A Posthumanist Reading of the Voyage in “The White Ship”

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article proposes a posthumanist reading of the voyage in Lovecraft’s short story “The White Ship.” The lighthouse symbolizes anthropocentrism, but the nautical voyage, as a narrative disruption, dismantles the monopoly of anthropocentrism, and inserts the narrator into a posthumanist world. Instead of being a silent backdrop, the ocean becomes a portal to these unknown territories, and reveals itself as an agent of unpredictable forces. The forgetting of aesthetics and the denigration of technology first discard human civilization. Then, the diminution of sight, as well as the strengthening of the auditory and olfactory senses, further dismantle human monopoly, and open a gate to broaden the spectrum of nonhuman agents. Finally, the narrator goes beyond anthropocentric superiority, integrates himself into nature, and reaches the realm of posthumanist symbiosis.