Short Fiction · Chapter
Nyarlathotep explained
The narrator recounts the arrival of Nyarlathotep, a sinister figure from Egypt, during a time of societal and cosmic upheaval.
What happens
The narrator recounts the arrival of Nyarlathotep, a sinister figure from Egypt, during a time of societal and cosmic upheaval. Nyarlathotep's demonstrations of power and strange instruments lead to public fascination and terror, culminating in a nightmarish procession into a void of cosmic horror.
Themes in this chapter
Horror of the Unknown
Nyarlathotep's arrival and the cosmic phenomena he unleashes embody the terror of forces beyond human comprehension.
Madness and Psychological Decay
The narrator and crowds descend into madness, screaming and laughing uncontrollably, as reality unravels around them.
Dreams vs. Reality
The boundary between waking life and nightmare dissolves as the characters are drawn into a surreal, hallucinatory void.
Characters to notice
- Unknown Narrator
The first-person narrator who attends Nyarlathotep's exhibition and experiences the ensuing cosmic descent.
- Nyarlathotep
The central figure, a swarthy, slender, sinister being from Egypt who performs terrifying demonstrations and embodies the crawling chaos.
Key passages
“Nyarlathotep Nyarlathotep … the crawling chaos … I am the last … I will tell the audient void.”
Nyarlathotep, the crawling chaos, declares himself the final voice speaking into an empty universe.
Opening invocation establishing Nyarlathotep's cosmic significance.
“Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger.”
Nyarlathotep arrived in civilized regions, a dark and ominous figure who purchased and assembled bizarre scientific apparatus.
Describes Nyarlathotep's mysterious activities and his unsettling presence.
“And through this revolving graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods—the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep.”
In the cosmic void, the narrator hears maddening drums and flutes from timeless darkness, to which the blind, mindless ultimate gods dance grotesquely, with Nyarlathotep as their soul.
Climactic vision of the universe as a graveyard with Nyarlathotep as the animating force of the outer gods.