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Theories of alienation
The impact of alienation in our society
The impact of alienation in our society
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Due to Neville being isolated and also in danger, he sometimes acts insanely, for example, he “cried out in his sleep and his fingers gripped the sheets like frenzied talons,” which shows that extreme fear and also sorrow have a great impact on Neville’s mind. Due to the situation he is in, he is not able to control himself and his depression causes him to act abnormally, and his fingers’ comparison to a vulture’s talons also make this more effective. This shows the impact of isolation on Neville’s mind, which is essential in the novel. Sometimes it is seen that Neville gives up and turns to alcohol, for example he says “I’m a dumb, stupid animal and I’m going to drink!”. From this one discovers his extremely depressed state of mind, which …show more content…
has made him lose his sanity and not want to do anything. The word “animal” is effective since it graphically conveys how Neville has self confidence and productivity and sometimes loses his will to do any research, as for him there is no proper purpose of life. His choice of regularly getting drunk due to this indicates how Neville’s sanity and rationality falter as a result of the circumstances he is in. However depressed Neville becomes, one sees that he remains sane, as he does not consider suicide as an option. He thinks he has “no future” and a “virtually hopeless present” but is “still plodding on”, which reveals that although his mind is full of sorrow and he has no goal, his decision of staying alive, that he actually can’t justify, is a sign of his conscience and sanity still remaining with him. Inspite of him getting drunk, his brain directs him towards living on, and one hereby sees that he is still internally strong and does not act irrationally and cowardly by merely ending his life. Neville invests his time in research and trying very hard to find some information about the vampire disease, so that he could find a cure to it or know exactly how he could learn more to defend himself. He has “a lot of reading, a lot of research” to do, and this shows that he has set himself a goal and knows what to do, and has not given up due to the difficult circumstances. This decision of Neville and his curiosity to discover more convey that sanity now purely rules his mind and his decisions. “Is the vampire so bad?
All he does is drink blood,” is something Neville asks himself, and this also raises many other questions regarding the natural prejudice against vampires, which is an essential issue since it indirectly displays one of the main messages of the book, which is that unfamiliar or smaller groups are mostly alienated. Moreover, this quote also shows how Neville’s thoughts are now sane and contrast with his thoughts of when he was depressed. His logic and reasoning when wondering about the prejudice against vampires are not that expected, since he is alone and his main focus is to save himself. In this manner Matheson portrays Neville as a character who later develops sanity in his actions and inspite of his situation still displays intelligence and curiosity, which is essential to further analyze his character and …show more content…
behaviour. The most important quote concerning morality is “Morality, after all, had fallen with society”, which is said by Neville to justify his killings. This is significant since it implies that morality isn’t a matter Neville thinks he should consider anymore, just because his society no longer exists, and this reveals the character of Neville, and shows that he doesn’t want to feel responsible for his killings, since the society is different and his goal is to survive. It creates a conflict between whether morality should be thought of as a part of one’s conscience that one considers for one’s own satisfaction, or something that one should only think about as a part of living in a society, and this conflict runs through the entire book as something that the reader himself realizes. Although Neville killed so many vampires, he still says “I’m a man, not a destroyer” when he doesn’t want to kill Ruth, which shows that he still has a bit morality and does not want to just heartlessly slaughter everyone.The word “destroyer” indicates that even when he has already killed so many vampires after having put aside morality, morality is still always naturally present in one’s thoughts, as seen here too. Ruth is a representative of morality in the novel, since she does not show partiality towards her own society. When she states “I know now that you were just as much forced into your situation as we were forced into ours”, her unbiased and understanding nature is revealed, as she properly analyzes Neville’s actions, despite him being a threat to her, and the quote signifies that she realizes that there was not much else Neville could have done to survive. In this way Ruth is portrayed as a rational and wise character, and also as a symbol of morality. There are various kinds of alienation that this novel involves. One of them is Neville’s forced emotional alienation from Virginia due to the situation he is in. It is stated that he had to “do the same thing to her he’d done to the others,” which indicates how people have to be able to emotionally detach themselves from someone in order to save themselves. In this book, it gets to the extent of Neville having to kill his own wife, which dramaticlly shows this point. In this way Matheson portrays emotional alienation in this book to be an obligation in order survive. When visiting Virginia’s crypt, Neville feels intense sorrow and depression, as it reopens all of his old wounds. However, after a while, he says that “even the deepest sorrow faltered, even the most penetrating despair lost its scalpel edge.” It is significant since words describing the intensity of his sorrow like “scalpel edge” and “deepest” are used, although at the same time it is mentioned that the pain decreases. This essential contrast is used in order to show that Neville’s mind naturally tries to alienate his feelings for Virginia, although they are very deep, as he should now focus on the present. Due to Neville being alienated from the people of his kind, he has “such a terrible yearning to love something again,” which shows that due to the lack of interaction with other people since three years, he is desperately longing for the feeling of love. The quote is essential as it helps the readers to see through the character of Neville how an isolated person acts and feels, as alienation is one of the predominant themes in this novel. A noticable action of Neville further emphasizes one’s desperation when one is isolated. When Neville spots a normal dog in daylight, he suddenly yearns for the dog, because “he wanted the dog, because he needed the dog,” as he, as mentioned before, is intensely longing to love something again. The remarkable thing is that he prays for the dog, although he claims to be an atheist, which significantly indicates how one can do anything in desperation, even if it is something one would have normally never done. It is mentioned that “a man could get used to anything if he had to,” which continues the previous point of doing anything in desperation, and it is said when Neville prepares garlands of garlic. However horrible the strong stench of garlic may be for him, he is forced to get used to it, as he has to do it in order to protect himself. Hereby one observes how alienation from society causes so much desperation that leads one to not being his usual self anymore. Alienation is not only emotional or physical of a single person, but also of a society itself. In this novel, the vampires are shown to be alienated, as they are unfamiliar. Matheson writes that “they are loathed because they are feared,” which shows that an a very different society is usually feared, as one barely knows anything about them, and this fear automatically causes hatred towards them. This default alienation of people who are different is a major passive theme present in the background of the book, and is also one of the messages Matheson is probably trying to convey through this book. The last sentence of the novel, “I am legend,” is one of the most important phrases of the novel.
It is ironic, since normally the “legends” are creatures like vampires, whereas in this case, Neville would be a legend for the vampires. This reversal of humans and other creatures shows that anyone can be alienated if they are a minority, as it happens in this novel. The irony created is one of the main purposes of the book, since it shows alienation from a relatable perspective, not the traditional way of humans alienating and demolishing a supernatural society. Violence is another main theme present in the book. It is mostly portrayed as a method of survival. Neville says that “If I didn’t kill them, sooner or later they’d die and come after me. I have no choice,” which shows his desperation to kill the infected. Here violence is used as the only option to survive, which Neville uses to try to finish them off before they can target him. This is not that rational, since it can not exactly be called self-defense, but as one would naturally want to prevent oneself from getting killed, violence becomes the daily routine of
Neville. Towards the end, one comes to know the perspective of the vampires too. The entire time Neville thinks of the vampires’ violence to be brutal and his own to be justified, but then Ruth says, “That’s exactly why we’re killing. To survive.” On hereby realizes that the vampires are also using violence with a similar purpose as Neville, although he was not able to see that from their perspective, and this may make one change one’s thoughts of the vampire being a completely negative character in the novel. From this it is seen that violence is used by both sides due to their fear of the other, but neither of them had been able to see the other’s violence with an unbiased perspective. Although violence is also used for survival by the vampires, their natural lust for blood is still present. They in that way long for violence, which is seen by the women being described as “bloodthirsty”, and this does make the vampires incline towards a negative shade. One can conclude from this that despite the fact that both sides are shown to use violence for the same reason, the vampires can be interpreted to still be the worse side, as they usually are, so although Matheson does eventually reverse the situations of humans and vampires, the novel still keeps some of the traditional beliefs.
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Following Neville’s day-to-day routine, he had no human interaction, and hasn’t had any is a while hence, triggering his mental instability as his only real companion was his German shepherd, Sam. This was specifically recognized, when Neville told Sam, “You can’t go running into the dark” (Francis Lawrence), after she ran into a building full of the infected. Furthermore, this line can be perceived as Neville self-consciously reminding himself to avoid the darkness, as it represented a depressive and instable state where light didn’t exist. To put into perspective, Sam represented light and sanity throughout the duration of the movie, as she was Neville’s only living memory of his family. When Sam passed away, Neville desperately sought after human interaction which was display when he pleaded to a store mannequin, “Please say hello to me” (Francis Lawrence), projecting his vulnerability to depression and suicide.
Ruth explains in her letter that sky was spying on him, that her people will kill Neville once they are better organised because he has killed many of their numbers, Ruth’s husband among them (Matheson 154-155). Ruth thought like the people who sent her. She thought that Neville was a dangerous terror that had to be understood to latter be exterminated. Upon meeting Neville, however, she discovers that he is not a mindless monster, only someone operating with a set of instructions that are dated. This makes Neville kin to the modern vampires who have a strong connection to the past, hold within them history and past cultures (Tenga and Zimmerman 84). Because Ruth says “When we were together in the darkness, close to each other, I wasn’t spying on you. I was loving you,” (Matheson 155) to Neville in her letter, urges him to flee and latter comforts him before his execution their relationship is a mild version of the modern vampire love story. “The sympathetic vampire incites desire,” (Tenga and Zimmerman 77), and that is what Neville is and does. He is undoubtedly dangerous for her kind, yet he is sympathetic, trying to comfort Ruth and be kind to her all through their brief association, inciting, if not desire, then at least
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