The Walking Dead Character Analysis

Travis Langley’s book, The Walking Dead Psychology: Psych of the Living Dead, analyzes how the trauma of living in a zombie apocalypse can affect the psyche. The book goes over all the psychological aspects of the show, The Walking Dead. The show is about a zombie apocalypse and seeing how the characters survive it. Throughout this book, there were different topics surrounding the main characters and their mental health. One of the main topics that stand out in this book is that the characters of The Walking Dead. As we see by watching the show, the characters experience things that no human would ever want to experience. They withstand so many traumatic events. The main character Rick is the one who suffers the most mentally. He had to kill his best friend, Shane, and after this is when Rick started to lose it. When Lori, his wife, died Rick, we can tell as viewers that something isn’t right with Rick. From this book, it is learned that Rick may have posttraumatic stress disorder. Rick’s traumatic experiences and his actions such as avoiding love ones, having flashbacks and hallucinations show that he must have PTSD.
Violence is an everyday issue for the characters.
A reoccurring theme in the show is that the main characters get into violence with other healthy people. The characters don’t often come together and try to stop the walkers, but instead go against each other resulting in a death of one of their own. This is when the characters encounter someone who is either a psychopath or a sociopath. The book talks about this in the section “It’s the Humans you have to Worry About: Becoming a Sociopath.” A sociopath is similar to a psychopath, but a sociopath develops the traits of a psychopath after certain circumstances. An example of this is the governor who is accountable for many deaths including
Hershel.
In the last section of the book, Langley talks about hope for the characters. A stand out quote for me is, “We would not fear for these characters so strongly if we did not hope for them as well. They keep going without knowing for certain what will happen and so do we. When situations seem darkest, we can look for signs that will brighten,” (Langley 265). I love this quote from the book because it explains why us, the viewers watch. Seeing these characters thrive in a world different from the way we live is intriguing. Also some people can relate to some characters because the characters have flaws just like us. The quote additionally elicits positivity that the viewers have for the characters. We fear for them and are so devastated when one of the characters dies so we are hopeful for the characters.
After reading this book, many of my questions about The Walking Dead have been answered. I got to find out what psychological disorders some characters had which was interesting to know. Now when I watch the show, I will view certain characters in a different way. The book was thought-provoking and hard to put down. Learning all about the characters through the analyzation of their mental health especially Shane because he was gone so early due to his “evil” quality. This book makes you think about how if you were in these characters’ situations how you would act. I love that aspect of the book; it gets your mind going