Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead: A Narrative Analysis

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For me, Zombies have always held a certain appeal to them. I remember sitting in the basement of a mutual friend's house watching one of the most ridiculous movies I had seen in quite a while. I later learned, as I had come into the movie late, that this movie was appropriately titled Zombieland. Zombieland had its opening night on October 9th, 2010 and earned more than $60.8 Million dollars in 17 days, exceeding the earnings of Dawn of the Dead as the top-grossing zombie film in the United States, that is until World War Z was released in 2013 (1). The appeal of zombies has significantly increased in the last decade and Chuck Klusterman's article "My Zombie, Myself: Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead" discusses why zombies have had such …show more content…

Here, Klosterman references the popular movie Warm Bodies. By alluding to his popular movie, Klosterman brings up another metaphor about zombies: "Zombies are a target-rich environment, literally and figuratively...Roughly 5.3 million people watched the first episode of The Walking Dead on AMC, a stunning 83% more than the 2.9 million who watched the Season 4 premiere of Mad Men". This quote is an example of an analogy in Klosterman's article, and through these efficient analogies, Klosterman leads his readers to logically infer that zombies have long served to express our fears as well as have many interpretations of their character. It then becomes clear to the reader that "Zombies are like the internet and media and every conversation we don't want to have. All of it comes at us …show more content…

By bringing this commonsense comparison to the attention of the reader, they are persuaded into the thought path of the author. Klosterman also quotes Alice Gregory from one of her recent essays, "Opening Safari is an actively destructive decision. I am asking that consciousness be taken away from me." By connecting the lack of consciousness that occurs with the internet and the mind-blank zombies, Klosterman effectively influences the reader that we do have some sort of connection to these lifeless

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