"The Outsider"

“The Outsider” by H.P. Lovecraft is a first person narrative story that depicts the sad life of a human being who is lost inside his own conscious and does not know anything of a normal life besides his dark surroundings. It does however strongly portray a very gothic style of a short story of a lonely man who hardly recognizes himself throughout his whole life. The narrator takes the role of a very lonely person who knows nothing but of his own life locked away in a dark, eerie, lonesome castle. His memories are quite vague and non-existent as if they had taken place along time ago, when he recalls being taken care of once by someone cared. The poor man has never even seen light outside the castle, nor has he even seen another human being beside himself. The only thing he knows outside of the castle is what he reads in his collection of moldy books, which line the walls of his castle. Yet the man is curious and is full of adventure and courage and wants to see what life is like outside of his lonesome castle. So he does the unthinkable and begins to explore the old staircases of the castle, which are nothing but new to him. After searching and crawling through various openings the man discovers the moon for the very first time. He quotes that "Their came to me the purest ecstasy I have ever known”, for the very first time he had seen the wilderness and the outside of his castle.
In complete awe the lonesome individual sought to explore the outside and what seemed to appear as an intriguing distant castle for it was "maddeningly familiar". As the narrarator left his own comfort zone of his own castle, he began to follow the moon towards the other familiar, yet distant castle. Once their the narrarator crawled through one of the open windows only to be awaited by several other human beings who began to scream in disbelief as if they had just seen a terrifying glimpse of an horrific being. In little disbelief the narrator realizes why he has been kept away in a dark castle his entire life. He feels the truth when he presses his fingertips against "the polished glass" and sees that the scary creature is his reflection is himself. Once “it” realizes that it was kept away for a reason it runs in back to its home to escape the torment. The main character then also understands that he can now ride with the "friendly ghouls", and accept his "new wilderness and freedom" and that he will always be an “outsider” to the rest of the world. That his life will continue be nothing more then it was before, which was unlimited moldy books and decaying castle walls.
In this short story I will use the convention known as point of view. Point of view is the position of the narrator in relation to the story, as indicated by the narrator's outlook from which the events are depicted and by the attitude toward the characters. The position of the narrator throughout the story in relation to it is that he does not know a single thing about himself. Not even at the end of the story does he understand his position when he is staring at his decaying self in the mirror. The narrator felt that by exploring his surroundings outside his comfort zone he might be able to start a new life. Having to stay in the castle for his entire life known is the relation to the character of the story. A being that has been kept away in darkness his entire life and is simply decaying and horrific looking cannot just expect life outside of there home to be welcoming. Therefore it is sad that narrator may never know anything outside the castle besides stories in dark moldy books that align a dark, lonesome castle.