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Maxwell Fishman
Professor Barnhart
English 113B
11/23/2015
Humanities Zombie Apocalypse
"Every act of creation is an act of destruction" a phrase said by the famous Pablo Picasso,
is the perfect way to explain how humanity's own wish to be more comes at steep price. In this
particular case we have seen a constant variable, whether it be from war, curiosity, or even the
act to cure the imparities humanity has. Through a person's corrupt thoughts and ideals brought a
form of humanity this is deemed both monstrous and grotesque creature, one that is an undying
creature that takes the form of our loved ones or closest friends, the zombie, and yet while being
a monster it is also the best representation of our strife during the process of creation.
Humanity sees the zombie as nothing more than a mindless, slow moving creature but in
the eyes of philosophers and those who question humanity itself have also deemed zombies as a
darker side of humanity, the aftermath of projects and the attempt of learning something we are
simply not yet ready to handle and try to mold it to use against our fellow man, they see zombies
as a form of humanities own self destruction. It is always apparent throughout every zombie
representation that it is never from aliens simply toying with humanity or some kind of a space
anomaly that crashed into our planet, no it is because humanity always takes things to far or
because of the mistake of one sole person that causes the death of our world. The best examples

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of this would come from such movies as 28 Days Later and Fido as both have a somewhat
recurring theme of what happens when we attempt something we clearly don't understand.
Both of these movies have human intervention in both however the ideas of the people
themselves is completely opposite from each other. 28 Days Later is a movie wrapped in a
certain mystery revolving around what "Rage" really was, all we know about it is it causes
intense anger and hatred and it spreads like a virus. This is a very interesting virus as it is a truth
for the world we currently live in, hatred breeds more hatred and the more potent it is the faster it
spreads. Our history seems connected to this in more ways than one as our wars seem to closely
resemble what "Rage" in 28 Days Later really was about, nothing more than hatred and anger
towards one another.
We can actually see this in our real world wars an example would be the world's battle
against ISIS, while we have seen the terrors they can bring they also have brought out an intense
amount of hatred towards Syrians, and the followers of Islam as a whole. This act of hatred
however is far older then what people of today believes as this anger was forming back during
the terrible reign of Osama Bin Laden's regime Al-Qaeda. This hate brings the destruction of not
only our forces and theirs, but to also innocent civilians from our guided attacks with France
onto their rigs and trucks to their attacks of our own allies and the threat of how are their own
people have entered the U.S. and are preparing for a joint strike on our own land. Our battles do
nothing more than spread anger and hatred now and I feel this is an undertone that 28 Days Later
tries to show us.
As stated earlier Rage is not really explained in the movie however we have learned that
it is a virus that causes the host to go into a form of uncontrollable anger and tries to spread the

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virus among other hosts in the nearby vicinity. Supposedly, we tried to isolate and find a way to
use Rage as a drug to control one's own Rage. Unfortunately the virus broke out due to the
"righteous" acts of animal rights activists who decided to release infected chimpanzees into the
world (not before falling to the Rage virus) and causing a new age of apocalypse that swept
across all of Great Britain. The virus Rage shows that human emotions cannot simply be
contained by some sort of inhibitor, this idea that humanity can be controlled through a form of
drug caused the destruction of all of Great Britain twice, however is all of it simply because of
some activists attempt to right the inhumane circumstances, no it is also simply from the fact that
humanity went too far in its attempt to make us something we are not and trying to change us.
Now what if the apocalypse happened and the aftermath brought us our own servants, but those
servants were drooling undead neighbors and family?
This brings another form of self destruction as not only do we have death literally serving
us our steaks, but also with these servants tending to our every whim it makes humanity
lethargic, lazy, and unprepared for such outbreaks to occur within their walls. This example
comes from "Fido" a comical movie that makes some very accurate points. Society inside the
movie brings a sense of happiness and fun, but beyond the veil lies a more sinister turn of events.
Humanity goes at it yet again but only this time they try and enslave a natural disaster, a warring
tide where our only protection is nothing more than a collar that can literally be disabled by a
hammer which, in all honesty seemed like a terrible design flaw if they wanted to be sure they
avoided getting their faces bitten off.
The organization known as Zomcon saw opportunity and profit in a threat that nearly
consumed the world and caused humanity to be caged on its own land, but who wouldn't want a
slave of your dead relatives right? These ideas of trying to use the dead as a form of slave caused

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the near downfall of the town of Willard all in the name of profit and to shield the fact that we
are still in the constant fear of being consumed by a far greater force then we can handle. To
make matters worse social standing derive from how many zombies one owns which while
increases your number of friends and how much respect you have also means a higher
probability that you will be down a face by next morning. This has been shown in more than one
occasion throughout the movie as people simply believe they are better than zombies all because
they are protected by the almighty collar the zombies wear around their necks.
Once the small outbreak actually begins we see how humanities survival skills have taken
a drastic dive as a mere few zombies overwhelmed a police force who are supposedly trained to
stop a zombie threat were quite easily overwhelmed and consumed in a matter of moments.
These are the finest our town has to offer they will protect and serve is what some may say, and
if they can't provide there is always our great boy scouts who are trained diligently to fight off
the zombie threat. Alas even ones who deem themselves followers of Zomcom are just as trained
as the great police force that staved off the infestation as we have seen as they tried to gain fame
through ending the un-life of a feral zombie (that they released themselves) only to have it
backfire and somewhat contribute to the infestation.
This gives one the impression that perhaps we should leave the dead where they belong,
in the ground where they may find peace. Both these movies give a prime example of how
humanity should not try to change what they are or try to contain a force we cannot hope to
understand and then try to enslave them. We just simply want to create and form something we
have no hope of understanding and it always backfires on us in a most horrendous way. Zombies
are a prime example of how humanities dark curiosity can cause an epidemic of such potency
that it is classed as a national catastrophe, not all events however caused zombification there are

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also times in humanities times of self destruction that we simply see states of people in a zombielike state that speaks echoes of how war and hatred brings out our inner dead like state that we
would gain once we have lost everything we care about.
We yet again can see the underlying threat of zombies in our world by simply looking at
our past events during wars the most prime example is the darkest hour in Japan's history. During
the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the nuclear devastation caused by the bombs
immortalized nearly the whole populace into the ruined city covering the land in ash and
"shadows" of people that simply vanished once the bomb dropped. Survivors of this great
disaster had to be put through a pain far worse than death itself, radiation poisoning. This shows
the true disaster that the hatred we hold unfolds onto the innocent populace, the survivors go
through a dreadful process of mutations.
Their whole bodies contort and become monstrous in appearance alone as they walk and
crawl across their destroyed cities trying to find their home and families, only to find that all that
was left there is a simple shadow imprint and rubble. Unable to cope with this fact some just
walked endlessly in a dead like state until either they died from the radiation poisoning or they
simply gave up on their life and dropped to the floor letting starvation or the burning air take
them.
Our society is based on the fact that we will always crave knowledge and seek ways to
better ourselves as a whole, does it always bring positive results? No, and some of these negative
outcomes brings out an apocalypse what becomes of them is uncertain but one of them being a
zombie apocalypse shows that humanity trying to engineer themselves into a better species can
result in the destruction of humanity as a whole. This in mind we should simply see that we

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should not try and tempt fate by altering ourselves and understand that our imperfections makes
us who we are and as we try and recreate ourselves we also end up destroying ourselves.

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Works Cited
Lauro, S. J., and K. Embry. "A Zombie Manifesto: The Nonhuman Condition in the Era of
Advanced Capitalism." Boundary 2 35.1 (2008): 85-108. Web.
Caballero, Ricardo, Takeo Hoshi, and Anil Kashyap. "Zombie Lending and Depressed
Restructuring in Japan." (2006): n. pag. Web.
Horowitz, Amir. "Turning the Zombie on Its Head." Synthese 170.1 (2008): 191-210. Web.
"On the Origin of Zombies - Sociological Images." Sociological Images On the Origin of
Zombies Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
"Stanford Scholar Explains Why Zombie Fascination Is Very Much Alive." Stanford University.
N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.