Randolph Carter

Randolph Carter is a recurring protagonist in H. P. Lovecraft'sfiction. A thinly disguised alter ego of Lovecraft himself, the first tale in which Carter appears--"The Statement of Randolph Carter" (1919)--is based on one of Lovecraft's dreams.

Carter shares many of Lovecraft's personal traits: He is an uncelebrated author, whose writings are seldom noticed. A melancholy figure, Carter is a quiet contemplative dreamer with a sensitive disposition, prone to fainting during times of emotional stress.

In Lovecraft's writings, Carter appears or is mentioned in the following tales:

* "The Statement of Randolph Carter" (1919)
* "The Unnamable" (1923)
* "The Silver Key" (1926)
* "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" (1926-1927)
* "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" (1927)
* "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" (1933)

Character

Randolph Carter is an antiquarian and one-time student of the fictional Miskatonic University. Based on clues from various stories, he was probably born around 1874 and grew up in and around Boston. At the age of ten, he underwent a mysterious experience at his great-uncle Christopher's farm and thereafter exhibited a gift of prophesy. However, like all things Lovecraftian, much about his life is left vague.

In "The Statement of Randolph Carter," Carter joins his friend Harley Warren in the latter's investigations of a mysterious crypt in an ancient abandoned cemetery. Warren believes the crypt may contain evidence that could confirm some of his speculations. The details of these speculations are never revealed. We are told only that they come from a mysterious book written in an unknown language and relate to the fact that "certain corpses never decay, but rest firm and fat in their tombs for a thousand years." ["The Statement of Randolph Carter" in H.P. Lovecraft, "At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels", S.T. Joshi, ed. (Arkham House: Sauk City, Wisconsin, 1964) p. 300.`]

Upon reaching the cemetery, Carter and Warren uncover the crypt by lifting an immense granite slab, revealing a set of stone steps leading downward into the earth. Warren insists that Carter remain at the surface. He descends the steps alone, but remains in communication with Carter via a portable telephone set. Shortly thereafter he tells Carter that he has discovered a monstrous unbelievable secret and pleads with his companion to replace the stone and run for his life. When Carter asks what he has found, his queries are initially met with silence and then by the voice of an unknown entity who informs him that Warren is dead.

"The Unnamable" begins with Carter in conversation with his friend, Joel Manton – principal of a New England high school – discussing the supposedly mythical creature that bears the story's name. The tale is set in a seventeenth-century cemetery as evening falls. Initially, Manton is skeptical and ridicules Carter for thinking that such a being may be possible. However, as darkness encroaches – and as Carter's descriptions become more detailed and supported by facts – his flippant dismissal gradually gives way to fear. The two are attacked by the monster but survive the experience.

There is some question as to whether "The Unnamable's" protagonist is in fact "Randolph" Carter. He is named only as "Carter" and described as an author of weird fiction. [See "Unnamable, The," S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2001), pp. 283-84.]

"The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" – one of Lovecraft's longest tales – follows Carter for several months searching for the lost city of his dreams. The story reveals Carter's familiarity with much of Lovecraft's fictional universe. Carter is also shown to possess considerable knowledge of the politics and geography of the dream world and has allies there. After an elaborate and highly convoluted odyssey, Carter awakes in his Boston apartment, with only a fleeting impression of the dream world he left behind.

"The Silver Key" – perhaps the most overtly philosophical of Lovecraft's fiction - finds Carter entering middle age and losing his "key to the gate of dreams." No longer is Carter able to escape the mundane realities of life and enter the Lovecraftian dreamworld that alone has given him happiness. Wonder is gone and he has forgotten the fact that life is nothing more than a set of mental images, where there is no fundamental distinction between dreams and reality and no reason to value one above the other. In an attempt to recover his lost innocence, Carter returns to his childhood home and finds a mysterious silver key, which allows him to enter a cave and magically emerge again in the year 1883 as a child, full of wonder, dreams, and happiness. He remains in this condition until 1928, when he again disappears, presumably having found a way to transcend space and time and travel in other dimensions.

"Through the Gates of the Silver Key," written in collaboration with Lovecraft admirer E. Hoffman Price and generally regarded as greatly inferior to its predecessor, details Carter's adventures in another dimension where he encounters a more primordial version of himself (implied to be Yog-Sothoth) who explains that Carter - and indeed all beings - are ultimately nothing more than manifestations of a greater being.

Non-Lovecraft appearances

Randolph Carter also appears in "The Clock of Dreams", a Cthulhu Mythos novel by Brian Lumley.

In "Allan and the Sundered Veil", a serialized prose backup in the first six issues of Alan Moore's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" comic book, Randolph Carter teams up with several famous literary characters, including H. Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain, H. G. Wells’ Time Traveler from "The Time Machine", and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars. In Moore's fiction, Randolph Carter is a direct descendant of Burroughs’ John Carter. This is especially interesting since both the names Randolph and Carter are the names of two of the First Families of Virginia.

Carter also appears as a scholar at Miskatonic University in "The New Traveller's Almanac" (published alongside the second series of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" comics) during a segment in which Allan Quatermain and Mina Murray visit Arkham Massachusetts.

Carter appears three times in the Lovecraft-themed musical parody "A Shoggoth on the Roof", including in the opening number.

In Hans Rodionoff's comic "Lovecraft", Randolph Carter is the name Lovecraft uses while traveling in Arkham and battling the Old Ones. He tells his wife, "They can't know my Christian name here."

In the parody RPG "Pokéthulhu", the main protagonist is a young boy named Randy Carter.

In Chaosium's collectible card game MYTHOS and its MYTHOS: Dreamlands expansion, Randolph Carter appears as an ally card.

Gene Wolfe's short story "Game in the Pope's Head" follows a man named Randolph Carter, though his introduction in the book in which the story is published states that it is about Jack the Ripper.

References

*H. P. Lovecraft, "At the Mountains of Madness".
*H. P. Lovecraft, "Dagon and Other Macabre Tales".