Draft of Final Project

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

Bishop, Kyle. "Dead Man Still Walking." Journal of Popular Film and Television 37.1 (2009): 16-25. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. http://search.proquest.com.proxy.yc.edu/pqrl/docview/199456220/132BB92FA9B58B12016/2?accountid=31701

Bishop, Kyle. "Raising the Dead." Journal of Popular Film and Television 33.4 (2006): 196-205. Web. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 30 Oct. 2011. http://search.proquest.com.proxy.yc.edu/pqrl/docview/199488557/132BB92FA9B58B12016/5?accountid=31701

Brooks, Max. World War Z: an Oral History of the Zombie War. New York: Crown, 2006. Print.