Robert Neville In Richard Matheson's I Am Legend
Maybe Killing Vampire-Zombies Isn’t As Cool As It Seems
In Richard Matheson’s novel, I Am Legend, Robert Neville is portrayed as, and believes that he is, a hero. As what may be the last known, non-infected human left on the planet, Robert Neville does what he thinks needs to happen; he single-handedly kills Vampire-Zombies one by one in order to stay alive and to hopefully find other survivors. Although these actions may seem heroic; in the end, Robert Neville realized he had become the ultimate plague in the eyes of the rest of the remaining world (i.e. the living infected Vampire-Zombies). Matheson wants readers to know, even if you are acting in such a way you consider morally right, it may not agree with the rest of society’s morals. For the duration of the novel, readers become sympathetic for Neville and understand his actions for a person in such a dire situation.
Robert Neville was forced into his own anti-social lifestyle because the “Vampiris bacillus” germ had either killed or infected anyone left in the world. Neville was in a world where he had no one to talk …show more content…
to, nobody to love, and no one to help him. He killed the Vampire-Zombies in order to survive. When Ruth asked Neville about the infected people and why he kills them he responded: “It’s a trap. If I didn’t kill them, sooner or later they’d die and come after me. I have no choice; no choice at all.” (Matheson 146). Since he didn’t have a choice except to kill or be killed, readers gained a sense of sympathy towards Neville because of the situation he was put in. This sympathy only masked the fact that Neville had lost his sense of morals and was trying to justify murdering countless Vampire-Zombies every day. Killing mass amounts of Zombie-Vampires was no longer something that bothered Neville. Neville even agreed that he had lost his sense of morals; “Morality, after all, had fallen with society. He was his own ethic.” (Matheson 62). When he was forced into isolation, there was no longer anyone alive to disagree with the things he was doing. He had given up on all the morals society believed in before the germ spread and had created his own new social norms to live by.
In an attempt to find a cure, Neville would experiment on many Vampire-Zombies. The way he would go about doing this was usually quite brutal “..and dragged her the rest of the way by her hair (into the sun). Usually he felt a twinge when he realized that, but for some affliction he didn’t understand, these people were the same as he...but she’s one of them and she’d kill me gladly if she got the chance.” (Matheson 39). Neville believed this to be a completely rational way to find out whether or not sunlight killed the infected, but didn’t take into consideration what other infected Vampire-Zombies would think about the cruel killings. Being alone, fighting Vampire-Zombies around the clock, Neville had grown accustomed to killing numerous beings. It became “normal” for him to kill. He was no longer affected by actions that would have terrified him in the old world. “For him the word, “horror” had become obsolete. A surfeiting of terror soon made terror a cliché. To Robert Neville the situation merely existed as natural fact. It had no adjectives.” (Matheson 145-146). Since the end of life as he knew it, Neville lived a violent, lonely life. It had become what he did on a daily basis.
Since Robert Neville had no one to talk to and no deadlines to live by, he developed his own daily routine. He survived fine with this routine but eventually hit a breaking point where he cracked from the isolation from the human interactions he was used to before the spread of the germ. When he saw the dog in his yard, it was the closest thing to any social communication he had had in months. He believed he longed for the dog’s companionship, but when it died, it was a turning point in his life. He realized his two-day drinking binge was rock bottom for him and he could only go up from there. “In a world of monotonous horror there could be no salvation in wild dreaming. Horror he had adjusted to. But monotony was the greater obstacle, and he realized it now, understood it at long last. And understanding it seemed to give him a sort of quiet peace…” (Matheson 111). His lack of morals and anti-social behavior allowed him to adjust to the daily horrors that he had to live through each day. Once he understood that he was becoming stuck in a rut with his life, he knew he needed to change so he could move forward.
Periodically, Neville thought about giving up to the Zombie-Vampires. Surrendering his non-infected human body to them, ending it all and becoming “one of them.” (Matheson 29). With Neville constantly referring to the Zombie-Vampires as “them”, the readers were led to believe the Zombie-Vampires were the evil source of all the problems. This made readers side with Neville, in what he believed to be justified killings. He continued to go about this lifestyle of his own morals and killing whatever dead or infected Vampires crossed his path. Robert Neville believed that what he was doing was right, up until moments before his death. While in the hospital created by the remaining infected vampires, Neville came to the realization that he was “the abnormal one now. Normalcy was a majority concept, the standard of many and not the standard of just one man.” (Matheson 169). Neville had realized that his set of morals that he had lived by for the last three years, were the morals of the minority. He was the last non-infected human left and the majority of the population was now only infected Vampire-Zombies.
When Robert Neville looked out at the crowd of Vampire-Zombies who were building a new society, he noticed that “He was an invisible specter who had left for evidence of his existence the bloodless bodies of their loved ones.” (Matheson 169).
The remaining majority of the world now hated and feared Robert Neville. He thought he was the “good guy” after the old society collapsed, but he never knew there was a new society that was being built that made him and his morals the minority. Before he took the pills given to him by Ruth, Robert Neville finally realized that the morals he developed from his forced “anti-social” life were hurting many people even though they were one of “them”. He never stopped to think that the Vampire-Zombies were in control now and the morals he had lived by were completely different from that of the infected vampire society that would soon consume the
world.
MLA Documentation
Matheson, Richard. I Am Legend. New York, NY: Tor Books, 2007. Print.
Option 3: Zombie Morality
Recall that in Edgar Huntly’s preface, “To the Public,” Brown describes his novel as the work of a “moral painter.” Might the same be said of I am Legend and Night of the Living Dead? Write an essay in which you explore the moral lesson of one of these three texts, and explain what role “anti-social” behavior plays in this lesson. Underline your thesis statement (main analytical claim).
Which characters function as moral examples in your text, and how are we encouraged to feel about them? Who seems good or evil in the texts, and how does the text complicate or change this opposition? How successful is your text at separating anti-social behavior from moral righteousness? Does morality also depend on kinds of anti-social feeling? Keep in mind that the moral lesson may also be a contradictory, conflicted, or pessimistic one; just explain carefully the conflict, contradiction, or reason for pessimism.
In Richard Matheson’s novel, I Am Legend, Robert Neville is portrayed as, and believes that he is, a hero. As what may be the last known, non-infected human left on the planet, Robert Neville does what he thinks needs to happen; he single-handedly kills Vampire-Zombies one by one in order to stay alive and to hopefully find other survivors. Although these actions may seem heroic; in the end, Robert Neville realized he had become the ultimate plague in the eyes of the rest of the remaining world (i.e. the living infected Vampire-Zombies). Matheson wants readers to know, even if you are acting in such a way you consider morally right, it may not agree with the rest of society’s morals. For the duration of the novel, readers become sympathetic for Neville and understand his actions for a person in such a dire situation.
Robert Neville was forced into his own anti-social lifestyle because the “Vampiris bacillus” germ had either killed or infected anyone left in the world. Neville was in a world where he had no one to talk …show more content…
to, nobody to love, and no one to help him. He killed the Vampire-Zombies in order to survive. When Ruth asked Neville about the infected people and why he kills them he responded: “It’s a trap. If I didn’t kill them, sooner or later they’d die and come after me. I have no choice; no choice at all.” (Matheson 146). Since he didn’t have a choice except to kill or be killed, readers gained a sense of sympathy towards Neville because of the situation he was put in. This sympathy only masked the fact that Neville had lost his sense of morals and was trying to justify murdering countless Vampire-Zombies every day. Killing mass amounts of Zombie-Vampires was no longer something that bothered Neville. Neville even agreed that he had lost his sense of morals; “Morality, after all, had fallen with society. He was his own ethic.” (Matheson 62). When he was forced into isolation, there was no longer anyone alive to disagree with the things he was doing. He had given up on all the morals society believed in before the germ spread and had created his own new social norms to live by.
In an attempt to find a cure, Neville would experiment on many Vampire-Zombies. The way he would go about doing this was usually quite brutal “..and dragged her the rest of the way by her hair (into the sun). Usually he felt a twinge when he realized that, but for some affliction he didn’t understand, these people were the same as he...but she’s one of them and she’d kill me gladly if she got the chance.” (Matheson 39). Neville believed this to be a completely rational way to find out whether or not sunlight killed the infected, but didn’t take into consideration what other infected Vampire-Zombies would think about the cruel killings. Being alone, fighting Vampire-Zombies around the clock, Neville had grown accustomed to killing numerous beings. It became “normal” for him to kill. He was no longer affected by actions that would have terrified him in the old world. “For him the word, “horror” had become obsolete. A surfeiting of terror soon made terror a cliché. To Robert Neville the situation merely existed as natural fact. It had no adjectives.” (Matheson 145-146). Since the end of life as he knew it, Neville lived a violent, lonely life. It had become what he did on a daily basis.
Since Robert Neville had no one to talk to and no deadlines to live by, he developed his own daily routine. He survived fine with this routine but eventually hit a breaking point where he cracked from the isolation from the human interactions he was used to before the spread of the germ. When he saw the dog in his yard, it was the closest thing to any social communication he had had in months. He believed he longed for the dog’s companionship, but when it died, it was a turning point in his life. He realized his two-day drinking binge was rock bottom for him and he could only go up from there. “In a world of monotonous horror there could be no salvation in wild dreaming. Horror he had adjusted to. But monotony was the greater obstacle, and he realized it now, understood it at long last. And understanding it seemed to give him a sort of quiet peace…” (Matheson 111). His lack of morals and anti-social behavior allowed him to adjust to the daily horrors that he had to live through each day. Once he understood that he was becoming stuck in a rut with his life, he knew he needed to change so he could move forward.
Periodically, Neville thought about giving up to the Zombie-Vampires. Surrendering his non-infected human body to them, ending it all and becoming “one of them.” (Matheson 29). With Neville constantly referring to the Zombie-Vampires as “them”, the readers were led to believe the Zombie-Vampires were the evil source of all the problems. This made readers side with Neville, in what he believed to be justified killings. He continued to go about this lifestyle of his own morals and killing whatever dead or infected Vampires crossed his path. Robert Neville believed that what he was doing was right, up until moments before his death. While in the hospital created by the remaining infected vampires, Neville came to the realization that he was “the abnormal one now. Normalcy was a majority concept, the standard of many and not the standard of just one man.” (Matheson 169). Neville had realized that his set of morals that he had lived by for the last three years, were the morals of the minority. He was the last non-infected human left and the majority of the population was now only infected Vampire-Zombies.
When Robert Neville looked out at the crowd of Vampire-Zombies who were building a new society, he noticed that “He was an invisible specter who had left for evidence of his existence the bloodless bodies of their loved ones.” (Matheson 169).
The remaining majority of the world now hated and feared Robert Neville. He thought he was the “good guy” after the old society collapsed, but he never knew there was a new society that was being built that made him and his morals the minority. Before he took the pills given to him by Ruth, Robert Neville finally realized that the morals he developed from his forced “anti-social” life were hurting many people even though they were one of “them”. He never stopped to think that the Vampire-Zombies were in control now and the morals he had lived by were completely different from that of the infected vampire society that would soon consume the
world.
MLA Documentation
Matheson, Richard. I Am Legend. New York, NY: Tor Books, 2007. Print.
Option 3: Zombie Morality
Recall that in Edgar Huntly’s preface, “To the Public,” Brown describes his novel as the work of a “moral painter.” Might the same be said of I am Legend and Night of the Living Dead? Write an essay in which you explore the moral lesson of one of these three texts, and explain what role “anti-social” behavior plays in this lesson. Underline your thesis statement (main analytical claim).
Which characters function as moral examples in your text, and how are we encouraged to feel about them? Who seems good or evil in the texts, and how does the text complicate or change this opposition? How successful is your text at separating anti-social behavior from moral righteousness? Does morality also depend on kinds of anti-social feeling? Keep in mind that the moral lesson may also be a contradictory, conflicted, or pessimistic one; just explain carefully the conflict, contradiction, or reason for pessimism.