Sympathy For Living, From The Dead To our knowledge the modern zombie has no consciousness, it’s somewhere in between alive and dead, walking around with a need to feed on human flesh with no parallel to the person the body used to belong to. Mike Carey’s zombie is much different, Nick is essentially still conscious but no longer eats, breaths or sleeps and his existence is basically meaningless. The story revels how this man, a stockbroker with no sense of community or companionship finds his way back to humanity after becoming a zombie. He meets a woman named Janine and she gives him this sense of community that changes something inside of him. There are three major turning points where Nick starts feeling sympathy for Janine, and his humanity slowly gets restored.
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He heard a noise and turned on his camera to find Janine. She was looking close to death, sitting in a corner with chapped lips and three layers of clothes on, he knew she had to have been homeless. It’s Nick’s reaction to this event that is prominent in his recovery to humanity. “ I could just let her die” (236) was the first thought that entered his mind. “I could open up the doors to let her back out the way she’d come, but she might be too weak to move…..If I opened the doors someone could get in. Safer just to leave her” (239) these emotions at first glance seem selfish, it appears he is only worried about himself, as the stories continues we come to understand that Nick’s actions were not solely based on his own needs. We learn that he comes to care about her and her well being, indicating he always felt sympathetic to her, he never truly considering leaving her to
He heard a noise and turned on his camera to find Janine. She was looking close to death, sitting in a corner with chapped lips and three layers of clothes on, he knew she had to have been homeless. It’s Nick’s reaction to this event that is prominent in his recovery to humanity. “ I could just let her die” (236) was the first thought that entered his mind. “I could open up the doors to let her back out the way she’d come, but she might be too weak to move…..If I opened the doors someone could get in. Safer just to leave her” (239) these emotions at first glance seem selfish, it appears he is only worried about himself, as the stories continues we come to understand that Nick’s actions were not solely based on his own needs. We learn that he comes to care about her and her well being, indicating he always felt sympathetic to her, he never truly considering leaving her to