view these memories objectively; his knowledge of the Old Ones taints everything. Any optimism that he might have legitimately felt at the time now seems only naïve and misplaced.

“Nothing like delicacy or accuracy was possible with instruments hardly able to cut the anomalous tissue.” 

Lake’s early interactions with the Old Ones show that the humans are poorly prepared for what is to follow. They are in a hostile, unexplored environment in which they rely on their tools to survey and to learn. However, Lake’s anatomical tools are barely able to puncture the Old Ones’ skin, showing how inadequate even the most advanced scientific tools are in comparison to what the team encounters in Antarctica. The inadequate tools also foreshadow the dread that will overcome Dyer and Danforth. Just as Lake lacked the tools to deal with the physical reality of the Old Ones, the other men lack the mental tools needed to deal with the psychological reality of the ancient race.

“The primal myths about Great Old Ones who filtered down from the stars and concocted earth life as a joke or mistake.” 

The terror the Old Ones inspire is not only a fear of violence, but a shocking realization of the true irrelevancy of humanity. Dyer recalls myths about the Old Ones that suggest that they created life on Earth as a distraction or an accident. As a scientist, Dyer identifies as a learned and practical man. He considers himself to be an intellectual working at the cutting edge of human knowledge. The existence of the Old Ones, however, makes him feel inadequate and inconsequential. He comes to realize that his entire existence and his treasured identity are nothing but a joke—perhaps even literally.

“I could not help feeling that they were evil things—mountains of madness whose farther slopes looked out over some accursed ultimate abyss.” 

The technique of pathetic fallacy involves attributing human emotions or thoughts to inanimate objects such as the environment. Here Dyer uses pathetic fallacy to project his rising sense of dread onto the mountains themselves. He feels a deep, inexplicable horror within him, so he views the landscape itself as the cause, as though the world itself is turning against him and driving him insane. The use of pathetic fallacy shows the depths of Dyer’s fear and the hostile nature of the situation in which he finds himself.

“Some of our efforts may directly harm our cause by drawing inquiring notice.” 

Dyer’s account of Antarctica is a warning for others not to follow in his footsteps. However, this desperate plea is built on a great irony. Throughout the account, Dyer frequently describes horrific situations and a genuine sense of fear. In Lake’s camp, in the city, and in the tunnels beneath the city, Dyer feels scared and knows that he should leave. On each occasion, however, he presses on. He is warning people to do exactly what he did not do, seemingly unaware of the morbid curiosity that naturally draws humans into dangerous situations. While some people may be convinced to stay away, others will possess the same doomed curiosity that compelled Dyer to investigate further.

“Lake’s anatomical instruments were missing, but there were evidences of their careful cleansing.” 

The destruction and violence at Lake’s camp make Dyer immediately realize that something terrible has occurred, such as a mental breakdown by one or more of the men. However, his description suggests that there is a horrific precision to the violence. The anatomical instruments are missing, but there is evidence that they were cleaned after their use. This suggests a type of care and precision atypical of someone who has lost their grip on sanity. Instead, whatever murdered Lake and the others was acting calmly, rationally, and with an emotional disinterest, all of which suggests that it simply viewed the violence as irrelevant. For Dyer, this prospect is much scarier.

“And then, having gained those last few feet, we did indeed stare across the momentous divide and over the unsampled secrets of an elder and utterly alien earth.”

Part of the horror Dyer feels on discovering the Old Ones and their city is the discombobulation of no longer knowing his own home. Dyer is a geologist who has lived on the Earth for decades and made a career out of studying it in minute detail. Before the expedition, he felt at home on the planet and informed and knowledgeable about its nature. The discovery of the Old Ones destroys this sense of safety. A city built by immensely powerful and alien creatures not only poses an immediate danger to Dyer, but it also undermines everything he felt he knew about the planet where he lives. The Earth is now an alien place to him, and his knowledge of geology and his identity as a geologist are now irrelevant.

“I thought again of the eldritch primal myths that had so persistently haunted me since my first sight of this dead antarctic world.”

Dyer expands his attention beyond Antarctica. Though the city is his only actual experience of anything mythic or alien, he has read about similar topics elsewhere. Dyer makes a conscious attempt to tie his experiences to the “eldritch primal myths” that he has read in other sources so that he can validate his own claims by associating them with a more traditional kind of fear (31). Dyer wants to convince people not to return to the city by revealing to them that what exists there is not new, but rather something that humans have been afraid of for a long time.

“Something about the ridgy, barrel-shaped designs stirred up oddly vague, hateful, and confusing semi-remembrances in both Danforth and me.” 

The architecture of the dead city makes Dyer feel anxious. He tries to explain this sensation but cannot quite express the uncanny wrongness of everything around him. His only experience with buildings and architecture comes from human constructions, so any buildings that are not built for human purposes just seem wrong. The doors are too large, the rooms arranged in a strange fashion, and the lighting inadequate. These and many other architectural details tell Dyer that he is in a place that is not designed for him or his species.

“There was something vaguely but deeply unhuman in all the contours, dimensions, proportions, decorations, and constructional nuances of the blasphemously archaic stonework.” 

Dyer is struck by how out of place he feels in the city. The “constructional nuances of the blasphemously archaic stonework” make him feel anxious (38). He expresses this discomfort in spiritual terms, suggesting that the architecture is blasphemous. This appeal to spirituality shows Dyer’s desperation. Dyer is a disciplined man of science, but his science cannot explain his new reality. Dyer therefore appeals to a higher power to give him a sense of purpose and morality—anything that might help him survive in a dreadful, terrifying world.

“Naturally, no one set of carvings which we encountered told more than a fraction of any connected story.” 

Dyer acknowledges that his description of the history of the Old Ones is fragmented and partial at best. However, this acknowledgement is also a comment on his own story. He writes directly to an audience from a first-person perspective, so his story is subjective and fragmented in a similar way. Dyer’s story is missing important information such as Lake’s experiences at the camp and Danforth’s vision. Much like the history of the Old Ones, Dyer’s story is a composite of several different narrative strands woven together by someone who does not understand the entire story.

“Government was evidently complex and probably socialistic, though no certainties in this regard could be deduced from the sculptures we saw.” 

Dyer’s attempts to describe and define the Old Ones’ form of government show how much he is struggling to convey information without relying on the human experience for context. He describes their system as “probably socialistic” (44), using a specific human ideology to explain alien behavior. The Old Ones existed millions of years before socialism and presumably had no conception of human political science. Dyer’s attempts to describe their government show how he depends on ill-fitting but relatable references to guide his audience through a deeply unknowable story.

“A shambling, primitive mammal […] whose vaguely simian and human foreshadowings were unmistakable.” 

The more Dyer learns about the Old Ones’ culture, the more he realizes that humans are not an important species. The Old Ones were so advanced that they could essentially breed early humanoid creatures for entertainment and food, which suggests that humans’ natural place in the world is either as livestock or pets. Dyer realizes that he is dealing with a more powerful and more consequential species, making him feel inadequate and pathetic.

“Art and decoration were pursued, though of course with a certain decadence.” 

Dyer’s descriptions of the changing nature of the Old Ones’ art suggests that the decline of their civilization was due to decadence and self-indulgence. According to Dyer, the changing nature of the art reflects a social decline and a loss of the integrity and the authenticity that made the Old Ones so powerful. This suggestion potentially mirrors Dyer’s feelings about the human species, which has become decadent and self-indulgent and therefore ripe for a downfall.

“Was it still down there, a stony corpse in eternal blackness?” 

Though the city Dyer describes seems dead and abandoned, he begins to realize that the Old Ones and the Shoggoths might have gone into hibernation in the subterranean ocean beneath Antarctica. This adds an extra dimension to his fear, as he realizes that they could awaken at any moment and crush humanity. Dyer almost begins to hope that the underwater city is nothing more than a “stony corpse” (52), but he has already seen how Old Ones can seem dead before coming back to life and wreaking terrible violence on humans. Dyer’s warnings take on new urgency as he worries that humanity might be under threat.

“Curiosity having long ago got the better of horror.” 

Dyer seems to switch back and forth between horror and curiosity, as though these are the only two emotions he can experience. The questions posed by the existence of the Old Ones have destroyed Dyer’s previous comprehension of reality, making happiness and boredom impossible and continuing to draw him toward the terrifying new reality.

“Our motivation after that is something I will leave to psychologists.”

Dyer reflects on his actions and cannot explain himself. His first-person perspective creates a distinction between Dyer the narrator and Dyer the subject. Dyer the subject becomes so far removed from rationality that Dyer the narrator can no longer justify or explain his decisions. The irony of this distinction is that Dyer is writing the book to warn rational people against returning to the city. However, he accepts that his own desire to explore was not based in rationality. Dyer wants to persuade people not to go to Antarctica, but he knows that anything he says is likely to fail.

“They were the bodies of young Gedney and the missing dog.” 

The discovery of the bodies of Gedney and the dog inverts the relationship between the humans and the Old Ones. Until this point, the Old Ones were the subjects of human interest in the narrative. Dyer and his team of scientists were both terrified and fascinated by this strange species, and they sought out more information about it. The discovery of the two dead bodies shows that the relationship was not unilateral. Just as the Old Ones were being observed, they were also observing the humans. They have their own scientific curiosity that leads them to collect bodies and take samples. Furthermore, the decision to take both a human and a dog suggests that the Old Ones cannot really distinguish between the two species. They are so advanced that humanity seems to them just another mammal to research.

“Indeed, it was just such a lure which had brought us to this unearthly polar waste in the first place.” 

The more Dyer explores, the more he realizes that he and Danforth are caught in a loop of morbid curiosity. The same “lure” that brought them to Antarctica draws them into the city and then into the tunnels beneath. Despite what he has seen, Dyer cannot stop himself from exploring further. His narration creates a sense of helplessness, in which he is a passive figure lured in by a mystery and unable to stop exploring despite himself.

“It was like, yet disturbingly unlike, what we had come to recognize as the Old Ones’ art.”

Dyer has familiarized himself with the art styles of the Old Ones, but now he finds an entirely new style. This creates another dimension of uncanniness, in which the familiar seems odd and out of place. Dyer feels anxious because of these slight changes; the little he knows is changed and altered without explanation, disorientating him and making him feel even further out of his depth. Even little changes like the aesthetic qualities of unfamiliar art are enough to fill Dyer with a deepening sense of dread.

“Still another time have I come to a place where it is very difficult to proceed.” 

Dyer occasionally pauses the narrative to inform the reader that he struggles to tell them what happened next. His hesitancy builds anticipation in the mind of the reader, who begins to wonder what could possibly be worse or stranger than what Dyer has already described. In this sense, the narration mirrors the physical journey. Dyer plunges deeper and deeper into the unknown, pausing occasionally to reflect on the legitimacy of his decisions before continuing anyway.

“It cost us a genuine pang to leave this probably crippled Old One—perhaps a lone survivor.” 

Despite all the pain and violence the Old Ones have inflicted on the human characters, the idea of an Old One suffering or being in pain causes Dyer to feel a pang of empathy. In contrast to the black, slimy Shoggoth, Dyer views the Old One as something more human and deserving of empathy. This moment of fleeting humanity suggests that, even among these dreadful alien species, a hierarchy of sympathy exists.

“Its nearest comprehensible analogue is a vast, onrushing subway train as one sees it from a station platform.” 

A Shoggoth chases Dyer and Danforth out of the tunnels. Dyer’s metaphor adds weight and power to the Shoggoth that is pursuing them; neither Dyer nor Danforth would be able to stop a hurtling train if they stood on the tracks, just as they will be flattened if the Shoggoth catches them. The train and the Shoggoth are large, powerful, and unstoppable.