The Magic Island - W.B. Seabrook

W.B. Seabrook's The Magic Island was far from the whimsical connotation of its given title. Written in 1929, the excerpt read (pages 92-103) is a cultural tale of zombies within the novel. In the beginning we see this author use Haiti as the place of origin for these zombies as he uses the Magic Island to compare to the island of Haiti. As the narrator in the opening scene listens to the man Polynice talk, he also realizes that zombies "[sound] exclusively local" to Haitian culture (93).

Before going further into analyzing the story and its content in regards to the class, I cannot bypass the style that Seabrook's used throughout and his intentions for doing so. The word zombie definitely caught my eye, not just because of this class but fact that in every presence of the word it is italicized. Could Seabrook's reasoning to apply this manner to the word be to separate the zombie more distinctly from the living people of Haiti? Or could it be to give the reader an eerie sensation? Seabrook's zombies are much more relatable than other in previous movies, Omega Man, or books, I am Legend. By this, I mean that in The Magic Island the zombies are able to integrate themselves into an actual lifestyle, although they are "forced to toil in the fields" (102). In Haiti, people truly believe that these zombies exist as clueless figures. So going back to the italicized zombie, by reading the word every time in a different manner than the rest of the words, the zombie is depicted as a feared figure in Haitian culture. I believe the style was done intentionally to help emphasize certain aspects in the chapter.

One of the main points that can be used for the benefit of our class is to look at the zombie in The Magic Island as a voodoo or spiritual type rather than a contagion zombie. Our topic for the current readings in our class say that these types of zombies can signify punishment. The people of Haiti "[pity] them" "from the bottom of [their] heart[s] (96,100). Zombies in this chapter are not ones to go and terrorize the living for they are "without souls or mind" (97). They just were part of a voodoo, or religious, tradition and were unburied in order to work for Joseph in the cane field. Only when the zombies realized that they were dead, from recognizing family members, did they actually do something and began digging at their graves to be put to rest. As punishment was destined for Joseph, who dug up the dead in order to be laboring zombies for him (and unlike other traditional zombie stories) it was the living people who sought revenge. The family members of the zombies ordered Joseph to be killed and it happened through voodoo... Although that all took a little while to explain it was important to see how the events occurred, which as said before, are very different from the zombie stories that we hear of today. In the Haitian culture, zombies can show the punishment that will occur to people who try to disturb the dead through unnatural means.