With I Am Legend, Matheson instituted the germ theory of vampirism, a take on the old archetype which has since been tackled by other writers (notably, Dan Simmons in Children of the Night from 1992)."Īlthough referred to as "the first modern vampire novel", it is as a novel of social theme that I Am Legend made a lasting impression on the cinematic zombie genre, by way of director George A.
Matheson goes to great lengths to rationalize or naturalize the vampire myth, transplanting the monster from the otherworldly realms of folklore and Victorian supernaturalism to the test tube of medical inquiry and rational causation.
However, it is also a playful take on an old archetype, the vampire (the reader is even treated to Neville’s reading and put-down of Bram Stoker's Dracula). " I Am Legend is the product of an anxious artistic mind working in an anxious cultural climate. In I Am Legend, the "zombies" share more similarities with vampires, and the novel influenced the zombie genre and popularized the concept of a worldwide zombie apocalypse.Īlthough the idea has now become commonplace, a scientific origin for vampirism or zombies was fairly original when written. One major influence upon Matheson and others of the genre is the Mary Shelley novel, The Last Man, about an immune person surviving in a plague infested world.Īlthough Matheson calls the assailants in his novel "vampires" and their condition is transmitted through bacteria in the blood and garlic is a repellant to this strain of bacteria, they have little similarity to vampires as developed by John William Polidori and his successors, which came straight out of the gothic fiction tradition.
Home I Am Legend (Novel) Wikipedia: Influence
0 kommentar(er)
