Matheson's I Am Legend seems to combine features of both the vampire and the zombie mythology, and in this way it bridges the gap between the last two units, serving as a liminal exhibit to investigate what we expect from these horror memes. After reading the novelette, what strikes you as novel or suggestive in Matheson's apocalyptic vision? In what way does it mirror Dawn of the Dead or Walking Dead, and to what extent does it do something different? What fears are being writ large in Matheson's book and how do the monstrous incarnations of these fears reflect them?
Matheson's 'I am Legend' mixes elements of both zombie and vampire genres. Matheson's vampires confirm to our pre-existing notion of vampires in the following manner:
ReplyDelete1. They can be killed by driving a wooden stake through the heart (although Neville presents a scientific rationale for it later on in the novel).
2. They are creatures of the night and hibernate during day-time.
3. Sunlight can kill them.
4. Garlic repels vampires.
However, there are certain elements of Matheson's vampire which we more commonly associate with zombies such as:
1. Rising of the dead (Neville recounts how his wife Virginia, came back from the dead after he had buried her in a field).
2. Matheson's vampires draw strength in numbers and can easily be over-powered when alone.
3. They do not speak to each other.
Furthermore, there are certain elements introduced by Matheson which are truly new to the genre:
1. Matheson's vampires can be either living or dead. This is in contrast with our pre-existing view of both zombies (who are necessarily dead) as well as vampires (who never die of natural causes).
2. They are neither brainless like zombies nor are they in full control of their senses or a fully functioning brain like vampires. Matheson's vampire are somewhere in between (for instance, Neville wondered "why the vampires had never set fire to his house ... was it that they were just too stupid?" (Matheson, page 98)).
Both 'Dawn of the Dead' and 'I am Legend' have tried to draw a parallel between zombies / vampires and their human counterparts. In George Romero's 1978 film 'Dawn of the Dead'; when Peter, Stephen, Roger and Francine are standing staring at the zombies who are trying to get into the mall, Fran asks "What the hell are they?" to which Peter responds "they're us."
Similarly, Neville in 'I am Legend', during one of his quests to understand vampirism, contemplates "for some affliction he didn't understand, these people were the same as he" (Matheson, page 39).
The most striking aspect of Matheson's 'I am Legend' is the rationale scientific explanation provided for vampirism. The author went to great lengths to unravel the stereotypical image of a vampire and to answer questions that plague a skeptic mind.
One of the fears evident in Matheson's work is that of nuclear holocaust. 'I am Legend' was written while cold war was ongoing between USA and USSR and the fear of nuclear war was in the back of people's minds. At one point in the novel, Neville's wife Virginia suggested "the bombings" (Matheson, page 56) as a potential cause of the plague (vampirism) that was ravaging the nation. In this context, vampires serve as a metaphor for the horrors of a nuclear war.
Another thought which is pervasive throughout the novel is Neville's yearning for companionship and the virtues of a functioning society. The irony of the situation is Neville is lonely despite being surrounded by hoards of vampires which he himself admits are "same as he". Vampires, on the other hand, despite being large in number, are still living in their own shells since they do not communicate with each other. The need for a society is further emphasized later on in the novel, as the living vampires make an effort to create their own social order by first eradicating misfits and those who threaten order such as Neville and the dead vampires.
Matheson’s presentation of the vampire in his novel I Am Legend (1953) is similar to Romero’s portrayal of the zombie in Dawn of the Dead (1978) in many aspects. They are both driven by their relentless need to consume humans. They both congregate in masses, yet they do not interact among their own kind; and they are both rather easy to kill individually. However, Matheson creates a distinction between dead and undead vampires and sticks to some of the traditional historical attributes from the vampire legends of the past. Matheson’s vampires are sensitive to sunlight, mirrors, garlic, religious symbols, stakes, and apparently running water. However, Neville distinguishes that these are psychological afflictions which have been retained by the recently deceased through memories of their former values. Similarly, in Dawn of the Dead (1978), identical dialogue is recited by both “Fly boy” and Peter, who each say that the zombies “remember that they want to be here,” to suggest that they are able to hold onto some of the familiarities from their former lives. I Am Legend, like many other works from the horror genre, offer’s a critique of humanity under apocalyptic threats. In this novel the humanity is identified by the only normal living person left on earth, which ironically makes him abnormal based on the fact that he is by far the minority. To deal with this isolation Neville resumes a series of day-to-day mundane tasks just to retain a reason to wake up each morning. Several popular cultural themes of horror genre studies are evident in this novel. Cohen states “The monster is born at this metaphoric crossroads, as an embodiment of a certain cultural moment- a time, a feeling, and a place” (4). This time, feeling, and place, was 1950’s America where the atmosphere consumed a constant feeling of vulnerability driven by the Cold War and a fear of Communism that engulfed Americans. In the novel the virus is spread by a germ that was carried through frequent dust storms, while in the real world these fears were exaggerated and mass produced by politics and news providers. Similarly, Neville recalls “Toward the end of the plague, yellow journalism had spread a cancerous dread of vampires to all corners of the nation. He could remember himself the rash pseudo-scientific articles that veiled an out-and-out fright campaign to sell papers” (115). I would assume that this is the route that media outlets of the 1950’s chose to promote the Cold War and Communism. More so, it still occurs often today and Ingebretsen has dedicated an entire text to this realization with his Monster-Making: A Politics of Persuasion. Another exploration of the novel is when a monster actually becomes a monster. This moment for Neville is the beginning of the plague when vampires begin to displace humans at an alarming rate. Cohen informs his readers that “The monster is difference made flesh, come to dwell among us” (7). However, by the end of the novel it is abundantly clear that by being the only human in a world full of Others, Neville himself has become the monster and “he knew that they were afraid of him” (169). Matheson points out “Normalcy was a majority concept, the standard of many and not the standard of just one man” (169). By becoming abnormal in his world it seized to be his world any longer. Ingebretsen reminds his audience “By locating the monstrous person at the edge of the social map, the normal center is mapped and secured as well” and “Killing the monster in as public and showy a way as possible builds a strong communal body” (26). Ruth informs Neville “They’re terrified of you, they hate you, and they want your life” (168), and that is what they take. The new “humans” of the world kill Neville (the monster), thus “ridding itself [their world] of diseased or undesirable elements” (Ingebretsen 26). This point is recognized and confirmed by Clasen when he states “Because Neville is the last member of the old race and has killed many victims of the vampire plague, he is captured and condemned to public execution” (315).
ReplyDeletePublished in 1954, I am Legend establishes the groundwork that Romero and others draw upon for decades to come. I am Legend, naturally, reflects the cultural anxieties of its times, marked by the arms race, nuclear age, and Cold War. Richard Matheson delegates explicitly voicing these concerns to Virginia, who traces the human demise to insects that mutated because of the radiation emitted after the bombings. It does not come as a surprise then that when drunk Robert Neville sarcastically justifies the vampiric cause at the beginning of hid isolation, he wonders how vampires are worse than “the parent who gave to society a neurotic child who became a politician”, or greedy gun makers who sell guns regardless of the cause, or unethical publicists (32). Indeed, while gun makers supported the arms race, politicians justified it, and media helped them. Matheson’s vampires are not Polidori’s or Stroker’s sophisticated aristocrats. Conversely, they are in transition to the zombie mode in their uncouth mass. Unlike his predecessors in the 19th century, Matheson depicts vampires as a back drop to the main protagonist. This way, the focus shifts on the victim rather than the transgressors. I am Legend carries out an intricate psychological examination of what it is like to be a human in the absence of humanity – this time its literal physical absence. Capitalizing on the post-apocalyptic devastation, Matheson reveals human aspirations and our inherent need to belong, to be a part of a social group in the introspective monologues of Robert Neville. The author even offers the psychoanalytical explanation of the mythical elements associated with vampirism like crosses and mirrors. Two decades later, we can trace the cultural progression in Romero’s The Dawn of the Dead. If Matheson’s monsters are presented as the minority, Romero’s zombies come across as the clear majority. Partially, it could be attributed to the racial question. If blacks were a minority in the 1950’s that was just starting, still feebly, carving its space on the social map, they firmly established themselves in the 1970’s after the decade of uprising and protest. Most importantly, the shift from the individual to the group, mass depiction of the monsters is due to the phenomena of mass consumerism of the 1970’s. If Matheson’s vampires, asocial in that they never talk to each other and rather circle around their victim like a pack of wolves, reflect personal isolation in a scary Cold War world, Romero intends for his zombies to embody the zombie-like consumerism affliction that is pandemic in the 1970’s despite the tragedy of the Vietnam War. Be it as it may, the parallels traceable in Matheson’s, Romero’s, and others’ monster work all lead to Cohen and Ingebretsen. Monsters are cultural products that reflect our fears, desires and establish moral and ethical borders. As the epitome of a social irritant, their staking and expulsion is critical to re-establishing our normalcy, even if it is an illusion. What is different about Matheson is that his monster that is destroyed is the human itself… After all, monstrosity is in the eye of the beholder.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that “Monsters and those who pursue them can be mistaken for each other” and as several classmates have pointed out, both Matheson and Romero at least partially focus on this premise in each of their exhibits (Ingebretsen 32). The typical viewer does not hold animosity toward Romero’s monsters, nor accuse the zombies of Night of the Living dead (1968) or Dawn of the Dead (1978) of committing crimes against humanity because they are zombies, and that is what zombies do; they eat people. However, one cannot help but to loath the coward Cooper for locking Ben out of the house, or hold a bit of contempt for the police officer who recklessly kills Ben at the end of the film. Likewise, in Dawn of the Dead (1978), from beginning to end, the character’s continually place their own selfish needs above those of others. It occurs harmlessly at the beginning of the film when the group of main characters lies by claiming that they haven’t any cigarettes when asked. It ends much more savagely when the bikers storm the mall. In the latter example both opposing groups of people act on instinct and greed to claim or protect what was never really theirs in the first place; the mall. During this climax, the reasonably enviable Peter uses a sniper rifle to kill a fleeing biker in the distance who is clearly no longer any threat at all. Peter chooses to kill another, whereas the zombies do not have a choice, only a relentless urge to feast (which supports the claim “Monsters and those who pursue them can be mistaken for each other”). In I Am Legend (Matheson 1953) Neville actually fits the description of a monster throughout the entire novel, or at least the description as defined by several authors. Cohen informs his readers that “The monster is difference made flesh, come to dwell among us” (7); and this point is recognized and confirmed by Clasen when he states “Because Neville is the last member of the old race and has killed many victims of the vampire plague, he is captured and condemned to public execution” (315). Neville, by constituting the vast minority, is “difference made flesh” but it is only after Ruth explains the way in which his victims perceive him, that he fully understands this observation. Neville may not enjoy killing vampires and from his perspective he is only trying to survive. However, from the position of the undead vampire’s who witness his daily massacres of their own species, how else could he possibly be perceived?
ReplyDeleteNeville is the most interesting monster in I Am Legend. I didn't care for the vampires on anything but a superficial level. They mark a departure from previous supernatural vampires into merely natural monsters. I suppose that could show the transition from vampires being mystical aristocrats into vampires being ordinary people.
ReplyDeleteNeville on the other hand is a very frightening monster. He's an ordinary man who's world has been turned upside down. He can't cope with the world so he lashes out as what he sees as the largest danger, the contaminated other people. Some of them are truly monstrous but he doesn't make a distinction, at all, between those and the innocents. He doesn't know. And when he finds out, he's almost happy because it means he'll be remembered. I found that to be the scariest part of all.
The interesting thing in comparing this to Dawn of the Dead is that while both deal with the protagonists being revealed as the monsters, I Am Legend has victims. In Dawn of the Dead there are only monsters, in I Am Legend there are innocent victims of Neville's brutality. A monster in a monster society is a very separate thing to a monster among civilized folk.
(The original copy of this was eaten by the interweb monsters)
I Am Legend is both somewhat of an amalgam of all of the narratives that we have encountered previously and completely unique. While it maintains familiar traits of vampire lore, for example drinking blood, death by stake, and an aversion to garlic, it also blends in what are now considered to be exclusively zombie tropes, such as the eating of flesh and mob mentality. However, what is even more interesting is the unique aspect that it brings to the genre: the psychology. This is the first work that we have seen where the audience is privy to the inner workings and failures of not just the hero, but to an extent the monster as well. Two important components of the novel that make this examination possible are the comparatively long time frame and the fact that there is only one protagonist. In other works, for example Nosferatu, the story is primarily concerned with the initial meeting of the monster and, accordingly, the chief reaction is simple fear. In other works, such as Dawn of the Dead, there are simply too many characters for an examination of each of their mental states to be possible. Because of this unique combination of elements, we are able to really see and understand the changes that Neville goes through. We witness firsthand the decay of his mind. We experience him arguing with himself and fighting to suppress his unnatural and immoral thoughts, such as his reoccurring feelings towards the female vampires at the beginning of the book. We understand and empathize with his attempts to cling to the past, as evidenced by his attention to art, films, and music. Furthermore, and even more surprisingly, we also see psychology applied to the monster. Neville describes traits such as the vampires’ fear of crosses as having a mental cause instead of a physical one. He says of becoming a vampire, “Such traumatic shocks could undo what mind was left. And such shocks could explain much” (24 of the online version). He even goes further and criticizes himself for being close minded and failing to consider the possibility of psychological motivations earlier. He says, “There was no reason, he knew, why some of the phenomena could not be physically caused, the rest psychological. And, now that he accepted it, it seemed one of those patent answers that only a blind man would miss” (23). Similarly, Matheson is implying that the audience has done the same thing with our fictional characters. We tend to simply accept the narrative without truly understanding why it is happening. We watch, for example, Night of the Living Dead and accept that Ben remains calm while Barbara becomes catatonic without ever really examining what they are thinking and what is causing them to act that way. The ability to see why and how Neville is slowly falling apart mentally makes the story much scarier. It is his internal struggle against humanity’s fundamental fears that brings realism to the narrative and allows the fantastic story to feel believable.
ReplyDelete“Come out, Neville!” yells Ben Cortman each morning, inviting the last man of the old world to join with the new, to experience the death of old perceptions and to be reborn as something new….something different. But to Robert Neville it is very obvious that the new order of things is not only different, but wrong. He will cling to this “moral” ethic until the end of the book where he is forced to see that, in fact, he is the wrong, the unethical, the monster. By his own admission, the vampires are merely victims of an infection. They are not morally responsible for their actions in the way that Robert himself is culpable. Yet by the end of the novel he has performed more reprehensible acts then the vampires. This begs the question…. Is it genetic makeup, physical characteristics, that make human’s human and monsters monster? Or does the distinction have more to do with the choices that we make? If we accept this to be true, then we must accept that each of us has the potential to make monstrous choices. In short, we could all be monsters.
ReplyDeleteLooking back over his actions, perhaps Neville might see the sign posts along his descent into monstrosity. He is at fist sickened and appalled by his own murder of the vampires that threaten him, but as the book progresses he becomes more and more inured to the violence that he, himself, afflicts upon the “other”. The fact that he is at first physically nauseated by his own actions would imply that he is violating an innate and deeply held moral belief that must be overcome before he can perform these deeds without emotional response. Throughout the book he is troubled by his physical hunger for the female vampires. Within him, his moral voice questions why he only experiments on women and if he will in the end succumb to his desire for them. “He ignored [this voice], beginning to suspect his mind of harboring an alien. Once he might have termed it conscience. Now it was only an annoyance. Morality, after all, had fallen with society. He was his own ethic.” In the absence of society with its forced adherence to basic moral standards, Neville begins to become something “other” than human. Killing, torturing, experimenting on the bodies of his victims, contemplating the rape of these victims….Neville was not at first resigned to these actions, in fact he was appalled by them, but as his choices lead him further and further away from the voice of his own conscience that voice becomes dimmer and dimmer until it nearly vanishes all together. Robert becomes a monster. And the most frightening thing about his transformation is that, clearly, the potential for him to become monstrous –the desires and tendencies that led to the choices that made him so—was always within him. Perhaps one of the greatest universal fears that Mattheson’s novel embodies is that we are ourselves the monsters, that the monsters are us. It is only our choices that prevent us from descending, like Neville, into monstrosity.
In “I Am Legend,” Richard Matheson presented two different types of vampires: the living and the dead. What is unique about the living vampires is that they are enemies of the dead vampires as well as humans. As Ruth explained to Neville, “We can’t allow the dead to exist beside the living. Their brains are impaired; they exist for only one purpose. They have to be destroyed”(155). Neville, the last of the old race also had to be destroyed, leaving the living vampires as the new society. “They are waiting for your execution,’’ Ruth told Neville. She had also warned him in the letter where she stated, “We may have to kill you and those like you.”
ReplyDeleteAnother striking characteristic of the living vampire is that they resemble both vampire and human at the same time. Ruth had to conceal her vampiric appearance by putting on make-up. She was wearing a tan to cover her whiteness when she went to seduce Robert. He noticed that Ruth looked like his wife when she had come back from the dead. He even said as much to Ruth. “She looked like – like you did. An outline, a shadow. Dead.” (All this did not stop Robert from having an intimate relationship with Ruth. He just could not control his manly urge.) The living dead also looked human. Robert considered the ones who had come to capture him as men. When they did not call him out as he had expected and started to break down his door, he was appalled and said that he was not a vampire, that he was a man like them. But they did not see him as man; to them, he had lost his humanly and humane qualities. They saw him as a monster, a beast to be destroyed for their own protection and survival. Ironically, he had become the monster and they, the slayers.
Hopelessness, few stories doom the subject to eventual failure. This I feel is the best and strongest point Matheson's apocalyptic novelette conveys. Neville’s unimaginable situation leaves him no other options, but to endure. Exhausted, he continues to press on alone in the best way he can figure given his circumstances. Matheson also provides a novel twist when it becomes clear that the living vampires are a hybrid. This adds a special dimension to our own introspection. How dare we be party to Neville and his actions? Leaving one with a sense of guilt.
ReplyDeleteWhile the majority of movies like Dawn of the Dead or Walking Dead give the viewer license to mindlessly enjoy the killing fields, Matheson identifies our lack of rights in this exploit. Difference does not provide blanket clearance for action. The masses are at the door, seeking human flesh again once again, but this time with a twist. Still with nowhere to turn, only this time with a previously unheard of option. Mutation provides the elusive door to survival.
Survival is not survival without cohorts. The only worse fate then death may in fact be survival. That was an unfortunate point of view for Neville since the option to change was available to him. It may have seemed like a worse fate then to perish, but in fact he could have continued as part of something. Ending on such a high optimistic and depressing note is a testament to Matheson’s storytelling.
Even though the infected "monsters" in I Am Legend are vampires, they bear a greater resemblance to zombies. In Dawn of the Dead and The Walking Dead, the zombies were mindless beings roaming the land with one intent, to feed off of the living. Generally when one thinks of vampires, they think of a sexy, aristocratic man who is compelling to everyone who he comes in contact with. Even though this vampire drinks the blood of humans, humans are unsuspecting. Matheson's vampires seem to be mindless because you never read of them interacting with each other. Night after night they go to Robert Nevelle's home and attempt to coax him outside so they can drink his blood. It is not until the end that the reader sees that only the dead vampires are mindless. In fact, the living vampires are in many ways more advanced than Nevelle. This realization is stunning to the reader because up until this point, it seemed like Nevelle had things under control to the best of his abilities. This is a pivotal point in the book because suddenly the tables were turned and the living vampires, who were the scary monster throughout the entire text, are actually scared and threatened by another monster, Robert Nevelle. This approach is very different than Dawn of the Dead or the Walking Dead because in both of these texts it was very clear who the monster was and at no point did this view change. Matheson makes the claim that things are not always what they seem. Because Nevelle was the sole human survivor everything was from his perspective. His thoughts and actions were absolute. Unbeknownst to him, there was an entire society being formed at night while he slept. Once he realized what had happened, he saw for himself that the living vampires were not the enemy, he was. This realization was detrimental to Nevelle and ultimately led to his demise. These feelings easily resonate with the reader because it calls into question the doubts one can have about their own life. It is quite possible that the tables can be turned on any one of us at any time.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Sarah’s interpretation of Robert Neville’s actions in “I Am Legend” where she states, “Neville begins to become something “other” than human. Killing, torturing, experimenting on the bodies of his victims, contemplating the rape of these victims…Robert becomes a monster.” I agree that Neville did kill a lot of vampires and that he experimented on them and even had sexual feelings when looking at some of the females. But did that make him a monster? While analyzing “I Am Legend” in class, many came to the conclusion that Neville was the monster to be staked for killing all those innocent infected vampires. His demise at the end of the novel seemed plausible as if it were pay back day for him – he was reaping the reward of his actions, some might have thought. I felt the same way while following the flow in class. But, upon close examination of the novel and a little profound reflection I have come up with a different point of view. I refuse to categorize Neville as a monster. In our society, one who kills in self-defense is never considered a monster. And that is what he did. Some may argue that he killed the vampires when they were defenseless, while in their sleep. But would it not have been suicidal if he had waited for them to be awake to attack them? Could one man annihilate a mob of vicious flesh eaters? He had no choice but to kill for protection and self-preservation.
ReplyDeleteNeville had no way of knowing that there were two categories of vampires – the living and the dead. There had not been any real interaction between them. To him, they were the unknown to be feared. They were all flesh eaters and blood suckers that hunted him by night and that he hunted by day. He thought that they were all like his dead wife who had come back with the intention of drinking his blood. He tried to keep her, he said, but she was not the same. In spite of that he tried to find a cure to help the others and even carried a few to his makeshift lab in order to run test on them. It was not his intention to be a mass murderer. His situation demanded it.
Neville was humane and soft hearted. He cringed to see the way the infected men killed the other vampires. As he watched them he thought, “Did they have to do it like this, with such a black and brutal slaughtering? Why did they slay with alarum by night, when by day the vampires could be dispatched in peace?” Here we have it! This is why Neville killed the vampires in their sleep during the day; to prevent them from experiencing the agony of a second death. He wanted them to go in peace, painless. He did not take pleasure in killing as the living vampires did. Neville said that there was “pure joy” on the faces of the men who came to capture him. He noticed this when they were killing the dead vampires in front of his house. He called these men gangsters. Ruth said that they were assigned killers, legal killers who were respected and admired for their killings. Ruth called them a revolutionary group – repossessing society by violence. Her excuse was, “new societies are always primitive.” Does this mean that their actions are permissible? I utterly disagree. If their actions are to be condoned then so are Neville’s. It was a new situation for him too and he was scared. Ruth understood him and therefore pitied him. She tried to help him up to the very end, knowing that his monstrous killings were just a way to preserve his life. As Neville put it, he killed only to survive (155). (Sorry, but someone has to root for the underdog.)
Is isolation the very monstrous incarnation in Matheson’s novel I am Legend? In the novel the end of human race, as we know it, occur and Robert Neville is the last man on earth trying to defeat the new inhabitants of this planet. These monsters are a new “humanistic” kind, something between vampires and zombies, who have an uncontrollable desire for Neville’s blood. However, Matheson little care about the vampires’ society, their reality and how they survive. Through the narration of these apocalyptic moments Matheson focuses on how Neville straggles to survive in his isolated reality and his attempts to maintain the basic human traditions. But Neville’s house become his prison, and although theoretically he is free to perform his everyday habits, like driving his car or fixing his house, the truth is that he maintains totally imprisoned in a world where vampires set the rules. In the end, after all this cruelty Neville has gone trough, he ends up being even more monstrous than his enemies are. I believe that Matheson’s narration reflects all the changes inside the man’s head that could happen when he left all by himself trying to survive in a new unfamiliar planet. Isolation is the biggest fear of Neville and although he could not see it, is loneliness which turns him into a monster and which is his biggest obstacle when he is trying to confront the vampires. From the other hand, the later, having form their new society, they are totally capable of finding the pill that keeps then in life and solve their surviving problems. People where never meant to be alone and isolated, and no one can deal with ultimate silence more that a few minutes or even seconds. In silence, the well-hidden fears struck the mind violently with no mercy, and the monstrous person awakes. Loneliness is the monster that people fighting from the very first moment of their life, and till now we well have achieved to keep it away. However Neville was the unlucky one how cannot save the day in the end.
ReplyDeleteResponse to Alexandra's comment.
ReplyDeleteAlexandra G. points out the unique aspect I am Legend brought to our monster discourse – the psychology. Indeed, despite being the amalgam to Romero’s work (or vice versa if to account for the works’ temporal relationship), I am Legend carries out a rather intricate introspective analysis of human demise. Besides the transparent psychological lens, Richard Matheson also incorporates an evolutionary perspective on the human downfall. Clasen, when analyzing I am Legend, brings evolution into our focus. He claims that nature has programmed us to fear “things dangerous to our evolutionary past” (316) and selected for decoupled cognition in humans so that they would be able to form imaginative scenarios. Therefore, it is evolution that made I am Legend possible in that the novel capitalizes on our decoupled cognition and our inherent fear of such potential threats as fangs and teeth in order to unfold the post-apocalyptic vampiric realities in all their scariness. Other than forming the novel’s foundation, evolution also appears throughout the book as the evident reason for the human plight. Just like nature has previously selected for humans, it is now selecting for vampires. As presented by Matheson, the selection takes place on both biological – the Vampiris bacteria selects against humans that have no immunity for it – and psychological levels. It is then no coincidence that Clasen deemed his critique of Matheson’s work as “biocultural”. Clasen reveals the cultural, psychological aspect of natural selection in the loneliness factor that does not favor the human kind. He points out that humans cannot survive in isolation, “We depend on other people not just for reproduction and survival, but for psychological and emotional growth and fulfillment” (320). Therefore, by presenting I am Legend, in part, as an introspective monologue of Robert Neville, Matheson not only unfolds the biological process of germ infection that leads to human extinction but also depicts the psychological, cultural needs of humans for company that are not being met. Although Robert Neville withstands the biological threat since he is immune to the Vampiris, the psychological challenge truly probes his resilience. Like Neville who is immune to the Vampiris, the living vampires managed to defy the biological aspect of natural selection when they found the disease inhibiting pill. Unlike Neville, they are a group, and that is what ultimately allows for their survival since the isolation threat does not apply to them. Possessing the pill and living together, the living vampires are resistant to the environmental challenge on both levels. Therefore, they form a new species. Other than the infection with Vampiris, the speciation process is evident in the interaction barriers that have been established between the human race and the living vampires. The latter only come out at night, and human activities take place during the day. Such temporal separation prevented Neville from ever noticing the immune vampires that existed nearby the whole time. Meanwhile, the living vampires made significant progress as the newly emerged species in that they adapted to the new environment further when they came up with a way to survive short sunlight exposure. Other than biological adaptation, they progressed psychologically also when they formed the new society with its hierarchy and moral code. Thus changed environment caused the extinction of human species and the emergence and adaptation of the new species of the living vampires. Natural selection through the biological and cultural, psychological factors selected for the transition from Homo sapiens to Homo vampiris. As such, I am Legend could supplement a biology course on evolution as its literary interpretation.
In response to howell.a ….I’m sorry I can’t put a face with this name! ….. you make a very compelling argument and I am almost moved to agreement.
ReplyDeleteHere is an interesting parallel which seems to support your view. I was reading an online news article the other day and in the “comments” section at the bottom someone had made a comment about soldiers in the military. The author of this comment implied that soldiers were murderers and were morally responsible for the lives that they took, regardless of the situations in which they were compelled to these actions. I was horrified by this remark. It seemed incredibly ignorant and self-righteous to consider men that kill in the line of duty “monsters”. We have all known, talked to, loved veterans of various wars and most of us would consider them heros. Yet if they performed the same actions in the civilian sector they WOULD be monsters. The difference is two fold---one, the situation, and two, the motivation. Clearly, there is a case to be made for situational ethics. The difference seems to be that soldiers kill in self-defense, one, out of a sense of duty, two, and to accomplish specific other-centered goals, three, rather than for the joy of killing. As you describe, Neville’s killings seem to fit under the umbrella of these situational ethics. I would be interested in hearing Richards remarks on this because I don’t really know what I’m talking about here. I’m just throwing this out there as a possible parallel to your argument.
All the same, I think what Mattheson is trying to do is to provoke this sort of debate. Clearly, there is something to be said on both sides. I honestly don’t know what I would do if I found myself in Neville’s situation….but I can tell you what I would do if someone broke into my house and tried to hurt my kid. That’s why I own a gun. Which perhaps is, in itself, an answer to the question.
Here’s a second question, though. What if I found out that the person who I just killed as an intruder was actually my brother-in-law coming in with his spare key, and not someone who deserved to die at all. Perhaps no one would blame me…(I bet his wife and kids would.) But you can bet that I would consider myself guilty of murder. You can bet that once I understood the full scope of my actions I would judge myself as someone who didn’t wait to ascertain the truth of the situation before I acted with violence. I would consider myself a monster. It might have been a legitimate mistake…Neville obviously didn’t realize the truth of the situation….but not even Neville can deny at the end of the book that he has done monstrous things.
I agree with Audrey and Sarah that Neville is not a monster. Although, as many people have pointed out, he does have some typical characteristics, he doesn’t posses these to the extent that would be necessary for him to truly be a monster. We have fallen into the habit of describing any bad guy as a monster, when these are not the same thing. Neville is not inherently evil; he is only a normal person in a horrible situation that acts in a terrible, yet understandable way. When Ruth tells him, “They’re terrified of you, Robert, they hate you. And they want your life” (35) she is describing how the vampires have fallen into the trap that Ingebretsen describes. In “Monster Making”, Ingebretsen claims that for us to call all villains monsters is irresponsible and ultimately makes it impossible for us to understand them. The example that he gives is Jeffrey Dahmer, saying, “However horrible Dahmer’s actions might be, dealing with him as if he were a celluloid creature from late night fright TV is neither ethically sound nor intellectually promising” (3). He also quotes Joseph Grixti, who said about Ted Bundy “The imagery employed… derives unmistakably from the literary genres of fantasy and horror fiction. The passages do not add much to our understanding” (3). Although Neville has committed horrible crimes against them, the vampires fail to even attempt to understand why. They do not consider that are many villains, both in real life and in fiction that we can sympathize with without forgiving.
ReplyDeleteSarah raises a very good point by discussing soldiers. Another, real life example can be found in the battered woman defense. This is when a victim of domestic violence murders their abuser and asks the court to find them not guilty because of their mental condition. While most people would still not forgive the murder, they might accept that the woman was not responsible and would generally never go so far as to call her a monster. Examples of other sympathetic villains can also be seen in pop culture, one of which being Darth Vader. Although he is undeniably evil, learning about his history and why he made the choices that he did fosters an understanding in the viewer. There is an entire trilogy devoted to him turning to the dark side in a desperate attempt to save his wife’s life and then becoming corrupted by guilt and sadness. Even in the original trilogy, where his motives are still unclear, by the end of Empire Strikes Back, the audience feels sorry for him and is happy to see his redemption. This trope of the somewhat likable antagonist is not new, it can be seen as far back as Frankenstein. While he turns violent and ends up committing murder, it is out of a horrible loneliness and not genuine malice. He only strikes out initially when provoked and his original killing is accidental. The audience is accordingly able to pity him and, to some extent, does not blame him for his actions. These are all examples of people who commit crimes, which themselves may be unforgivable, but are still understandable. Neville is no different.
To simply call Neville a monster would belittle much of the novel’s meaning. Matheson is asking us to reconsider what it truly means to be a monster. By originally portraying all of the vampires as evil, he lures us into a false sense of security and makes us believe we are seeing things clearly. Then he changes everything by revealing that they are in fact caring and compassionate. However, he is not insinuating that Neville is really a monster, but that there might not be any true monsters. With the last lines of the novel, Neville is not admitting that he is truly a villain; just that he has become the myth of one. He is saying that the vampires are making the same mistake that he did by categorizing him without understanding. The book is, after all, called “I Am Legend” and not “I Am Monster.”
@howell: You say that Neville isn't a monster, that his ignorance excuses his crime. This works for a bit, it's unfair to label someone a monster for when they happen to feel sexual attraction. Experimenting on the bodies of the dead is a legitimate scientific practice going back to Leonardo de Vinici. What ends up making him a monster is that he doesn't care. He goes around killing vampires, alive and dead, seeing things that imply that there is a difference, and doesn't think. The fact that he doesn't consider the possibility that these creatures are deserving of more than summery execution is what makes him a monster. This isn't some academic failing of rigorous thought, it led to the deaths of many innocent people. He showed up in “town” at “night” and carried people out to their deaths. This is the action of a monster. He's not even an interesting monster, he doesn't have the nuance of the Vampyre, the social metaphor of the zombie, the introspective angst of the werewolf. He just shows up to kill people for no reason, with no motive.
ReplyDeleteActually this seems like a idea to explore. How would a scholar in the world of I Am Legend, fifty years after the story takes place look at the legends of Neville? He's too horrible to be real, he would have his own legend and could be looked at the way we look at Dracula. He could be viewed by the new society as the horror of the old society, any aspect from racial prejudice, nuclear war, or the dangers of trying to hold on to the past in a new time with new problems. He could be seen as a cautionary tale to deal with the newly dangerous sun. Maybe even as a sexual predator, given how he was caught and how he died.
In addressing the seemingly most provocative point in this blog, I would like to state that I do not think that Neville can be truly regarded as a monster. However, I would argue that Neville is also not entirely a non-monster. Indeed, both terms are far too vague and broad in describing the gradual transition that occurs within Neville throughout the story. As such, I can not view him in such black/white terms. There is a vast area of gray space in between, and throughout the story, as Neville responds to his surroundings, he gradually moves within this gray area. Thus, the Neville that we encounter at the very beginning is by no means the Neville that we are left with.
ReplyDeleteA number of my classmates have discussed the role of ignorance in determining Neville's guilt or lack thereof. Though this is certainly an interesting question for further analysis and consideration, I could not help but think of the zombies depicted in Dawn of the Dead. In numerous scenes, the zombies come across as confused, sad and almost frightened. Their appearance in no way suggests that they are capable of making rational decisions. However, though they are certainly not mentally aware, few would argue that they are not monsters.
This is not related to the blog prompt but I saw this and thought of poor Neville. Someone decided that they wanted to create a zombie proof house made entirely out of retractable concrete that is only accessible by a 2nd story drawbridge. I am still trying to decide if the photos are real but I thought it was fun and wanted to share it with all of you.
ReplyDeletehttp://all-that-is-interesting.com/post/4956385434/the-first-zombie-proof-house
If Neville lived here, things would have been different for him!