"The Lonesome Place" Cultural Context

The story, “The Lonesome Place” by August Derleth, is told from the point of view of the narrator, Steve, and his best friend, Johnny Newell, who are both around the age of seven. They are both scared of this dark place and absolutely terrified of this thing that they believe lurks in the darkness of the grain elevator, “the lonesome place”, that’s nearby their community. Steve’s mother always sends him to town to do errands which means passing the place in the dark on his way home. To the narrator “the lonesome place” seems harmless when he passes it at dusk, but when the sun goes down is when he fears whatever’s inside the most. Johnny and Steve always tell their own stories of when they have to run past the lumber yard and grain elevator because of the scary creature they believe lives there and they conjure up their own idea of what the creature looks like. They say it has scales, and a long tail like a dragon’s, breathed hot as fire, but had no face or mouth in it, just an opening in its throat, and it was as big as an elephant, and has clawed feet like a soft-shelled turtle. They also say that the creature waits to prey on fearful children. After Steve and Johnny grew up and became less fearful of “the lonesome place”, a young boy, Bobby Jeffers, is killed there. It appeared that he had been mauled by some kind of animal, but Steve and Johnny feel responsible because they believe that it was the monster they created out of their fears when they were children. “You were never afraid of it by day, but by night it was a different place; for then it was lonesome, away from sight or sound, a place of darkness and strangeness, a place of terror for little boys haunted by a thousand fears (193).”

I think this story has a lot to do with the fear of being alone. On page 192 Steve says that he and Johnny were never afraid to go past “the lonesome place” together, but they weren’t together often. Steve went that way a lot of the time because it was the quickest way to town when his mom made him go. He goes on to say that you could hear kids playing in the time they had left to be outside and that made him feel not alone somehow. The narrator could “go down into that dark place under the trees” and he wouldn’t think of being lonesome because there was a notable presence of other people around. When he comes back from town, the sun is completely set and even though the streetlights are on, the light doesn’t reach “the lonesome place” near the elevator; it is “half a block long, black as black could be, dark as the deepest night”. When Steve is alone is when his imagination runs wild, so wild, that he believes there’s some kind of monster that he has to run from until he reaches his home; he was creating something out of his own fear and when you’re alone, especially for a young boy who’s only seven, there’s no one there to tell you that it’s just your imagination or to assure you that there’s really nothing there.

Steve was so afraid to walk by it alone that he would argue with his mom that he would go to town in the morning before he had to go to school or for her to send his sister. On page 193 Steve says, “I would walk slower and slower, the closer I got to the lonesome place. I would think of every way around it. I would keep hoping somebody would come along, so that I could walk with them.” He never wanted to face “the lonesome place” alone so he would wish for someone, anyone, to show up to walk with. When he reaches the end of the place he runs. He keeps running from something he created from always having to walk past this lonesome place by himself and because it’s in his mind, it will never go away and he won’t stop running until he reaches the safety of his home. Not only was Steve passing the place alone, but so was Johnny and that’s when they would compare what they felt and saw; Johnny was doing the same thing Steve was, but Johnny was so convinced that there was some creature that he would tell his parents, making his dad give him a “licking”. When Steve and Johnny are individually alone and have to go past “the lonesome place” there’s no one to constrict their imaginations and give them a sense of protection and comfort. They have to face this fear they created alone.