Vermiphobia: worms and other Freudian annelids in fiction

Vermiphobia: Worms and other Freudian annelids in fiction.

Worms, larvae, and other monstrous annelids are part of the wide repertoire of horrors in fiction, a rather discreet, underground part, one would say, but that achieves the desired effect: touching an atavistic nerve in the human being, and disgusting. About all that

It is easy to fall into Freudian logic to explain worms in fiction, but the truth is that as a phallic symbol they leave a lot to be desired, due to their flaccidity, due to the fact that they are not represented penetrating the earth, but rather emerging from its depths, as if they were an ancient, forgotten memory, or a promise of what awaits us after death.

Edgar Allan Poe vindicated that certainty, I mean, that of the worm that triumphs, that laughs last, by decomposing our corpse, in the poem: The Conqueror Worm. Maerle Prout later expanded this concept in the story. The House of the Worm.

It is curious that, in Spanish, the etymology of the word “worm” is uncertain. Some link it with Sanskrit kusuwhose meaning is rather loving: ku, “earth”, and its, “son”; that is, “son of the earth.”

In English something different happens. The word worm“worm”, comes from Old English wyrmwhich in the Middle Ages alluded to dragons, at that time, represented as large winged serpents.

Something of that happens in Bram Stoker’s novel The Lair of the White Worm, which is not about a cyclopean worm, but about a giant snake with supernatural powers. Analogous reasons make the protagonist of Ray Bradbury’s The Dragon, out of phase in time, confuse a train—in his eyes, a huge worm—with a dragon.

Even today, horror uses worms without much precision, and the term may well refer, for example, to neighboring creatures such as parasites, larvae, caterpillars, among others.

This is because fiction tends to simplify the Villain, or rather, to represent him in the least evolved way possible. In this way his Otherness is highlighted, and he becomes more threatening and more recognizable as a predator.

We may even think that Vampires are, after all, an evolved version of worms, essentially eating machines. It is not capricious that these nocturnal beings sleep in sarcophagi, a word that in Ancient Greece also referred to worms, and which means “the one who devours flesh.”

Someone may wonder what a Vampire has to do with a creature like the worm, being rather elemental, without a spine, teeth and sense of vision. Certainly, the worm is much more primitive in constitution than the vampire, but the characteristics they share are too many to be overlooked.

In biological terms, the worm is essentially a mobile esophagus, a digestive tube surrounded by a single cylindrical muscle and enclosed in moist, segmented skin. In fact, worms don’t even have the privilege of drinking, much less blood; so they must live in humid environments to avoid desiccation. Clearly vampires enjoy a much more exotic existence…

The life of the worm is a constant making its way through its own food: decomposing leaves, bacteria, fungi, manure, in short, a broad but unpleasant menu. Lacking eyes, it uses a specialized membrane to detect light and avoid surfacing during the day, which would be unwise. Vampires are subject to similar restrictions: their diet, in this case blood, constitutes the axis of their existence; They sleep underground (or in things that should be underground, like coffins), and avoid sunlight.

The truth is that the voracious worms of hell have been with us for centuries. One of the best examples is EF Benson’s story: Negotium Perambulans (Negotium Perambulans) – which in Spanish means something like “pestilence that walks” – where the population of the village of West Cornwall is slowly emptied by a huge worm hematophagous.

A very similar creature stars in De Vermis Misteriis, an apocryphal book of the Cthulhu Mythos by HP Lovecraft, which in Spanish means: The Mysteries of the Worm. This annelid monstrosity, older than humanity, dwells in the depths and emerges when summoned by its acolytes through blasphemous rites. Interestingly, JRR Tolkien uses similar terminology when describing the Nameless Creatures, which Gandalf refers to as beings before the Elves, and who literally gnaw at the roots of mountains.

In Caterpillars, EF Benson returns to the theme of Vermiphobia, and tells the story of a man attacked in his room by an invasion of enormous caterpillars. Finally, these unpleasant beings manifest themselves as part of a larger organism, which conceals its attacks on humanity for centuries, for example, through the symptoms of cancer.

Given the contemporary anxiety about infectious diseases it is not surprising that worms in modern fiction are much more virulent, more parasitic than in the past. Devouring is no longer their only hobby, but rather contaminating the human body – using various options in terms of orifices – almost always to zombieify us.

There are also wonderfully inexplicable examples of worms in fiction with other interests, such as the monstrous annelid in David H. Keller’s The Worm, basically a disproportionate version of a simple earthworm, whose diet is based on in wood, cement and buildings. In this case, once again, Sigmund Freud’s theory once again appears effective and meager at the same time.

Worms in fiction are usually psychological, symbolic elements, but not necessarily in a psychoanalytic sense. The worm may or may not be a phallic symbol, as long as we do not include virile potency among its predominant characteristics.

In Keller’s story, the worm represents the isolation, the loneliness, the simple existence of the protagonist, named Staples, who lives in the remains of an old mill, without company. The author carefully details this area, a large basement, and other upper levels that serve as housing. Keller could well be describing the different substrates of the protagonist’s mind, as the great worm gradually emerges from below, slowly devouring Staples’ home, level by level. It consumes everything in its path, as relentless as a terminal illness, as inevitable as death, or as a repressed desire.

Near the end, Staples notices that the sound the worm makes as it approaches is similar to the noise the mill makes when it is running. In this way, he reaches the same conclusion as the two lighthouse guards in Ray Bradbury’s The Fog Horn: the noise made by human technology has inadvertently summoned an ancient creature that, far from seeking food, he just wants to mate.

Both Keller and Bradbury avoid the description of the sentimental encounter between their respective creatures trying to mate with buildings and machinery, but they help us think that, after all, worms perhaps represent our most primitive, most elemental instincts, which little by little emerge. from the depths of our unconscious. Maybe that’s why they disgust us.

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