To many, the end of October is a time of corn mazes, costume parties, and haunted houses. Many cultures celebrate harvest festivals during October, though none are as well-known as Halloween. Because Halloween is primarily descended from the Celtic festival of Samhain, when some think of Halloween, they think of bats and cats and witches. However, although Halloween as it is currently know is a wholly American creation with regional rituals handed down by generations, it did not become a “full-blown American holiday” until the turn of the century (Bannatyne). Because of the contemporary nature of Halloween, without Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Sylvia Plath’s “Lady Lazarus”, and George A. Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead, the holiday as we…
Where did our twenty-first century incarnations of the zombie come from, and how did they develop as time elapsed? James Parker’s “Our Zombies, Ourselves” discusses several of the past and present zombies, their stereotypical designs, and how different medias portray society’s definition of a zombie. One of the first subjects Parker covers is that of society’s preconception of the undead. We, and apparently everyone else dating back to the early 1900s, imagine the zombie as abysmally lethargic, with greyed skin, mutilated limbs, and an unending desire to consume living flesh. Parker regales the reader with a tale of the zombie’s evolution through poetry, books, movies, television, and even songs.…
From television to novels to haunted houses, these monsters have become an influence not only in the realms of fantasy but in reality. The intrigue for these monsters comes not from the scares they provide, but rather how they mirror the lives of people across the world. Through his essay, My Zombie, Myself, Chuck Klosterman is able to effectively utilize allusions, anecdotes, and figurative language while exploring how the image of the zombie is embedded into society in order to illustrate how the lives of people in reality is not that far from the lives of those in the midst of the…
The purpose of this memorandum I to address the outbreak of Ghost Zombie Randolph Hall at Miskatonic University at Arkham Massachusetts to President Algernan Black. A ghost Zombie is a dead person that is being back to life through means of witchcraft. Most people including myself are affected by this outbreak. Recent attack, which sitting in the lunch area, I hear a loud noise coming from the classroom behind me.…
Warm Bodies: A Metaphor of Materialism’s Effect On People Warm Bodies by Issac Marion describes a world where humans coexist with zombies. In the novel, people are turning into zombies for unknown reasons. These zombies do not feel anything but hunger and mostly do not aware of the world around them. Issac Marion uses the zombie genre to represent the materialistic world and suggests that materialism is self-destructive because materialists are more likely to be selfish, insensitive and unhappy.…
The book Slaughterhouse Five and the poem “Requiem”,both by Kurt Vonnegut feature the destructiveness of war as a prevalent theme. Both works address this theme in different ways. It is addressed more literally and explored more in depth in Slaughterhouse Five due to the nature of it being a book and having more length to explore its themes. In “Requiem” the theme is addressed more metaphorically and in ways that are more open to interpretation. In addition to this, the way the theme is presented in the poem has many similarities with the way it’s presented in the book, and in many cases,reinforces these themes and shed more light on Vonnegut’s point of view.…
Though zombies are becoming more mainstream, the history of it will never change. As Amy Wilentz stated in "A Zombie is a Slave Forever" the zombie is scary in different kinds of ways. But the history of a slave is much more scary. Imagine not being able to be in control of your own body.…
. “Now,” said the demon, in a voice that carried with it no sorrow, no relish, only a dreadful flat resignation, “you will be tortured.” Like this quote, the voice of the demon is created through simple, short sentences but very descriptive. These descriptions are not what we usually think of hell because other readings and movies have embedded the image of hell as flames all around you while you are burning for your sins. Gaiman decided to go against this approach and decided to describe hell as empty with no flames, just you sitting there with only the demon while you are tortured by having to live through your sins again.…
Riley’s five main concepts in this article are is it ok to bear arms on a zombie, what if zombies were intelligent, to “love your zombie neighbor”, brain addiction the same as drug addiction and Zombie’s justice. Brendan Riley begins…
Shawn McIntosh’s essay, “The Evolution of the Zombie: The Monster That Keeps Coming Back,” ends by suggesting that the reason why zombies, although they are not the most frightening of the monster genre, made their way to being an iconic entity in our imaginations because of the way they comment on the events that are happening during their times and the need to go against societal rules. He also goes on to further imply that even in that kind of chaotic mentality, we find comfort in the sense of “community” that zombies and the idea of zombie apocalypse can give. The author uses historical examples from Haitian “voudoun”, cinematic icons such as “Night of the Living Dead,” and discusses the popularity of zombies in mainstream media pop-culture.…
Rotting, undead creatures walking the earth with only one primal thought and purpose, to eat and kill the living—this is a typical depiction of zombies and their behavior. The kind of zombie who strikes fear in the hearts of the living because the zombies threaten their very existence, way of life, and everything they’ve ever known. But what if there was more to the undead than meets the eye? Imagine zombies that could think and speak and act upon desires other than eating the flesh of the living. The human spirit is not easily killed and because of this resilience, a zombie’s innermost desires and tendencies can remain intact, allowing it to defy typical zombie behavior.…
There are many times when us as humans use the offensive term, “you look like a zombie!” But why exactly do we use this term? How does it relate to the subjected person? When we say that someone is acting like a zombie, I assume you can guess it doesn’t mean that they’re stumbling around trying to eat brains. The statement is actually referring to their appearance, such as if they have messy hair or bags under their eyes from staying up too late the night before, or their behaviors, such as if they’re moping around and walking slow.…
A zombie is “a person or reanimated corpse that has been turned into a creature capable of movement but not of rational thought, which feeds on human flesh.” (Oxford) In the event of a zombie outbreak or apocalypse it would be quite difficult for a person to survive, even for a very short period of time. A person would need to take a large number of variables into consideration in order to survive. He or she would need to have a fair amount of equipment, food, shelter, weaponry, and various bits of knowledge if they wanted to live.…
Zombies are a new hit wonder that is starting to make a difference in people’s opinions as to what their favorite monster is. The author is circulating the argument that zombies are the best monster in today’s society. The reason behind this is because we are intrigued by the idea of people coming back from the dead and living forever. Klosterman brings in statistics and evidence to support his claim that on television it is very popular because over 5.3 million people were viewing the pilot episode. (40)…
During this time, you saw the first movies from big names like Steven Spielberg with Jaws, Brain de Palma with Carrie from the famous novel from Stephen King. Then later came the independent films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween 1978. After the success of the Halloween movie studios backed slasher films like Friday the 13th in 1980 and Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. In the 1980’s came new technology, with special effects that brought horror into a new level. Now with latex, foam and animatronics movies like Alien, The Thing, An American Werewolf in London and Howling now could be seen in full color close-ups.…