Zombies

Danger Word and Twenty-Three Snapshots of San Francisco have very unique ways of representing the ‘zombie’ catastrophe and the effect it has. In Twenty-Three Snapshots we are given an almost surreal narrative of the events tied to each of the narrator’s pictures. Some of the pictures are of his friend Bradley’s constricted face before he’s killed and the man who developed his photos (his memories). These photos are the collective memories of certain events of his life and he looks back at them almost nonchalantly. We as the readers hear his story as a horrifying event, an event that should get a stronger response from him. His acceptance is scary.

In Danger Word Grandpa Joe, Kendrick, and other humans are face with a different kind of zombie. These zombies are hard to distinguish from ourselves. They are not brain dead, decaying and immediately recognizable (not right away). They can retain human motor controls for a while, have our memories, and recognize others.  They can even talk some. All of these features were shocking because it makes them deadly predators. It’s also scary because it is hard to pinpoint the line between human and zombie.

Each of these stories has a small critique of social constructs. In Twenty-Three Snapshots we see how social rules change during disasters and how killing becomes normal. This is something we like to deny has a possibility of happening. In Danger Word we question what it means to be human. We believe our intelligence and way of life is our 'humanity' but zombies do not choose to be zombies. Once they are zombies they do retain memories and eat their choice of food, humans. They do not kill each other like we do. We, therefore, can go so far as to ask, which is more human?