Despair lurks in the shadow of every man, and even in the Garden of Eden whose gates were guarded by angelic swords, the serpent could still slither inside. Today, the first world is much like the Garden, and America is perhaps its most prominent representative. Since 1900, life expectancy has steadily increased while the death-rate has plummeted (Tejada Vera B, et al). Homicides have been declining for decades (Cooper, et al), as has poverty (Chaudry, et al). Yet America too has its snakes. Rates of suicide are on the rise (Curtin, et al), and with the tremendous increase in anti-depressant prescriptions (National Center for Health Statistics), one may conclude that not all is well in paradise.

Some of the most prominent authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries concluded thus in their own times, and so too did they prophesize in their writings that the future (our present) was at risk of succumbing to philosophical and psychological (i.e. existential) degradation. One such author, famous for his themes of human-insignificance in an atheistic world, was H.P. Lovecraft. Many of his stories end in tragedy; usually the protagonist goes mad upon discovering some eldritch truth, then is killed or commits suicide. Such ends mark many of his prominent stories (e.g. “Dagon,” “The Rats in the Walls,” “The Call of Cthulhu,” “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” etc.). On occasion, however, Lovecraft did grant his characters triumph over the unimaginable and cosmic horrors they encountered.

One such story goes by the title, “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath,” and is noteworthy for the unusual success of its protagonist and its wealth of psychological symbolism—symbolism that, by all the evidence, emerged from the Jungian Collective Unconscious and the Archetypes therein, causing Lovecraft (likely unconsciously) to map in metaphor the Individuation Process of the protagonist—a modern man and representative of the increasingly nihilistic culture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries exploring the depths of his dream much like the reader explores the novella’s fantastical setting.

These links between the modern world and a century passed; and among existentialism, psychology, narrative, and culture, contain within them the necessary wisdom to contend with the hundred-year wave of waxing nihilism—or at the very least, to not deepen the sea of well-intentioned propaganda.

Among those authors who placed man’s existential and moral doubts at the core of their work are Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Friedrich Nietzsche. All three of these men produced culture shifting tomes, and in these works is the ever-present theme of mankind’s meaning of existence. This theme is evident even if one examines only the fiction of each of these authors

Tolstoy’s War and Peace features several characters whose prominent characteristics are best described by their relationship to that existential question.

Prince Andrew laments to Pierre about how he feels compelled toward a more glorious existence. “‘You talk of Bonaparte and his career,’ said he (though Pierre had not mentioned Bonaparte), ‘but Bonaparte when he worked went step by step towards his goal. He was free, he had nothing but his aim to consider, and he reached it’” (Tolstoy 34).

Here, Tolstoy has outlined Andrew’s regrets by highlighting Napoleon’s successes. Prince Andrew feels “like a chained convict” (Tolstoy 34) in his marriage, and that if he was not married that he too would have found great meaning in his life—suggesting that this character does not view his current existence as fulfilling enough to justify itself.

In the same conversation, Pierre admits to his own sense of meaninglessness. He says to Andrew, “‘But what is there to say about me?’ . . . ‘What am I? An illegitimate son!’ he suddenly blushed crimson, and it was plain that he made a great effort to say this. ‘Without a name and without means’” (Tolstoy 35).

Dostoevsky’s approach is more direct. The characters in his novels often make arguments to one another, or to the reader, and Dostoevsky always ensures that the atheistic and nihilistic claims are made with sufficient articulation.

The hyper-neurotic, nihilistic narrator of Notes from Underground claims with the power of narrative authority, “a novel needs a hero, and here there are purposely collected all the features for an anti-hero, and, in the first place, all this will produce a most unpleasant impression, because we’ve all grown unaccustomed to life . . . We’ve even grown so unaccustomed that at times we feel a sort of loathing for real ‘living life,’ and therefore cannot bear to be reminded of it” (Dostoevsky, Notes 118).

The notes in Notes from Underground are addressed to fictional readers, yet this claim comes across more as Dostoevsky’s charge against the aristocracy and intellectuals of his time. And it is not a sole instance of such charges being made. In Crime and Punishment, the characters frequently debate with one another over the nature of morality—whether it is purely scientific and utilitarian, or whether there is some truth in one’s conscience.

The protagonist, Rodian Raskolnikov, overhears one such conversation between a student and an officer. The student proposes, “Kill her and take her money, so that afterwards with its help you can devote yourself to the service of all mankind and the common cause: what do you think, wouldn’t thousands of lives saved from decay and corruption. One death for hundreds of lives—it’s simple arithmetic!” (Dostoevsky, Crime 65).

The former, progressive, utilitarian, scientific view is shared by many of the characters throughout the novel. The protagonist believes as much during the first act, as does his sister’s suitor, a man by the name of Pyotr Luzhin. He espouses these ideas to Rodian and company while Rodian is guilt stricken to his sofa. “‘But science says: Love yourself before all, because everything in the world is based on self-interest. . . . It follows that by acquiring solely and exclusively for myself, I am thereby precisely acquiring for everyone’” (Dostoevsky, Crime 149).

Throughout the novel, Dostoevsky demonstrates the results of believing that one can derive values from mere facts and statistics via Rodian discovery of just what effect acting on said beliefs has on his person. He even says as much in his dialogue with Pyotr. “‘Get to the consequences of what you’ve just been preaching, and it will turn out that one can go around putting a knife in people’” (Dostoevsky, Crime 151).

What Dostoevsky is describing here is a mistake made due to the rising primacy of scientific thought. Through his fiction, he forewarns of the consequences of dissecting the world in an attempt to find morality. He predicts that such an attempt will result in the searcher finding nothing but that which justifies his own bitterness, resentment, and sense of vengeance. “THE LAST MAN,” Zarathustra names this kind of searcher in Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Nietzsche 34-36).

While not as direct in its forewarnings as Dostoevsky’s works, Nietzsche’s magnum opus reads like a prophesy for the modern existential crises—though the messages were reflective of Nietzsche’s time as well.

In the book, Nietzsche, via Zarathustra, describes a variety of peoples who succumb or enslave themselves to the inevitable suffering of existence. In the chapter, “The Preachers of Death,” he claims, “They meet an invalid, or an old man, or a corpse—and immediately they say: ‘Life is refuted!” (Nietzsche 71).

In “The Soothsayer,” Zarathustra overhears a soothsayer speaking.

—And I saw a great sadness come over mankind. The best turned weary of their works.
A doctrine appeared, a faith ran beside it: ‘All is empty, all is alike, all hath been!’
And from the hills there re-echoed: ‘All is empty, all is alike, all hath been!’
To be sure we have harvested: but why have all our fruits become rotten and brown? What was it fell last night from the evil moon?
In vain was all our labour, poison hath our wine become. (Nietzsche 197)

“Life is refuted.” “All is empty.” These sentiments of hopelessness and of helplessness—of meaninglessness and surrender—are Zarathustra’s observations of much of the population. Taking Zarathustra as an analogue for Nietzsche himself, these commentaries and confessions of the fictional population of Thus Spoke Zarathustra would then apply to the people of Nietzsche’s time—and perhaps even to the people living in the twentieth century.

Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche were three authors simultaneously of and ahead of their time. They were modern prophets, and their works highlight the plight of their—our—era: mankind’s meaning in an increasingly apathetic and material world. Each man set his fiction in the heart of human banality, in the depths of questioning the purpose of existence. Their true antagonist was surrender to the tragedy of existence—the cry of the nihilist—the call of despair which they deemed prevalent enough to warrant writing a literary defense.

A working comprehension of Carl Jung’s psychological archetypes, as well as their relationship to existentialism and narrative, are necessary to consciously understand the symbolism present in “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.” To properly understand Jung’s archetypes, however, one must define what Jung called the Collective Unconscious.

In his essay, “The Concept of the Collective Unconscious,” Jung describes it thusly.

The collective unconscious is a part of the psyche which can be negatively distinguished from a personal unconscious by the fact that it does not, like the latter, owe its existence to personal experience and consequently is not a personal acquisition. While the personal unconscious is made up essentially of contents which have at one time been conscious but which have disappeared from consciousness through having been forgotten or repressed, the contents of the collective unconscious have never been in consciousness, and therefore have never been individually acquired, but owe their existence exclusively to heredity (Jung 42).

Put in plain language, the collective unconscious is the sum-total of heritable, instinctual categories. These categories are rooted in human biology, and their expression in dreams and in fantasy are what Jung refers to as archetypes.

So too must archetypes be defined. They are “primordial types, that is, with universal images that have existed since the remotest times” (Jung 5). Jung also describes these types being expressed in myth and fairytale, though he takes care to note that their manifestation in consciousness via dreams or hallucinations subjects them to personal psychic contents, while the archetypes passed down in myth and folklore are symbolized more consistently across peoples and cultures (Jung 5).

In particular relevance to “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” are the child, mother, old wise man, and trickster archetypes, for they all play key roles in Individuation, “the maturation process of personality induced by the analysis of the unconscious” (Jung 159).

Central to Individuation is the child archetype. The child functions to correct the one-sidedness of the conscious mind (Jung 162), to “pave the way for a future change of personality,” and it “a symbol which unites opposites [conscious and unconscious]; a mediator, bringer of healing, that is, one who makes whole” (Jung 164). The child is the being which matures toward independence, and it accomplishes this through voluntary separation from the mother archetype—the psychological symbol of familiarity and protection—and subsequent exploration of nature and/or the unknown. Said separation is spurred by a conflict which is unresolvable by current conscious means, which is why the child must abandon the infantilizing safety of the mother so that he can enter the unknown and retrieve or receive the wisdom necessary for the heroic transformation necessary to resolve the previously unresolvable conflict (Jung 167-169).

The mother, old-wise man, and tricksters all play their parts in this process as well. The loving, nurturing, creative aspects of the mother become split from the child, but he is then subject to the mother’s unknown, harsh, and destructive aspects, often in the form of nature (Jung 168). This separation is brought about by the trickster and old wise man. “In his [the trickster’s] clearest manifestations he is a faithful reflection of an absolutely undifferentiated human consciousness” (Jung 260). The trickster is “the ‘simpleton’ who is ‘fooled’ and ‘cheated,’” who undergoes self-imposed sufferings, and who gradually humanizes to become a saviour (Jung 256).

In relation to individuation, the trickster represents the state of pre-consciousness in which the yet-hero begins—a state unable to conquer or explore the unknown, and likely to accidentally bring about the unresolvable conflict via carelessness or being gulled by the old wise man.

The old wise man archetype is a figure who, “always appears when the hero is in a hopeless and desperate situation from which only profound reflection or a lucky idea . . . can extricate him” (Jung 217-218). “In certain forms [seeming] to be good incarnate and in others an aspect of evil” (Jung 227). Whether good or bad, the old wise man’s purpose is to compensate for a state of spiritual deficiency (Jung 216) so that the child may become the hero capable of resolving the unresolvable conflict.

To sum the ideas presented here, Jungian psychology posits that humans share an inherited set of instinctual categories that operate at the level of the unconscious. This is the Collective Unconscious. The categories and figures themselves are archetypes, and they manifest in dreams and in fantasy (e.g. folklore and narrative). Unresolvable psychic conflicts require an individual to go through a therapeutic process called Individuation in which the archetypes must be analyzed as a symbolic guide for the individual to become conscious of the wisdom (i.e. instinctual yet unconscious knowledge) to become capable of overcoming the previously unresolvable conflict.

Whether consciously or otherwise, H.P. Lovecraft devised his dream-inspired novella to contain numerous expressions of Jungian archetypes. Moreover, these expressions conspire together to make a series of character-developing cycles as the tale’s protagonist, Randolph Carter, serves as a model for one engaged in the Individuation Process. Four cycles shall be examined here: The initiation of Carter’s quest and his encounter with the Moon beasts, Carter’s descent into and escape from the Underworld, his voluntary return to and new mastery over the underworld, and finally his arrival at Unknown Kadath.

Three times Randolph Carter dreamed of the marvellous city, and three times was snatched away while still he paused on the high terrace above it. . . . He knew that for him its meaning must once have been supreme; though in what cycle or incarnation he had known it, or whether in dream or in waking, he could not tell. . . . he prayed long and earnestly to the hidden gods of dream . . . But the gods made no answer. (Lovecraft 439-440)

From the very start, Lovecraft embedded his tale with the symbolic unconscious. “Dream-Quest” opens in the midst of the first individuation cycle, Randolph Carter being in a child-state, is unable to reach the marvellous, sunset city. Equally, he cannot successfully contact the gods whom he supposes showed him the city in the first place. After all, it is suggested (and later made explicit) that the gods were the ones who “snatched” the vision away. This begs the question as to why. The answer lies further into the narrative, but a Jungian perspective offers a prediction—that the very gods who revealed this irresistible city to Carter and subsequently stole it from him are manifestations of the trickster archetype.

Two antagonistic figures together fulfill the trickster role. They are the mindless, gibbering, daemon-sultan Azathoth and his nefarious messenger, the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep. The former eldritch deity is described as “that last amorphous blight of nethermost confusion” (Lovecraft 440) and “blind, voiceless, tenebrous, and mindless” (Lovecraft 449). This description fits perfectly with the key traits of the trickster, who Jung defines as “a primitive ‘cosmic’ being of divine-animal nature, on the one hand superior to man because of his superhuman qualities, and on the other hand inferior to him because of his unreason and unconscious” (Jung 264). The latter deity, Nyarlathotep, takes on the remaining traits—specifically the trickster’s proclivity for playing malicious pranks (Jung 256).

Evidence that these beings were responsible for Carter’s dream-vision comes in two forms, narrative and symbolic. Nyarlathotep reveals his role in dialogue with Carter (Lovecraft 519), though even if Lovecraft had not been so explicit, the dream-visions themselves suggest trickster involvement. Carter has three dream-visions of the sunset city—dream-visions, meaning they occurred in a state of unconsciousness—and in Jungian psychology, unconscious trinities are symbols associated with the “shadow” (Jung 244), a complex archetype which encompasses the behavioral manifestations of one “possessed,” by the trickster (262).

Alone, these associations could be considered mere coincidence, yet they are not alone. The narrative continues to fulfill the Individuation Cycle as previously outlined, that is, with archetypal figures of the old wise man. Lovecraft included an abundance of symbols in this regard. Considering just the first cycle, there are three encounters: Carter’s negotiation with the zoogs, his audience with Patriarch Atal, and his run-in with the ruby merchant.

In “Dream-Quest,” zoogs are small faerie-like creatures, whom Carter encounters early in his travels. He seeks counsel with them, and from their eldest learns that the knowledge he seeks might lie within the city of Ulthar (Lovecraft 442). These creatures fit with the motif of the old wise man as a gnomic creature (e.g. hobgoblins, brownies, gremlins, etc.) (Jung 223), and so to do they act as providers of wisdom. Their advice leads Carter to Ulthar, the city of cats, where he gleans further wisdom and forewarning from the three-hundred-year-old sage, Atal (Lovecraft 443-446). This manifestation of the old wise man bestows Carter with a piece of archetypal wisdom which reoccurs through all four cycles, that being the “ascending of the world-tree,” a metaphor for moving from a state of unconsciousness to consciousness, then subsequently using the newly heightened conscious state to delve into the unknown, unintegrated aspects of the unconscious psyche (Jung 239). Within Lovecraft’s narrative, this comes in the form of Atal directing Carter to seek the stone faces carved into the peaks of Ngranek (Lovecraft 445).

These first two figures represent positive manifestations of the old wise man. They each bear traits typical of the archetype in mythology and folklore, and each act in accordance with the roles defined in Jung’s work. What is yet missing is the negative, nefarious side of the old wise man. This aspect of the archetype comes later in the form of a mysterious, sardonic ruby merchant who offers Carter secret wisdom. Unlike the protagonist’s previous two encounters, this results in his kidnapping and trafficking to the dark side of the moon (Lovecraft 448-452).

It is this juncture within the first Individuation cycle when the mother archetype becomes apparent, and it is also the establishing of a repeated duality of the negative and positive feminine in association with the “ascent and descent of the world-tree.” In this case, the negative mother archetype is expressed heavily by the setting, namely the moon (Jung 81) and the denizens there which Lovecraft calls the “moon beasts”. Carter is then rescued by positive mother-symbols, namely an army of cats (Jung 184) to whom he had previously made an offering in the form of a saucer of cream while in Ulthar (Lovecraft 454).

In psychological terms, Lovecraft wrote a metaphor for the raising of consciousness resulting in descent, the exploration of the unknown—the negative mother—further resulting in the integration of the positive mother archetype by means of symbolic sacrifice. This first cycle leaves the protagonist farther along the path of Individuation. He has gained a piece of the necessary wisdom to achieve his goals despite discouragement and a close encounter with the moon beasts who would have delivered him to Nyarlathotep (whom would have thrust him into the jaws of Azathoth).

With a complete cycle apparent, the links among existentialism, nihilism, archetypes, and Lovecraft’s work can at last be seen clearly. For Lovecraft, reality and his fictional universe share the air of human insignificance. His protagonist, Carter, is likely to fail in his quest, just as people often fail to achieve their dreams in reality; and Carter’s obstacles are not different from those of real life. He does not know where to begin to look for his sunset city, nor for Kadath to petition the gods; he is told to give up his quest by all the wise men around him; and he is under constant threat by the malicious and random elements of the universe. As in Lovecraft’s dream-world, so too is humanity under such pressures, which is why, according to Jungian psychology, the Individuation Cycle manifests in myth, narrative, and folklore. It is an instinctive guide to becoming capable of overcoming the seemingly insurmountable obstacles, sufferings, and unachieved desires intrinsic to existence as a conscious being; and as proceeding cycles unfurl, such shall be made evident.

The following Individuation Cycle follows the pattern of the first, with an “ascent up the world-tree” and a subsequent descent into the depths. In this case, it is Carter’s climb on the treacherous mountain Ngranek in search of the carved face of the race descended from the gods. “And when he saw that crag he gasped and cried out loud, and clutched at the jagged rock in awe; for the titan bulge had not stayed as earth’s dawn had shaped it, but gleamed red and stupendous in the sunset with the carved and polished features of a god” (Lovecraft 462).

Carter is stunned—a revelation resulting in a higher state of consciousness which precipitates a dizzying plunge into some darker, mysterious state of being and an encounter with the negative feminine—and as the cycle predicts, his fall is imminent.

Suddenly, without a warning sound in the dark, Carter felt his curved scimitar drawn stealthily out of his belt by some unseen hand. Then he heard it clatter down over the rocks below. And between him and the Milky Way he thought he saw a very terrible outline of something noxiously thin and horned and tailed and bat-winged. . . . Then a sort of cold rubbery arm seized his neck and something else seized his feet, and he was lifted inconsiderately up and swung about in space. Another minute and the stars were gone, and Carter knew that the night-gaunts had got him. (Lovecraft 463)

This is Carter’s descent into the Veil of Pnath. Unlike his previous “descent,” however, he is overdue to have an encounter with the old wise man. This hole in the cycle is quickly remedied by more goblinoid manifestations of the wise man archetype in the form of Lovecraftian ghouls. “he knew well their canine faces and slumping forms and unmentionable idiosyncrasies. . . . the ghoul that was Pickman advised Carter either to leave the abyss at Sarkomand, . . . or return through a churchyard in the to the waking world and begin the quest anew” (Lovecraft 466-467).

Here, the old wise man is expressed in a different form than before. Rather giving sage advice, the ghoul who was Pickman lays out a false dichotomy before Carter, “for he knew nothing of the way from Leng [where Sarkomand lay in the valley below] to Ooth-Nargai, and was likewise reluctant to awake lest he forget the august and celestial faces of those seaman from the north who . . . must point the way to the cold waste of Kadath where the Great Ones dwell” (Lovecraft 467).

The two options presented are essentially: go into the dangerous unknown without proper guidance, or give up on your quest and forget all the wisdom and development gained thus far. This is a manifestation of the wise old man’s moral testing in which he presents only the wrong solutions, leaving the child-hero to choose that which is correct (Jung 225). And this Carter does, choosing instead to negotiate with the ghouls an escort through the hazardous Vaults of Zin where the nightmarish gugs lurk as the symbolic negative feminine (Lovecraft 467).

Of the feminine symbols express in “Dream-Quest,” gugs are perhaps the most intuitive. Furry, black paws and jutting, pink eyes aside, gugs are described as having barrel sized heads, and, “the head was chiefly terrible because of the mouth. That mouth had great yellow fangs and ran from the top to the bottom of the head, opening vertically instead of horizontally” (Lovecraft 469).

With the help of the ghouls, Carter manages to escape the gugs and the Vaults of Zin, and once again finds himself in the enchanted wood where his journey began. Carter’s protection from the wrath of the negative feminine follows the archetypal pattern mapped out by Modern psychologist Dr. Jordan B Peterson whose work, Maps of Meaning, expands upon Jungian archetypal psychology. Because Lovecraft wrote that his protagonist made the choice to weather the danger of the gugs—especially after being presented two alternative options—it is only fitting that Carter’s voluntary exploration of the unknown resulted in him escaping the depths and jaws of the Great and Terrible Mother (Peterson 170).

But the cycle has yet to be completed. As before, there should appear within the narrative the expression of the positive feminine. There is. Again, it comes in the form of the cats of Ulthar; and again, the child-hero must make some form of sacrifice (such as a saucer of cream for the kitten) in order for the positive aspects of the mother archetype to manifest (Peterson 171-172). In this cycle, Carter’s “sacrifice” comes in the form of a service, namely informing on the zoogs plot to seek vengeance on the cats This service to the cats of Ulthar earns Carter the passwords he later needs to further his quest (Lovecraft 473-474).

This concludes the second Individuation Cycle, and as in the first, all the components are present. The child-hero in the form of Carter ascends to higher consciousness and is immediately brought down to the abyss, this time literally. He encounters representations of the old wise man who evoke in him the morale courage and wisdom necessary to explore the unknown. Then he, through some form of sacrifice, receives the blessing of some positive feminine figure which enables him to continue his journey with more insight than he started with.

A noteworthy aspect of this cycle is the voluntary exploration taking place in the second half. While the night-gaunts take Carter by force, it is his idea and his decision to traverse the Vaults of Zin where the dangerous gugs reside. This transition from involuntary to voluntary exposure to danger—rather than merely giving up and returning to the waking world, or rushing heedlessly into the Leng and Sarkomand—marks a development in Carter’s character, and is the exact manifestation of the divine, revolutionary hero described by Peterson as an elaboration to Jung’s child-hero (Peterson 180).

Carter’s development here is a guide to overcoming existential despair, more realized than the previous cycle, albeit yet complete. These symbols have the potential to encourage readers to mimic the protagonist’s development, to voluntarily face the frightening and painful unknown with the assistance of the wisdom and traditions of the past as to not be overwhelmed. What is more, these symbols likewise suggest that a reward awaits those brave enough to follow in the heroes’ footsteps. And that reward is meaning, so long as a sacrifice is willing to be made. Thus far into the story, however, such a reward has not yet been attained.

The order of appearance of the archetypes changes in the third Individuation Cycle. Rather than the “ascent up the world tree” which initiates the other cycles, this one begins with Carter seeking out helpful wisdom—first from the cats, the symbol of the positive feminine, then from the old wise man expressed through King Kuranes. And it is during these interactions that Carter’s progress begins to become visible to the reader.

He speaks with Celephaïs’ chief cat. “That gray and dignified being was sunning himself on the onyx pavement . . . But when Carter repeated the passwords . . . the furry patriarch became very cordial and communicative. . . . Best of all, he repeated several things told him furtively by the timid waterfront cats of Celephaïs” (Lovecraft 479).

These “things repeated” are mentions of the dark ships of the men of Inganok, and more importantly, that no cats will sail on them; for “Inganok holds shadows which no cat can endure, so that in all the cold twilight realm there is never a cheering purr or a homely mew” (Lovecraft 479-480).

As outlined earlier, this is the foreshadowing of the development of the child archetype from a being dependent on the mother to the hero capable of rescuing the maiden from the depths of the shadow. Likewise, when Carter goes to King Kuranes, an old dreamer “versed in wonders of incredible places” and who “had been out beyond the stars of ultimate void, and was said to be the only one who had ever returned sane from such a voyage,” he receives no new wisdom at all (Lovecraft 481). Kuranes words only act to discourage Carter from pursuing his quest. This is notably different from the other expressions of the old wise man. Though they too bade warnings, the others at least offered some sort of clue or insight. Yet here, the only wisdom the monarch has to offer is already integrated into Carter’s character. The child is prepared to become the hero.

Only after this subtle reveal of the protagonist’s development does Lovecraft move the narrative to the “ascent up the world-tree.” It comes in the form of Carter’s exploration of the deserts and quarries of the land of Ooth-Nargai, north of Inganok, the city of the god-kin. “After two more quarries the inhabited part of Inganok seemed to end, and the road narrowed to a steeply rising yak-path among forbidding black cliffs. Always on the right towered the gaunt and distant peaks, and as Carter climbed farther and farther into the untraversed realm he found it grew darker and colder” (Lovecraft 489).

As the path rises in elevation—as Carter rises in consciousness—the world becomes darker. Horrific sights, unseen by most mortal eyes, begin to reveal themselves: the great onyx quarry hewn by the gods (Lovecraft 490) and the guardian statues large as mountains and carved in the shape of hideous shantak-birds (Lovecraft 491). These terrible images are symbols of rejected individual traits hidden within the shadow—the personal unconscious which “personifies everything that the subject refuses to acknowledge about himself and yet is always thrusting itself upon him directly or indirectly” (Jung 284-285)—made apparent by an elevated consciousness.

As before, the ascent must be followed by a descent, but Carter has yet to reach the peak. Upon being captured by the familiar sardonic ruby merchant, he is made to mount a shantak-bird and is escorted even higher and farther where the plateau of Leng and its many awful secrets are revealed to him. Then the height of Carter’s consciousness raising comes as he is led inside a remote, prehistoric monastery where awaits the mysterious “high-priest not to be described” (Lovecraft 496).

This situation is unique from the rest of the crisis encounters with the negative feminine (the high-priest is revealed to be a moon beast) so far in that it occurs entirely within the symbolic ascent. Though the protagonist was captured, he was involuntarily raised up rather than being dragged down as before. This changes the nature of the proceeding descent. Carter now has a choice: succumb to his horrific revelations, or voluntarily wade into their terrifying depths, alone. As foreshadowed, Carter proves heroic enough to choose the latter, and Lovecraft describes this explicitly.

“And in that hideous second stark fear drove him to something his reason would never have dared to attempt, for in all his shaken consciousness there was room only for one frantic will to escape from what squatted on that golden throne” (Lovecraft 496).

Carter delves literally into a labyrinth of utter darkness, venturing deeper into the unknown until finally he discovers himself at the gates of Sarkomand. The symbolism here is rife. The entrance to the primordial city is set between two gigantic, winged lion statues said to be the guardians of the Great Abyss (Lovecraft 497). These are both feminine symbols, and that Carter alone could overcome them in their negative forms, representations of the unknown, further demonstrates his development into the exploratory hero figure. Yet this is all just the descent, the half-way point of this Individuation Cycle. For Carter has yet another archetypal quest to fulfill: rescuing his father from the underworld (Peterson 179).

This new addition to the cycle, possible only once the protagonist manifests his hero archetypal properties, symbolizes the revivification of old wisdom or traditions that have become obsolete. In “Dream-Quest,” this takes to form of Carter rescuing a group of ghouls (the very same ghouls that had once escort him through the Vaults of Zin) from a band of moon beasts and their sardonic slaves.

Again, Lovecraft shows the readers how far Carter has developed. Unable to face the dangers directly, Carter ventures back into caverns about Sarkomand to call upon the service of the ghouls and even the night-gaunts over which he now possesses mastery. “It occurred to him that the portal, like other gates to the abyss, might be guarded by flocks of night-gaunts; but he did not fear these faceless creatures now. He had learned that they are bound by solemn treaties with the ghouls, and the ghoul which was Pickman had taught how to glibber a password they understood” (Lovecraft 499).

Carter has gone from a character requiring rescue, to one who rescues. He has fully made the archetypal transformation from child to hero and is nearly ready to face the crawling chaos. He must first, though, make the proper sacrifice for the positive feminine to manifest itself. This is expressed by an otherwise strange diversion in the story. It is here that Lovecraft devotes several pages to the battle of the ghouls and night-gaunts against the remaining moon beasts residing on the jagged isle. (Lovecraft 503-508). From a purely narrative perspective, the battle could be removed and none of the plot would be lost, yet for the Individuation Cycle, this scene is entirely necessary. Carter leading the ghouls to victory over their new enemies is his service—his sacrifice—which earns him the manifestation of the positive feminine.

The positive feminine expression comes in the form of a flock of night-gaunts. While not symbolic of mother archetype themselves, it is revealed in the story that the night-gaunts are servants of the god of the underworld. “He spoke, too, of the things he had learnt concerning night-gaunts from the frescoes in the windowless monastery of the high-priest not to be described; how even the Great Ones feat them, and how their ruler is not the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep at all, but hoary and immemorial Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss” (Lovecraft 509).

Despite being described as male, this Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss is a feminine symbol within Jungian psychology, given his associations with the abyss and the underworld (Jung 82). By proxy, the night-gaunts, his thralls, inherit his symbolism. They must, for what other purpose might the mention of Nodens serve? He does not appear or take action within the entirety of “Dream-Quest,” and like the battle of ghouls and moon beasts, could be cut from the story without harming the plot. This leaves only his archetypal purpose, to connect night-gaunts with mother archetypal symbolism to complete the third Individuation Cycle.

Before moving on to the fourth and final cycle, it is beneficial to review the sum of progress as well as how each cycle relates to existentialism. The first cycle can be described as the awakening of the individual to the suffering inherent to existence. Carter is possessed by his desire for the sunset city, a place which his dangled out of his reach by the gods. He was in the psychological state relating to the trickster archetype, that being preconsciousness, and is manifesting the child archetype as a psychological preparation for a great change. Immediately, Carter is confronted by doubters, yet with the help of wise men he manages to confront the negative or evil expression of the mother archetype—a Jungian mother-complex (Jung 85-87)—a complex Lovecraft perhaps possessed himself, though such speculation lies outside the bounds of this essay. By means of sacrifice to the symbolic feminine, Carter overcomes the terrible mother and integrates her positive aspects—a previously unconscious organ of his psyche. Thus, his character shifts closer to one able to realize his desires.

The second cycle takes the form of a moral test. Carter is both literally and figuratively flung into the abyss. His only help, the ghoulish expression of the old wise man, presents him with a false dichotomy: wake up and forget all that he’d learned or trek through fully unknown territory without the proper wisdom to navigate through the abyss. The former option is an analogue for attempting to return to a state of preconsciousness, like what an individual might do with entertainment, alcohol, and other recreations and substances (i.e. hedonism and nihilism). The latter option represents the temptation of the shadow, to take the path of least resistance in an attempt to avoid making the proper sacrifices (which Carter could not have made lest he escaped through the Vaults of Zin and into the Enchanted Wood of the zoogs) (Jung 240-241). Carter chooses neither of these options and instead voluntarily faces the looming threat of the gugs. With guidance in the form of the ghoul escort, his choice proves correct, and it sets him on the path to fulfill the rest of the second cycle and the subsequent cycles to come.

The third Individuation Cycle carries over from the second. Particularly, it expands upon Carter’s newfound character growth and ability to face the unknown. Like his choice to risk the gugs, Carter rushes headlong into the pitch-black caverns of the monastery of the priest not to be described. Yet unlike his adventure through the Vaults of Zin, Carter can rely only on the wisdom he has gained thus far in the narrative; but because of his willing exposure during the previous cycle, his child archetype has grown enough not only to save himself, but his previous saviours as well. Moreover, he now boasts command over the beings previously symbolizing the unknown and negative feminine—namely the night-gaunts (Jung 167). This cycle is the cumulative effect of Individuation. Voluntary analysis of the hidden (e.g. unconscious) elements of the psyche allow for the integration of previously unutilized aspects of the self. By integrating these aspects, the dependent child transforms into the hero.

All that remains is the end cycle—the final confrontation between the malicious trickster figure Nyarlathotep, he who approximates and precedes the saviour, and Randolph Carter. Flying with a host of night-gaunts and ghouls at his back, Carter makes one last “ascent up the world tree,” soaring to the peak of an unimaginably high mountain where the city of the gods, unknown Kadath, awaits. There, he finds the onyx castle vacant of the gods he had so hoped to petition, but the great halls prove not vacant. Nyarlathotep, the crawling chaos, stands ready to receive Carter (Lovecraft 512-518).

He speaks well of Carter’s efforts, and of that sunset city which lies outside of his grasp.

‘They [the gods] are gone from their castle on unknown Kadath to dwell in your marvellous city. . . . O wise arch-dreamer, for you have drawn dream’s gods away from the world of all men’s visions to that which is wholly yours; . . . So, Randolph Carter, in the name of the Other Gods I spare you and charge you to serve my will. I charge you to seek that sunset city which is yours, and to send thence the drowsy truant gods for whom the dream-world waits’ (Lovecraft 518-519).

Nyarlathotep then gives Carter a shantak-bird to ride and delivers detailed instructions that he may find the city. “Steer for it only till you hear a far-off singing in the high-aether. Higher than that lurks madness, so rein your shantak when the first note lures” (Lovecraft 521). This is, of course, a trap. The crawling chaos is the trickster, after all, and it is his function to bring about the challenge necessary for spiritual growth. And that is exactly what occurs.

Carter, flying on his gifted shantak, follows the directions till he hears the demonic flutes—the same flutes used to keep aslumber the primary, preconscious trickster figure, Azathoth. It is then, as Carter is being helplessly flown toward the mass of gibbering madness, that he comes to realize—remember—that his sunset city is a memory stowed inside him the entire time. He then abandons the shantak, falling away into the abyss and waking in his bed within the sunset city he had been seeking the entire time (Lovecraft 522-525).

This final cycle is utterly different than the others. In fact, “cycle” is not as accurate as “climax” or “completion.” While the ascent occurs as it does in the other nodes of Individuation, as does the descent into abyssal space upon abandoning the shantak, there is no archetype of the old wise man and no negative-positive feminine transformation. Instead, the archetypes present are the child-hero, the trickster, and the mother (albeit in an abstracted form). The first two archetypes, hero and trickster, are self-evident within the text. The mother, however, will require some explanation.

Throughout each Individuation cycle thus far, the center of character transformation has occurred in regard to the feminine archetypes (Other complexes are possible. This just so happened to be the complex Lovecraft expressed in “Dream-Quest”). By the final juncture, the archetype has become integrated enough that the child has become the hero. He is no longer dependent on the mother for support, nor for the old wise man for guidance. In fact, he discovers that the support and guidance he was receiving were present in himself the entire time. This is apparent when examining the more abstract expressions of the mother archetype. “Other symbols of the mother in a figurative sense appear in things representing the goal of our longing for redemption, such as Paradise, the Kingdom of God, the Heavenly Jerusalem” (Jung 81).

If literature is indeed more than mere fiction, and if the stories of the great authors of the last two centuries are truly more than just fantasy, what can be gleaned through exploring those works? What can be learned? This analysis has found a profound awareness of an internal struggle transcribed in narrative form by writers of recent history: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche—and even the more modern author, H.P. Lovecraft. The struggle is an eternal one concerning the fears and tragedies inherent to existence; it is a question and a challenge. “Is there some deeper meaning in the lives of individuals which can enable them to overcome the cruelty of an apathetic universe? Or is there truth in the claims of nihilism that existence is ultimately just purposeless pleasure and suffering?”

In Lovecraft’s “Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” an answer is given in the form of psychological symbols—archetypes described by Carl Jung—and their answer is one of transformative guidance, of Individuation, of self-transformation into a being capable of overcoming the insurmountable and creating meaning where there was previously naught but meaninglessness and tragedy. This creation of meaning is perhaps the purpose of literature. After all, does not an author assemble his narrative from sounds and symbols which, only when strung together, manifest into something greater than their parts? If this conjecture is true, that writers really are makers of meaning, then surely understanding the inherited symbols that reside in the human psyche could unearth the human potential latent in those authors—and perhaps, too, in the readers of their works. Something in Lovecraft must have believed this to be true. How else could Randolph Carter overcome the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep and the daemon-sultan Azathoth?

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