(De)Compositions of the physical and social body: The emergence of the zombie in contemporary U.S. fiction

Abstract

One of the most popular monsters of the contemporary period, the zombie is composed as a privileged significant to capture the anxieties of the early 21st century. Originated in the travel narratives of Haitian explorers in the early 20th century, and then acquiring the status of major creature in recent horror cinema, the zombie has been serving as an allegory for American authors to explore discussions about the limits of civilization, the body and the notion of self. This work focuses on two essential novels which help to understand the zombie as a symbol of the (de)composition  of the contemporary world. The first  is Zone One, by Colson Whitehead, which shows the attempt  to reconstruct New York City after it is infested by these gruesome creatures. The novel also introduces a very peculiar and complex variation of the zombie: the "straggler". The second work discussed in this article is World War Z, by Max Brooks, which delineates a mosaic of characters and  narrates  the events of a global war against zombies that nearly destroyed humanity. Both novels analyze, in their narratives, how the zombie problematizes notions of otherness, in that it is   a creature devoid of subjectivity  that, nevertheless, still holds traces of humanity. Furthermore, the living dead serve as an example of the concept of the "uncanny" (unheimlich), as devised by Freud. Thus, the present article aims to investigate the ascension of the zombie as a metaphor for the contemporary moment in U.S.  literature, while  discussing  how this hideous monster serves as a representation of 21st century zeitgeist.