James Parker Our Zombies Ourselves Analysis

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. He gives the reader a front-row seat to precisely how the imagination of a few leads to a singular image in the common mind. Through seemingly disjointed methods, Parker portrays a strikingly entertaining piece filled with narrative development …show more content…
Parker not only shows the immortality of the zombie in fictitious mediums, but he does so while keeping the audience entertained throughout the essay with bits of humor and pop culture references. He also utilizes the human mind’s lack of analytical comprehension while reading to structure his essay in a truly unique way. By using a narrative development, Parker shows the importance of zombies within the modern world, through societal mentality and personal emotion. Lastly, linguistic characteristics such as informal diction and slang, similes and metonymies, as well as repetitive emphasis allow Parker to emotionally affect his audience in order to make the essay more enjoyable to read, as well as to better describe and support his points. Nevertheless, the essay became slightly too informal to be treated as a proper descriptive analysis, and cannot be seen as anything more than a sensationalized version of a semi-scholarly