THE DEEP ONES: "The Thing in the Cellar" by David H. Keller

"The Thing in the Cellar" by David H. Keller

Discussion begins February 1, 2023.

First published in the March 1932 issue of Weird Tales.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?848774

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

The Century's Best Horror Fiction 1901-1950
65 Great Spine Chillers
Never at Night
The Supernatural Reader

ONLINE VERSIONS

https://weirdfictionreview.com/2012/03/the-thing-in-the-cellar-by-david-h-keller...

ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaR937TjTTo

MISCELLANY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Keller
https://multoghost.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/the-weird-tales-of-david-h-keller/
https://www.swarthmore.edu/libraries/david-h-keller-collection
https://tinyurl.com/2tpc536s

Not really an unexpected ending -- except I thought Tommy would be found catatonic and not dead and mutilated. I suspect the story has been influential. It seemed like an unproduced episode of The Twilight Zone.

The story does leave several questions unanswered besides what the thing in the cellar is. What happened to the previous house? Did someone discover the nature of the thing and did that lead to the "inappropriate" door?

The apparently supernatural nature of the "Thing" might technically disqualify this story as a conte cruel, but it has many of the aspects of those stories. Mostly the disagreeable ones. What was lacking most for me was any heroic action by the main character (except, I suppose his attempt to run away on the way home from the doctor). He was set up as a helpless sacrificial lamb, Keller really doesn't give him a fighting chance. And as RandyStafford points out above, this telegraphs his inevitable fate.
The story isn't entirely unappealing. Ignoring the mostly unsympathetic characters, it's an interesting puzzle on both the narrative and psychological levels.
Doing my best to avoid going down the rathole of psychoanalyzing the author (something I often fixate on) I find some of the weird elements intriguing. The boy's awkward kissing and petting of the stout lock on the door, the mystery of what lays beyond the wall of junk, and the natural impossibility of the parents being oblivious to the bloody murder in the next room all beg more questions. But as the answers aren't to be found in the story, best to move on.

I hadn't realised until late into the story that it was set in London. I wondered if Keller felt the English to be especially callous in their dealings with their children - but realised thst he needed the house to be built over an older structure very very old.

I did metaphorically peer into the psychoanalysing rathole, as the fact that he was a psychiatrist and physician suggested an explanation for the focus on the doctor's anguish at the end of the story (as opposed to the grieving parents, or the dead child, or indeed what the "thing" is).

>4 housefulofpaper: I just scanned through it twice again to find the reference to the London setting. I give up.
Agreed, a psychiatrist’s fingerprints are all over this story, but much is also autobiographical. Yet I can say no more…

>4 housefulofpaper: I suspect that's not London, UK but London, Pennsylvania, a state Keller lived in for a while.

>6 RandyStafford:

I'm not convinced, but of course I could be wrong (and have been wrong a few times recently in prevous reads, I know!).

For what it's worth, here's my evidence:

The matter is just this, Doctor Hawthorn,” said Mr. Tucker, in a somewhat embarrassed manner. “Our little Tommy is old enough to start to school, but he behaves childish in regard to our cellar, and the missus and I thought you could tell us what to do about it. It must be his nerves.

This reads to me like an attempt at rendering working class speech - specifically Cockney, and even more specifically, talking to a social superior in a "removing cap and wringing it in one's hands apologetically" way.

It all worried Doctor Hawthorn so much that he decided to take his friend’s advice. It was a cold night, a foggy night, and the physician felt cold as he tramped along the London streets. At last he came to the Tucker house.

I don't think it's parochial to assume that, given a bare mention of "London streets" - and foggy, to boot - with no further details or qualifications, the reader would naturally assume the setting is London, England.

And finally, the point I made earlier, that the Tucker home is apparently built over a very old earlier structure

>7 housefulofpaper: Good arguments. I guess, apart from the mention of foggy streets, the setting didn't seem much like London, UK but that could be a deficiency on Keller's part.