We are at story eleven in the H. P. Lovecraft library. It’s really important to have a good understanding of United States History before you begin this. Lovecraft is in essence playing a game of ‘know the era based on the fashion’. Also, it’s good to know that right when Lovecraft wrote this, in 1919, World War I had just ended. There was discontent and bombings happening in New England. Also, the Boston police went on strike due to AWFUL working conditions and wages. So in this environment, Lovecraft wrote The Street.
In essence The Street is a view of the history of the British in Boston starting in Colonial times and up through Lovecraft’s current life in 1919. It’s an EXTREMELY white-rich-male-centric view.
We begin with colonial British arriving and taking control of land from the Native Americans who are dismissed as fire-arrow savages. A breath later, the colonials have completely destroyed the Indians, and good riddance. Those heathens were blocking the process of the white people. And of course these white people were great – never mind that women were being beaten and murdered, children were abused, but all that mattered was that the rich white men were in control and getting richer.
So we move through the eras with fairly amateur descriptions. This feels like a high-school assignment of “tell me which era you’re in with just a few words of fashion sense.” Always in the street the rich white men are happy with rose bushes and silver and china. They don’t care that slaves are being beaten or children are in workhouses. They have their gilded carriages and life is good.
On we go through the Civil War and steamships and the industrial revolution and telephones.
World War I comes with the British Flag, US Flag, and French Flag. All is fine – but there is also some evil happening. Because strange accents are arriving!! This is really funny for me, given how notorious the Boston accent is. They are complaining about strange accents? And Boston is also notorious for its mistreatment of the Irish and Italians.
And then we descend right into anarchy. Again, Lovecraft lived during the time of bombings and the Boston police strike. So you could say this story is in reaction to that. Still, it’s a fairly extreme reaction. The street knows that only it can manage to face down the threat of strangers. And the only way it can manage that threat is to commit suicide and collapse itself down on all the strangers. Because of course only evil bomber strangers live in its structures – no innocent women or children.
And, at the end, The Street dreams of better times, with rosebushes, when rich white men were rich white men and everyone else stayed out of their way.
This is my least liked story so far by Lovecraft. The plot is silly. It’s just a listing of objects which represent each era, like some sort of bizarre history test. It’s testing to see if readers actually know US history. And the underlying message, that rich white men with china and silver are all that matter …
Read The Street for yourself:
https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/s.aspx
My video review of The Street –