3. Comparing PYF in Four Horror Stories

In the last two posts, a procedure for calculating the Primal Yuck Factor or (PYF) was described and then applied to H.P. Lovecraft’s story, In the Vault.   The PYF is a quantification of physically revolting or repellent features in a horror story, and offers a means of analysis and comparison across stories in this genre.   The PYF is not an absolute figure, nor does it explain the story’s degree of effectiveness or quality.  Rather, the PYF is a means of comparing relative magnitudes of revulsion across scenes within a story, or to compare these values across stories.

The formula for computing PYF is

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.

In the Lovecraft’s The Transition of Juan Romero, (1944), the narrator describes weird events that affect his coworker at a gold mining camp in “the drear expanses of the Cactus Mountains.”  A mysterious, bottomless cavern is discovered, which seems to activate ancestral memories of an earlier civilization, possibly Aztec.  S.T. Joshi has pointed out that Lovecraft had originally refused to publish this story during his lifetime, and that he considered it a “false start”.  What actually happens toward the end of the story is not clear.  What exactly is the ‘transition’ Juan Romero undergoes? There is really more eeriness than horror in this one.  Below is a table of the data used to calculate the PYF of this story.

PYF Data from The Transition of Juan Romero

Types of Revolting Stimuli	Frequency Of Reference	Intensity 1-subtle 2-graphic	Sensory 1-smell 2-hearing 3-vision 4-touch 5-taste	Subtotal
Reference to disease	1	1	2	2
Skeletons, cadavers	1	2	3	6
Strange sound	3	2	2	12
Air quality	1	2	1	2
Shriek, “uncouth sound”	1	2	2	4
View of the abyss	1	2	3	6
Dead body	1	1	3	3
Weird sound	1	1	2	2
	References		Total	37
	10		PYF	3.7

The Picture in the House (1921) is Lovecraft’s classic story of backwoods cannibalism.  The narrator, riding his bike to Arkham through inclement weather, chooses the wrong house in seeking shelter from the storm.  In his biography of Lovecraft, L. Sprague De Camp rightfully asks the question of how the narrator survives the climactic lightning bolt that destroys the house.  Which lightning bolt S.T. Joshi interestingly relates to Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher.  (That house is also felled by lightning.) 

More importantly, Joshi sees in this story an early articulation of Lovecraft’s negative view of Puritan Christianity, which he believed led to “dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion and insanity.”  It does seem that Lovecraft’s views of Puritanism—as well as other ethnic and racial groups—is based largely on a stereotype.

Here is the table of the data used to compute the PYF in this story.

PYF Data from The Picture In The House

Types of Revolting Stimuli	Frequency Of Reference	Intensity 1-subtle 2-graphic	Sensory 1-smell 2-hearing 3-vision 4-touch 5-taste	Subtotal
Cobwebbed steps	1	2	3	6
Bad smell	1	2	1	2
Butcher shop picture	1	2	3	6
Unkemptness, filth	1	2	3	6
Reference to old murder	2	1	2	4
Hybrid creatures	1	1	3	3
Butcher shop/bodies	1	2	3	6
“make your blood tickle”	1	2	4	8
Reference to Bible slaying	1	1	2	2
Pictures in book	1	2	3	6
Reference to killing sheep	1	2	2	4
Reference to cannibalism	1	2	2	4
Sound of blood dripping	1	1	2	2
Drop of blood seen	1	2	3	6
Blood on ceiling	1	2	3	6
	References		Total	71
	16		PYF	4.4

Finally, the Primal Yuck Factor was determined for The Hound (1924).  This story was discussed earlier in a post in late July.  Two grave robbers steal from the wrong grave and receive gruesome justice as a result.  At the end of the story the narrator awaits a terrible end, having verified that the contents of a grave in Rotterdam and the monster now stalking him are one and the same. 

This is not one of Lovecraft’s better stories, and reads as if portions of it were still a rough draft.  Neither the characters nor their chief occupation—grave robbing—are believable.  Their fate is predictable very early in the story.  So is the appearance of the monster.  Philip A. Shreffler, in his book The H.P. Lovecraft Companion, generously suggests that Lovecraft was merely “having a little fun with his readers.”  

Shreffler, an expert on Arthur Conan Doyle, sees a lot of similarity to Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, especially Lovecraft’s incessant repetition of the monster’s hound-like baying. There is a lot of repetition generally, which can be seen in the analysis of the PYF.

Unfortunately, there is not room in this post to show the table of data used to determine the PYF in The Hound, as was done in the previous stories.  Suffice it to say that there are at least 49 references to unpleasant, repellent and revolting images—compare this to the 10 and 16 above.  The majority involve graphic, as opposed to subtle or indirect presentation of the stimuli. Finally, the sensory images include all five senses, including the nearly taboo taste.  The Hound has a PYF of 4.6.

For comparison purposes, I have summarized the results of this analysis for the four stories reviewed.

A Comparison of PYF Across Four Stories

Title of Story	Number of References to Repellent Images	Number of Different Sensory Presentations	PYF
The Transition of Juan Romero	10	3 Smell Hearing Vision	3.7
The Picture in the House	16	3 Smell Hearing Vision	4.4
The Hound	49	5 Smell Hearing Vision Touch Taste	4.6
In the Vault	19	3 Smell Vision Touch	5.1

In the next and final post on this topic, I will make some concluding remarks about interpretation and application of the PYF.