The Evolution of the Zombie

The Evolution of the Zombie

There is nothing so typically terrifying, nothing that so perfectly contains all the characteristics of the nightmare, of revulsion, and very little that has the same history in horror and Gothic as the zombie. The zombie is the perfect embodiment of the abject; a term coined and developed by literary critic, Julia Kristeva. According to her the abject represents anything that is removed from or situated outside the symbolic order, and being forced to face it is an inherently traumatic experience. This includes such things as a corpse, along with rot and excrement, reminds a person of their own fragile mortality.


Interesting post all about zombie history,both real and make believe.

The Zombie has many links to what Gustav LeBon called "The Crowd", his 18th Century book studying and describing the actions and reasoning behind rioters, the angry mob, etc. These can also help expose the reasoning why people are so willing to release the pressures of decision making and control of their own lives to join a cult, religion, army, or gang. It's why stable and unassuming people joined the Manson Family, the Branch Davidians or the 3rd Reich; why these people were able to be convinced into doing inhuman things as a crowd or group, which subsequently releases the individual of personal responsibility. It's not one person dragging the handicapped, Jews, gypsys and homosexuals into gas-chambers, it was the group. It wasn't one person killing and raping children and then poisoning themselves, it was the group. The zombie is the representation of the unassuming person, who is capable of doing terrible things when they are immersed in a group of like-minded people who also have little willpower. We assume those people must be dead inside to simply go with flow of the crowd and follow the words and urging of one captivating person like a prophet or a dictator. In the case of the zombie, we actually make them dead so we can empathize with their horrendous actions, with the living we don't.