2. Applying the PYF to a Story by H.P. Lovecraft

In the previous post I described the Primal Yuck Factor or PYF, and proposed a method by which it could be calculated.  It is hoped that the PYF will allow the quantification of physically revolting or repellent features in a horror story, and provide a means of analysis and comparison with other work in this genre.   In no way is the PYF an absolute figure, nor is it the sole source of a story’s degree of effectiveness.  Rather, the PYF is a means of comparing relative magnitudes of revulsion across scenes in a story, or to compare these values across stories.

The formula for computing PYF is presented below.

PYF = [F_type1(S_1-5)(I_1-2) + F_type2(S_1-5)(I_1-2) + F_type3(S_1-5)(I_1-2)…] ÷ [total occurrences]

…where F is the frequency that a given stimuli type occurs, S is the sensory mode, and I is the relative intensity of its presentation.  This sum is then divided by the total number of references in order to arrive at a measure of central tendency—an average level of physical revulsion present in the story.  I would now like to apply this to an actual horror story.

H.P. Lovecraft’s In The Vault (1925) is one of his better known stories.  Along with The Outsider (1926), and a few others that he wrote in the mid to late 1920s, it is often one of the first that readers encounter when they first discover the author in some anthology.  This is the tale about George Birch, the incompetent undertaker whom the author describes as “lax, insensitive, and professionally undesirable; yet I still think he was not an evil man.”  It is basically a cautionary tale about the need for good customer relations, especially when the customer is no longer alive.

By my count there are 19 references to experiences that would be considered physically repellent.  These include smelling dead bodies, touching cadavers, seeing blood, dismemberment and disfigurement.  Because much of the action of the story occurs in a dark cemetery vault, the sensory presentation is primarily through smell and touch, and only later through vision.  Subtle reference to things that are revolting shifts to graphic reference as the story progresses, heightening the effect of the horror.  Although the PYF of a story does not explain its overall success in disturbing the reader, in this story it is probably the primary reason.

The table below summarizes the data collected.

Types of Revolting Stimuli (Note:  the inventory follows events in the story, with interesting fluctuations at key points in the plot.)	Frequency Of Reference	Intensity 1-subtle 2-graphic	Sensory 1-smell 2-hearing 3-vision 4-touch 5-taste	Subtotal
Being in a tomb	1	1	4	4
Touching dead people	2	1	4	8
Being in a tomb	2	2	1	4
Touching dead people	2	2	4	16
Near dead people	1	2	1	2
Grabbed, bitten (?) by corpse	1	2	4	12
Sight of blood	1	2	3	6
Fingers clawing at mould	1	2	4	8
Wounding/disfigurement	3	2	3	18
Scarring/disfigurement	1	2	3	6
Visit to tomb	1	1	1	1
Inspecting the tomb	1	1	3	3
Dismemberment	1	1	3	3
Decaying cadaver	1	2	3	6
	References		Total	97
	19		PYF	5.1

Analysis of Lovecraft’s In the Vault yields a PYF of 5.1, an overall measure of the degree to which physically revolting or repellent imagery is present in the story.  More than just a simple tally of unpleasant scenes, the PYF relates their incidence to intensity of reference and to sensory presentation.  But the number by itself is meaningless without reference to others, or to a norm, (if such a figure is possible to determine).  In a future post I would like for comparison purposes to apply this procedure to other stories by Lovecraft and his colleagues.