Character of Robert E. Howard

The character, personality and social views of Texan author Robert E. Howard are important in gaining an understanding of the writer as a person and of his body of work. Information about his attitudes comes from the memories of those who knew him, his surviving correspondence and analyses of his works.

Howard had strong views about race, evident in both his works and letters. He would be considered racist by modern standards, although they may have been mainstream in the era and location in which he lived as his attitudes towards race had significantly changed over time. In contrast, Howard had feminist views despite his era and location which he espoused in both personal and professional life.

In a different sense, Howard was afraid of ageing and made many references to the subject, including a stated preference to die young. Howard was emotionally sensitive and, especially as a child, considered "" and a "sissy," which prompted him into bodybuilding. He was intelligent but resented authority and so resented school life.

As Howard moved through characters and literary series as he grew and matured from a teenager into an adult, the development of his views may be found through an analysis of contemporary works.

In his attitude towards race and racism, Howard has been described as "a product of his time." However, the extent of his racist beliefs are debated. During Howard's life the concepts of eugenics and an ideal Aryan race were mainstream across, if beginning to be discredited. Howard touched on this in two stories, "Skull-Face" and "The Moon of Skulls," in which he describes a version of ancient Atlantis in which the advanced Atlanteans were brown-skinned and the inferior race were white-skinned.

Howard used race as shorthand for physical characteristics and motivation. He would also make up some racial traits, possibly for the sake of brevity, such as Sailor Steve Costigan's statement that a "Chinee can't take a punch." This is not and was not an existing stereotype of Chinese people. Further, in his other works, Howard described 'orientals' as being of a culture that was 'old when Babylon was young,' as well as attributing to 'Khitans,' the Hyborian race whose descendants formed the Chinese culture, great mystical powers and an ancient knowledge beyond the reckoning of the 'west.'

"Black Canaan" is one of the most significant of Howard's works when discussing his attitude towards race. It tells the story of an uprising of "swamp niggers" led by a voodoo 'conjer man,' named Saul Stark, which is defeated by the white Kirby Buckner thanks to the sacrifice of his heroic friend, Jim Baxton. Saul Stark's back story is tied to Africa, emphasizing the racial conflict. Howard does attribute to Stark knowledge and powers unknown to white characters and describes him in a way that places him above the "slaves" and shows his disdain for the weak mindset of the "dogs." Another character, The Bride of Damballah, is described in stereotypical manner as a black woman. Yet she is described in the same terminology as Howard's white heroines and villains, giving rise to a half-black female character as powerful and as beautiful as other female villains in Howard's works, be they black, white, or the queen of the Akkas. "Black Canaan" follows the aforementioned use of Atlantis by describing a dance that was "ancient when the ocean drowned the black kings of Atlantis."

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Wikipedia