Jordan Anderson
Laura Cline
English 102
5 November 2011
Zombies
“It
wasn’t wearing a shirt and its mottled gray flesh was all torn and pockmarked.
It smelled like the beach, like rotten kelp and saltwater…Tim looked
frantically around the room for a weapon just as it grabbed him by the shirt”
(Brooks 31). In this fearsome situation where do you turn? Everyone knows what
zombies are. Zombies are the decaying undead humans who hunger for human flesh.
How anyone can become a zombie is through some form of contact like a bite-mark
from an infected human. What threat does a zombie represent to society? In
World War Z zombies represents a lot of various fears for people. There is one
overlying symbolic idea of zombies though. Zombies represent the loss of free
will along with the loss of conscious thought that make people human. This
reduces your friends and family into less than humans into mindless animals who
stop at nothing to feast on human flesh. Zombies represent the danger of the
loss of control and safety. In short zombies threaten what makes each of us
human.
Even
though they might look like us they are far from what makes us human. It is
indeed frightening as I am supported here by Bishop, “The threat is not only
manifested as a hostile undead human but likely a hostile undead human the
victim recognizes as a former intimate” (Bishop 203). This makes the living
fearful. Zombies represent this familiar horror, “Horror is based on
recognizing in the unfamiliar something familiar, something attractive even as
it is repulsive” (Bishop 203). For the people around us can be infected and the
people we have come to love and trust can be reversed very quickly. When our
image of our love ones trying to kill us is in front of us the decision to run
or kill them is hard. This image is
explained by Bishop, “Although statures, portraits, and photographs are
treasured as valued reminders of those now dead, no one really wants to see the
face of a loved one slowly rot or be reminded of the brutal realities of
morality; such a confrontation would be frightening, to say the least” (Bishop
198). Not only is an undead person frightening but an undead person we used to
know is even more frightening. The fear is identifying the human resemblance in
the monster.
What
if the enemy can’t feel fear? Now that’s fear. In World War Z a soldier
discusses why people are fearful of zombies, “It’s fear, dude, just fear and
you don’t have to be Sun freakin Tzu to know that real fighting isn’t about
killing or even hurting the other guy, it’s about scaring him enough to call it
a day” (Brooks 46).
They
can’t be stopped because they are already dead hence the only way to kill a
zombie is to shoot it through the head. A soldier in World War Z explained that
fear, “They’re not afraid! No matter what we do, no matter how many we kill,
they will never ever be afraid!” (Brooks 42). They don’t feel pain. They can’t
think. Zombies have lost the ability to make choices. There is no right and
wrong decisions to be made. The only objective that concerns the infected
zombies is to eat living people.
The
drop to the level of animalistic instinct is unnerving and emotional. This is a primitive impulse something we
humans think we have overcome. We are above these animal instincts. As a result
it makes us question our humanity. With these monsters that never stop there is
the realization that there is no safety. There is no place that you can relax.
These monsters who hunger for flesh are everywhere that people are.
One
infected person can contaminate an entire population. With the population
contaminated bishop explains, “In all of these scenarios, the virus, plague, or
infestation has been so rapid and completer that cities are quickly overrun,
buildings abandoned, posts deserted, and airwaves silenced” (Bishop Dead 21).This
is essentially how it starts too. One person becomes a zombie then another and
before you know it everyone is your enemy. What can you do with yourself and
those you care about? Isolate yourself? Or just kill everyone else before they
become infected instead of delaying the inevitable? We depend on others for our
survival so this isn’t possible.
A zombie isn’t dependent on basic survival
like us. They don’t need food. They hunger for food or sustenance but they
don’t need it. They don’t need sleep. They have an ability to keep moving
without tiring down time or feel the need for rest. Security for itself and
avoiding pain isn’t an issue with the undead. The zombie doesn’t have to think
or worry about these things.
It’s
not just about getting sick and dying. It’s about after dying you can come back
as a member of the undead to contaminate others is the fear. When one person
gets infected it doesn’t stop. The infection can spread especially if someone
knows they are infected. Sometimes the infected can be hard to spot in its
early stages. One minute a person is fine and the next he can be gnawing at
your arm. This can make people distrustful of each other with knowing that an
ally can turn against you without thought. These zombies attack us on a
personal level.
There
is also the fear of getting eating alive. These zombies don’t give you a quick
death. These zombies just want the flesh of humans. That is a horrible way to
die with lots of pain. Some are those who see a plan to opt out of this system.
They shoot themselves in the head so that they can’t be reanimated and harm
others. Also so they don’t have to endure the pain. As a result some just give
up. For example in World War Z someone explain why people were dying without
actually being sick, “The problem was psychological, a case of just giving up,
not wanting to see tomorrow because you knew it could only bring more
suffering” (Brooks 68). People become helpless which makes them lose the will
to continue. In the last episode of The
Walking Dead one of the characters has this problem. She can’t decide whether
she wants to live. Not only does she not want to deal with the suffering of
living but she wants the choice of where she dies. With suicide she can decide
when it ends.
With
zombies there always come the zombie mob and surviving the large group. The
movies and TV shows like The Walking Dead demonstrate this. The Walking Dead
show focuses on a small group that somehow survives and tries to fight and hide
for their survival against a mob of undead. They want to survival this mob of
mindless consumption. With these fears zombies evoke we can understand why they are so entertaining to watch.
Works Cited
Brooks, Max. World War Z: an Oral History of the Zombie War. New York: Crown, 2006. Print.
