The Colour Out of Space

Lovecraft relies heavily on imagery and language in the first paragraphs of the story. Some readers who prefer more action have criticized the opening pages as slow and overly wordy. However, Lovecraft takes this opportunity to let the reader experience the blasted heath in detail. He uses setting to establish a sense of loneliness and isolation, leading the reader from an overview of the unoccupied forested hills deeper into the close darkness of the valleys. The sense of isolation in the back country of New England mirrors the loneliness and isolation of humankind in a universe utterly indifferent to them.

Lovecraft loved science, particularly the more unusual branches. The behavior of the scientists in the story may reflect Lovecraft’s reading of the work of Charles Fort, who maintained that mainstream scientists had an unreasonable prejudice against unconventional knowledge. When the scientists in the story are confronted with something outside their experience, they apply labels—most of which mean, “we don’t know”—and take no more interest. They might have learned more about the aftereffects of the meteorite if they had been interested in knowledge outside of their conventional understanding. Their abdication leaves Nahum more isolated than ever.

Lovecraft might also have been influenced by stories of the Radium Girls, young women working in watch-making factories where they painted watch faces with radium. The workers ingested toxic amounts of radioactive paint. Doctors and scientists who observed the effects were paid to suppress the connection between the women’s symptoms and their work at the factories—much in the way that that Lovecraft’s scientists refused to engage further with the effects of the meteorite.

The gruesome description of the deaths on Nahum’s farm, particularly of Nahum’s wife, resemble descriptions of the deaths of the factory women. The mutation of plants and animals also suggests the influence of radiation, as does the idea of a frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum that human eyes are not able to see—infrared, ultraviolet or x-rays. Another possible inspiration is the discovery of plasma, or charged gas, which gives off luminescence—like Saint Elmo’s fire or the northern lights. Most likely, Lovecraft absorbed ideas from a wide range of sources and incorporated them into his alien entity.

The entity in the well appears not just to emit radiation but to also feed on organic matter around it, drawing life-energy out and influencing people’s thoughts. It drains Nahum’s will, preventing him from fleeing or sending his wife away when she goes “mad.” It may even have lured the two younger sons Merwyn and Zenas into the well.

Lovecraft was contemptuous of science fiction writers whose aliens were essentially human beings in alien suits. He felt that in an infinite multitude of infinite universes, one would expect to encounter life and physical laws utterly beyond human imagination. The difficulty for a writer is that imagination relies on memory, and Lovecraft had to rely on earthly parallels to create a lifecycle for his alien. The meteorite behaves like an egg case designed to protect the glassy egg-bubbles until they find a world with sufficient life energy.

The case-like meteorite begins to shrink and ultimately hatches by drawing lightning that dissipates it. It releases a gaseous radiation—the “larvae”—which feed on the surrounding life energy. When the radiation matures, it launches back into space where it will lay more poison and enclose it in a cocoon. The small piece of the light that was unable to launch itself most likely came from the bubble the scientists so casually broke. It may have been damaged like a chick whose shell is cracked prematurely. We are left with the ominous implication that the remaining entity continues to grow, poisoning everything around it.

Doom was brought on by the careless arrogance of humans. The alien infestation was apparently self-limiting. Had the scientists treated the meteorite with more respect, the larval entity in the first bubble would have completed its lifecycle and departed. Instead, it now remains to infect the earth. Perhaps it will eventually grow strong enough to leave, but it might just as easily have been permanently injured and is now doomed to remain on Earth as much as we are doomed to live with it—if we can.