To Be Well Versed in the Language of Calamity Kaitlyn Heintzelman

To Be Well-Versed in the Language of Calamity

Kaitlyn Heintzelman

H.P. Lovecraft is not a stranger to the particularly gruesome and horrific. In fact, his

stories thrive in a forbidden, unnatural setting. Not only does he explore a world containing

veiled knowledge, but also hints at the dangers of human curiosity, and above all, the danger of

being a misinformed and weak human being. Despite the severity, Lovecraft manages to mold

these feelings of horror in one phrase: “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”. It is apparent that in his short story

At the Mountains of Madness, Lovecraft uses the phrase “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” for a twofold

reason: it is both a cry of pain of oppression and a manifestation of fear uttered when one comes

into contact with evil incarnate.

Lovecraft borrows the phrase “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” from Edgar Allen Poe’s The

Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. In the novel, Poe first associates the cry with natives dwelling

in Antarctica where “with the strangest expressions of mingled horror, rage, and intense curiosity

depicted on their countenances, and shouting, at the top of their voices, “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”

(Poe 125). Immediately the phrase connotes an air of fear and revulsion. Though it is unclear

whether the phrase comes from the speaker’s native language or merely a name invented for this

unnamed entity, it is evident that this phrase wields power. One does not say it lightly or without

purpose. In other words, one only utters this phrase when encountered with evil. Poe later

connects the phrase to enigmatic white birds: “The darkness had materially increased, relieved

only by the glare of the water thrown back from the white curtain before us. Many gigantic and

pallidly white birds flew continuously now from beyond the veil, and their scream was the

eternal Tekeli-li! as they retreated from our vision” (139). In this sense, the phrase escalates to

the knowledge one has from spending time “beyond the veil,” as in the afterlife. And more than

this, the afterlife is horrific; whatever was seen “beyond the veil” caused the birds to fly away

from it desperately. This is Lovecraft’s starting place with the phrase “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” –it is

a phrase that transcends the physical world and also perhaps contains racial undertones.

Lovecraft’s protagonist, Dyer, thinks of Poe’s novel as he explores the forbidden tunnels

and hears “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li” being uttered (Lovecraft 331). Like Poe, Lovecraft associates the

phrase with whiteness as Dyer and Danforth hear the “sound behind the advancing white mist”

(331) and birds as an “insidious musical piping” (332). It soon becomes evident that the repeated

phrase is coming from shoggoths, “a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train”

(335). Though these shapeless entities are monstrous, Lovecraft makes clear that they are not the

evil implied nor do the shoggoths utter the phrase out of fear because they are in the presence of

evil. Rather, the shoggoths cry “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li” out of imitation for their creator, the Elder

Things. Dyer discovers this truth “at last when [he and Danforth] remembered that the

daemoniac shoggoths –given life, thought, and plastic organ patterns solely by the Elder Things

( or Old Ones), and having no language save that which the dot-groups expressed –had likewise

no voice save the imitated accents of their bygone masters” (335). In one instance, then, the cry

symbolizes a pain that comes from oppression or slavery. Though the shoggoths are now free of

the Elder Things and most likely caused the Elder Things to retreat to the ocean, they still do not

possess consciousness or intelligence. Even free, they still have to rely on their masters because

the only language they know comes from their enslavers. This creates a daunting reality for

anyone enslaved: is there ever really freedom? Furthermore, at the end of the short story when

either the speaker or Danforth cries “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li” one reading could be that the speaker is

now a slave to the ElderThings, and therefore a victim of evil itself.

Though “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li” can express the pain of being enslaved, it also implies even

darker possibilities. It is plausible that fear is manifested in “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li” when one

comes into contactwith evil itself. At the end of the short story Danforth succumbs to madness

from staring at evil through human eyes. Danforth did not see shoggoths from the plane because

he and Dyer had already seen them during the chase (335), therefore, what Danforth did see must

either be another monster or the dwelling place of evil. In this light, the shoggoths could be

attracted to the evil present and cry “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” because they want to be enslaved by

the unknown evil. Atthe same time, the shoggoths could be the creators of the unnamed evil,

thereby being evil incarnate. Regardless, when Danforth in his madness cries “Tekeli-li! Tekeli

li!”(340) he has become one with the horror, not only a victim but also part of the calamity.

Truly, when one comes into contact with evil, the only way to express the fear and the absolute

horror of what one has seen is through “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” When one utters this, it is because

they have seen “beyond the veil,” and that person contains a knowledge forbidden to humanity.

Admittedly, “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” is frustratingly unexplained and one can only guess at

Lovecraft or Poe’s true intention. At the same time, this aspect only adds to the power and horror

of the phrase. Though “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” is used both as a cry of oppression and a

manifestation of evil, it seems evident that this phrase is only used as a manifestation of evil, for

matters of oppression sit under the heading of evil. Perhaps this is unintended by Lovecraft, who

exhibited racist tendencies himself, regardless, “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!” is congruent with all sorts

of evil, which includes matters of fear, oppression and racism. Evil or not, shoggoths were

slaves. They were made to be unthinking and unfeeling, yet the Elder Thing’s scheme did not

take into account the desire for freedom that can be born even in the darkest of places. Shoggoths

release evil out of despair, and if this is true, then perhaps the world, in all its brokenness, is

deserving of the calamities it causes.

Works Cited

Lovecraft, H.P. “At the Mountains of Madness.’ The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories. Ed. S. T. Joshi. New York: Penguin Books, 2001. 246-340. Print.

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Generic NL Freebook Publisher.EBSCOhost,msm.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.as px?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1086012. Accessed 16 Feb. 2019.