1) This novel is considered to be a precursor to many zombie films. What is zombie like about the monsters?
What aspects of human nature might zombies represent more generally?
2) What
other monsters have we encountered that remind you of these
vampire/zombies?
3) How might our understanding of the monsters shift if the POV of the novel was not Neville's?
4)
What kind of person is Robert Neville? How does his personality and
identity possibly affect our view of the monsters in the novel?
5) What is the relationship between beliefs/perception and monsters? Please re-read page 17 and then respond.
“Fear
is probably the key word in Matheson’s work, and the defining affective
feature of horror fiction. It is a striking fact of human anxiety that
the things we fear are non-randomly distributed: humans acquire fear not
just of any old thing, but of things dangerous in our evolutionary
past. That does not mean that we are born pre-programmed with a
completely inflexible fear system. Like so many other human capacities
(such as language), the innate fear system depends on interaction with
the environment for its development and optimal functioning."
No comments:
Post a Comment