The Horror of Memory: Trauma, Repression, and the Eldritch in It (1986)
Melanie Alexander | Independent Researcher
ORCiD ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-6793-2582
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.71106/XVYT8262
Publication: Volume 7
Abstract | The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the elements of Lovecraftian horror and human trauma have been combined by Stephen King to create a tale that is eldritch horror at its disturbing best, yet surprisingly humane in its vision. While his fiction as a whole is known for giving memories—particularly, childhood memories—a darker interpretation, in few novels is this prowess for combining the supernatural with the mundane, as pronounced as in the 1986 novel, IT. This is a story about the undead past: of coming back home to a place that is swarmed by childhood nightmares. Additionally, King’s novel is a stellar homage to H. P. Lovecraft, the father of cosmological horror fiction. Through a close textual reading of IT, this study will attempt to understand how the author has closely interwoven eldritch terrors with the traumatic experiences that make up a tangible and inescapable part of human reality. By engaging in a discussion on the antagonist in IT, this paper looks at the core memories generated by traumatic childhood experiences: at how realistic issues like violence, hatred, bigotry, internalized fears of societal ostracization and marginalization, and the repetitions of abusive patterns in adulthood, all coalesce to form a feeding pen for King’s fictional monster. This reading will further linger on how instances of socio-cultural tensions and frictions—in small-town 1950s America—have acted as enablers in the workings of a trans-dimensional entity equivalent to Lovecraft’s outer gods. The conclusion of this paper will try to gauge how the inexplicable anatomy of King’s antagonist in IT directly calls to mind classic Lovecraftian lore all the while embodying the slippery and complex nature of the human mind and by extension, of trauma and memory itself.
Keywords | Lovecraftian, Eldritch, Horror, Memory, Repression, Trauma, Stephen King, H. P. Lovecraft, IT
Melanie Alexander (melanieadelaide2017@gmail.com; ORCiD ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-6793-2582) is a doctoral scholar currently based in Chennai, India. She completed her Masters in English Literature from Loreto College, Kolkata, and thereafter, commenced her doctoral studies at Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Chennai, in July 2025. Her research specialization is queer masculinities in popular South-East Asian literature. Beyond queer theory and representations of gender and sexuality in popular literature and visual media, she takes a deep interest in contemporary horror studies and ecocriticism.
MLA Citation for this Article:
Alexander, Melanie. “The Horror of Memory: Trauma, Repression, and the Eldritch in It (1986).” Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies, vol. 7, 10 Aug. 2026, pp. 6.1–6.20, https://doi.org/10.71106/XVYT8262.