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. The analysis of the stories The Third Dead Body, Sex, Death and Starshine,
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They may share similar physical attributes, but they are led by personal desires. In The Third Dead Body by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, a prostitute named Tawanda wakes up and realizes she has been murdered by her last customer, Richie. She understands that she is dead even though she can walk and speak. She has an overwhelming desire to find Richie because after what he did to her, she can’t help but long for him. Clive Barker’s Sex, Death and Starshine is centered around a group of actors and the director of the play Twelfth Night. The main actress Diane, who is sleeping with the director, is not a good fit for the role and an undead actress, Constantia, desires her part. The Skull-faced Boy by David Barr Kirtley is about Jack and Dustin who are no ordinary zombies. They know what they are, they can speak, and operate very much the same way as the living. Jack is more in tuned with living and is in love with a girl named Ashley, who he wishes to save and protect from the dead, but his friend Dustin has embraced his undead side and yearns for power and control, and he loves Ashley …show more content…
Some of the characters may have experienced head trauma that resulted in their death, but nothing severe enough to damage the frontal lobe. With the frontal lobe intact, the reanimated zombies retained their cognitive skills, which enabled them to think, reason, and speak, as well retain their memories and emotions. It is quite plausible that the longer the zombie lives, the more their body would rot, and therefore their cognitive skills would slowly start to diminish, hinted in the Skull-Faced Boy because the zombies that rose from the grave had much lesser cognitive abilities than those who had just died. In Sex, Death and Starshine, the body began to rot first, unless the body had been embalmed, like in Constantia’s case. This is how Constantia retained her stunningly beautiful appearance. Litchfield and the other characters in the stories, on the other hand, were not embalmed (Barker, p. 165). Although those who rose from the grave in the Skull-Faced Boy would have been embalmed before they were buried, the body decomposes over time, so the longer a person had been dead, the more their flesh and brain would have succumbed to rotting. Since Constantia was apparently embalmed but never buried, her body and appearance remained whole.
The second factor that links The Third Dead Body, Sex, Death and Starshine, and The Skull-Faced Boy is that the main zombie characters had human aspirations
They may share similar physical attributes, but they are led by personal desires. In The Third Dead Body by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, a prostitute named Tawanda wakes up and realizes she has been murdered by her last customer, Richie. She understands that she is dead even though she can walk and speak. She has an overwhelming desire to find Richie because after what he did to her, she can’t help but long for him. Clive Barker’s Sex, Death and Starshine is centered around a group of actors and the director of the play Twelfth Night. The main actress Diane, who is sleeping with the director, is not a good fit for the role and an undead actress, Constantia, desires her part. The Skull-faced Boy by David Barr Kirtley is about Jack and Dustin who are no ordinary zombies. They know what they are, they can speak, and operate very much the same way as the living. Jack is more in tuned with living and is in love with a girl named Ashley, who he wishes to save and protect from the dead, but his friend Dustin has embraced his undead side and yearns for power and control, and he loves Ashley …show more content…
Some of the characters may have experienced head trauma that resulted in their death, but nothing severe enough to damage the frontal lobe. With the frontal lobe intact, the reanimated zombies retained their cognitive skills, which enabled them to think, reason, and speak, as well retain their memories and emotions. It is quite plausible that the longer the zombie lives, the more their body would rot, and therefore their cognitive skills would slowly start to diminish, hinted in the Skull-Faced Boy because the zombies that rose from the grave had much lesser cognitive abilities than those who had just died. In Sex, Death and Starshine, the body began to rot first, unless the body had been embalmed, like in Constantia’s case. This is how Constantia retained her stunningly beautiful appearance. Litchfield and the other characters in the stories, on the other hand, were not embalmed (Barker, p. 165). Although those who rose from the grave in the Skull-Faced Boy would have been embalmed before they were buried, the body decomposes over time, so the longer a person had been dead, the more their flesh and brain would have succumbed to rotting. Since Constantia was apparently embalmed but never buried, her body and appearance remained whole.
The second factor that links The Third Dead Body, Sex, Death and Starshine, and The Skull-Faced Boy is that the main zombie characters had human aspirations