Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, while not a work of zombie literature, technically speaking, shares many similar traits of other zombie works. The most obvious is Matheson's treatment of the “vampires” very similarly to what we would call zombies. However, Matheson is very clear that Robert Neville's foes are in fact vampires as evidenced by the mythos behind warding them off such as the use of garlic, mirrors, etc. Despite this treatment of the vampires in I Am Legend, these creatures exhibit very zombie-like traits. For example, the vampires of part one have a “mindless” quality to them in which they have no advanced level of thought beyond their need for blood. Attacking Neville's house on a nightly basis and never really gaining any progress in killing him, they share a similar goal discussed in class: the absolute need to ingest human flesh.
One particular segment of chapter three that piqued my interest was Neville's string of thoughts on the nature of the vampires and why he possesses such a hatred of them and feels the need to kill them. He compares and contrasts vampires to various humans that have done considerably worse things than sustain their basic need, “the hunger”. Eventually Neville snaps out of his line of thought and decides that indeed the vampires are his enemies due to their need to kill him and his will to survive.
One of the main issues to take away from Matheson's work is whether his vampires truly fall under the category of zombies and, regardless of the result, why I Am Legend is included with other zombie works. Brahm Stoker's Dracula clearly is a vampire tale, but it lacks certain qualities that would associate it in the zombie genre. So, what can we take away from I Am Legend in the context of a course dedicated to the study zombies? Primarily, that the treatment of zombie-like creatures is not limited strictly to zombies themselves, but rather any human which has lost its intellect or any other method of controlling its urge to consume uncontrollably. Neville treats that which is different than himself with severe hostility, but do they truly deserve it?
I like your explanation on why you feel the book is under the same umbrella as zombie literature, but I always kind of thought of it as being a hybrid. To Robert, when he thought of vampires he probably thought about what we think about. The Bela Lugosi style vampire. That is the legend he is comfortable with. Then he experiences vampires in his own life and realizes, though some is truth, some is changed. The legend is changed. Nothing is fact. It goes the same with Zombies. If a zombie outbreak happened, we don't know if a shot to the head would work. We don't know if getting bitten works. It's all about surprise and fear of the unknown, which the book is about.
ReplyDeleteI also feel that the vampires are "brainless" to an extent because of hunger. They are starving. They aren't completely dumb. In part 2 (sorry for the spoilers), Virginia finds her way back home after turning into one of the creatures and can still speak, sort of. Ben Cortman too, he is shown to have some intelligence by trying to not only lure out his friend, but knowing where Robert set up new traps and destroys them. When someone is starving thinking doesn't always work.
All in all great post. I'm not going against anything you said, just using this as a place to state my thought process as well.