Being a text that defines the antagonists as vampires, I first found this story slightly out of place in a class about zombies. Much of the book talks about garlic, crosses, and mirrors as ways Robert Neville defends against the blight that has taken over his entire existence. But, in this sense, it’s not what the monsters are that should define them, but how they act as a social group, and the situations and challenges they place on the protagonist. Vampires are mostly seen as secretive creatures, very sensual, and up until recent films, relatively solitary. In “I Am Legend”, however, they seem to act as one mass. Not individual antagonists, but one collective evil; as zombies are. So, in this sense, I would define this story as a zombie narrative, based on theme, and meaning.
One theme that stood out most to me in this story, and in many zombie texts is the mob mentality. The social phenomenon that makes us “go along” with the group, and not wish to stand out. A horde of zombies, to me, can represent the mindless masses blindly following. It can represent a theoretical image of what can happen when people don’t think for themselves.
In the second through fourth parts of this story, we really begin to see what an emotion and psychological tax surviving by one’s self takes. Neville is given glimmers of hope, of possibly a pet dog, or a shred of information about his enemies, and in many instances, it is taken away from him. This leads him into periods of deep introspection and remembrance, and takes great psychological tolls on him. Once he realizes that the vampires aren’t magical or mythical, but the product of a bacterium, he can begin to demystify his enemy. On page 142, Ruth says to him, “You and your bristly beard. And those wild eyes.” Someone’s eyes are very prominent displays of emotion and personality, and the description of “wild eyes” shows someone who has been through many hardships, or is becoming desperate. Because of this, I believe that the greatest way zombies damage humans is not by physical harm, but by psychological and emotional harm. Neville combats this by using logic and science, because he is trying to remove the stigma of the vampire.
The stigma of the undead, the mystery around them, I believe is what peeks our society’s interest in them. One of the scariest things is the unknown, and that’s exactly what the undead are. They’re shrouded in mystery and fantasy; rumored to be repelled by religious symbols. In the ending of the story, we see this reversed, but almost exactly the same.
“They all stood looking up at him with their white faces. He stared back. And suddenly he thought, I’m the abnormal one now. Normalcy was a majority concept, the standard of many and not the standard of just one man.
Abruptly that realization joined with what he saw on their faces—awe, fear, shrinking horror—and he knew that they were afraid of him. To them he was some terrible scourge they had never seen…” (Page 169)
In this sense, the roles of Neville and the vampires are reversed. They know nothing about him, so they fear him. They think he’s a killer and an evil man, only because they know nothing about him
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