Lovecraft’s prime concern—beyond even verisimilitude and topographical realism—was a rigid adherence to Poe’s theory of unity of effect; that is, the elimination of any words, sentences, or whole incidents that do not have a direct bearing on the story. Accordingly, a character’s eating habits are wholly dispensed with because they are inessential to the denouement of a tale and will only dilute that air of tensity and inevitability which Lovecraft is seeking to establish.
