Metaphors Of The Undead

By Author: emaly su
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One reason zombie films are so frightening, and perhaps so popular, is because zombies represent a unique type of monster. Rather than frightening us because they are so alien to the world as we understand it, zombies are horrifying in how closely they resemble us.

Zombies are people and represent the potential of zombie characteristics in everyone, which is simultaneously scary and revealing. I posed a question to my classes, wondering aloud why zombies, having existed as cinematic monsters for nearly a century, are as frightening as they are.

Almost immediately students mentioned the situation of Barbra, one of the first characters we see in Night of the Living Dead, who goes mad and reverts to a childlike state after experiencing a zombie attack on herself and her brother, Johnny. Johnny succumbs to the zombie ...
... while trying to protect his sister, leaving Barbra to seek shelter in a nearby farmhouse.

For my students, this raised two issues in particular. The first dealt with the behavior of Barbra, who had trouble even driving a car to get away from the zombie that had killed her brother. During the film, students reacted vocally to Bar-bra's ineptitude at taking care of herself and her exhibition of the clichéd horror trope of running and screaming.

At one point, after entering the farmhouse that serves as the setting for the rest of the movie, Barbra runs to the second story of the home, only to be jeered by one student with "Not upstairs! Why do they always run upstairs?" At the end of the movie, when Barbra falls victim to the zombi-fied version of Johnny, another student remarked on the irony of the situation, how Barbra's brother died trying to save her from a zombie only to become one and kill her himself.

The issue of Barbra's behavior obligated students to examine a deeper level of meaning in zombie entertainment. While initially confident that they would never react as Barbra did, my students gradually came to the conclusion that, if faced with the reality of a zombie sibling as Barbra was at the end of the film, they likely would have stopped thinking rationally as well.

One student insightfully noted that a character having to "kill" an un-dead family member is a common occurrence in zombie narratives (including / Am Legend). This comment led to a discussion of the relative nature of dealing with real-life horrors.

It was easy for my students to defy typical behavior when the monster they envisioned was anonymous, no matter how human they seemed to have been at one point. However, when a character has been given some back story or is otherwise presented in a sympathetic light, it changes the perspective of those students who were initially steeled in their commitment to zombie annihilation.

The second issue that was raised by examining Barbra's behavior was tied closely to / Am Legend. Robert Neville realizes, at the end of his life, that he will be a legend to the newly rising society in much the way vampires had been to him before the apocalyptic events in the book. This was a powerful lesson on the impact of perspective in how we see the world.

Regarding the movie, my students were initially derisive toward near-catatonic Barbra when comparing her to the more level-headed Ben. This derision quickly dissipated, however, when a more sympathetic student brought to our attention the plight of Barbra, arguing that she couldn't be expected to be as detached as Ben was. In this student's view, Ben could be cool-headed as he did not have any personal attachments to any of the zombies. Ben saw the zombies as the audience would, as strangers who were out to kill him.

Whatever conflict Ben experiences, knowing that these zombies were once living humans, is outweighed by the fact that they now are not living and want to eat him. Barbra, my student argued, was stunned by the trauma of her brother's death and further driven to madness when he shows up at the front door of the farmhouse, devoid of recognition for his sibling and intent only on feeding. Barbra had developed, argued the student, a different perspective.