Just about everything in "The Silver Key" is socially sensitive. For instance, Lovecraft condemns religion. When Carter seeks solace in the "gentle churchly faith endeared to him by the naive trust of his fathers" he discovers "the starved fancy and beauty, the stale and prosy triteness, and the owlish gravity of grotesque claims of solid truth" of religious faith. He finds that religion emphasizes "outgrown fears and guesses of a primal race confronting the unknown." This point of view could spark discontent among some young adults and among their parents. In "The Silver Key" Lovecraft portrays religious belief as part of modern alienation, even though it offers some lines of thought that would allow people to transcend everyday existence. The problems, as he sees them, are twofold: religion depends on fears that have been antiquated by modem knowledge, and it tries to fence in the imagination...