Final Essay

For my final essay, I will be talking about the different portrayal of zombies in different types of zombie films, ranging from the common apocalyptic nature as shown in the Walking Dead, to the comical Zombie films like Zombieland, and possibly other genres like zomcom. Through this analysis, I plan on delving into what the portrayal of zombies represents in relation to past movements, as well as what the zombies allegorically stand for and also how non-infected people react to these different waves of zombies. After writing about these differences, I plan on writing about the connection to the apocalypse, as well as any other ways that zombies can be represented and what those representations say about the way zombies influence societal thoughts, specifically in reference to different mediums being television, movies, and graphic novels. 

The Walking Dead

The graphic novel of the Walking Dead illustrated the common feeling and hope in an apocalyptic society where a separated family feels that their reunion will be the savior and will fix all their problems. AS Rick said, he was just a man looking for his family and would do anything to find them. However, to the belief that finding the family will fix everything didn't go as such in The Walking Dead. In this graphic novel, the return of Rick only made things worse, ultimately leading to the deaths of three characters, including Rick's best friend. This opposite of what was thought to happen exemplifies how not everything goes as planned, and when people are put into extremely difficult situations, they can occasionally lose themselves and sight of their ultimate goal, as shown with Shane. The graphic novel showed the change in a person's character as they are continually exposed to an apocalyptic society.

Flame Alphabet Part 2

"These were the mercy tents. Inside people heard some last song, whatever they chose to dial up, and then down they went to those sounds. A strategy of acoustical expiration. Suicide by language. Mercy was right. The tents were clearly a kindness to those who remained. No one was forced in. On the contrary, people fought to get inside first. And when a funeral field had filled, the mercy tents were struck and dragged away. Audio equipment pulled alongside by wagon. A jukebox of words to die to" (179).

This passage struck me right away as something unthinkable. In this passage, two ideas combined together truly grabbed my attention. First off was the fact that these people would choose to die by listening to music. It seems unthinkable in a world that we live in today, which makes this book so much more creative. In today's world, music brings happiness and joy to so many people, and in The Flame Alphabet, the juxtaposition between being happy while listening to music as it slowly kills you is remarkable. Combine this with the second part, being that people would line up and rush to get into these suicide tents, and the outcome is truly appalling. The fact that people line up for their death shows the loss of hope in this society. It also illustrates the lack of enjoyment in life without human interaction through language. People are so lonely that they don't want to even live any longer and they decide to kill themselves by something that used to bring them so much joy, before it brought them so much pain. Overall, the juxtaposition between what sound is bringing now in the novel, compared to what it used to do before the disease outbreak began is remarkably contradicting, and its use in the novel makes the plotline even more interesting.

The Flame Alphabet

"I smiled her way, a little too wide, because the display concerned me. I produced superlatives and praise, in chivalrous phrases that sounded like a foreign language, but I couldn’t get the tone right. I couldn’t scrub my voice of worry. If she returned my look she did so defiantly, daring me to say what I was really thinking. But I had already stopped doing that." (17)


I found this passage very interesting in that it parallels the motif of the negatives of language that flow throughout the first half of the book. I was particularly interested in how an adult was able to forget how to interact with his wife, someone who is as important to a husband as anyone. This grabbed my attention since the adults were so opposed to language in the first place, as the language used by children spread disease. But, the fact that someone couldn't even say nice words about the person he cares most about really shocked me. It made me begin to think of the impact that some children have on families today where they can lead to disagreements between the two parents and whether that was the motivation to use the children's language as the spread of disease. I became interested in whether this lack of communication between adults could be a metaphor for divorce and whether the fault was at the child's hands, where a child put infinite stress on the parents that they would come to a point where they couldn't even compliment each other, and hadn't been compliment each other for a long time.

Bounty

In reading this text, one of the main takeaways I found was of how we as humans often take things for granted. In a society that has been divided into the oppressed (flawed) and the oppressors (normal), it is very interesting to see how those not in power act when they need something. In particular, I was caught up in the passage on page 43 where Cole talks about the old times and he would do anything to go back there. Cole specifically writes, "What a beautifulcountry this must have been once, when you could hop in a coupe and buy a bag of burgersand drive drive drive, stopping to swim in a river or sleep in a grove of trees without worrying about intaking mutagens or having the militia arrest you and send you to the Everglades for eternity" (43). This quote really hit me as it basically is in reference to the world that we are currently living in. Too often we get caught up in the small issues like having too much homework or not being able to hang out with friends, but in reality we have our lives so easy. We can do everything that Cole dreams about and we can do it whenever we want to. While the story is about a fictional apocalyptic society and was a very interesting read, it also brings out life lessons that we can learn about for our own personal lives.

Black Hole

In these two passages, I found there to be a theme of juxtaposition in the way the characters view each other. In terms of Chris, she believes that she is a monster. She has the bug and her back is beginning to split. She can't even look at herself in the mirror. To take out her anger, she turns to smoking, something we find out earlier in the book that she doesn't normally do. But in terms of Pearson, Chris is the most beautiful girl in the world, one that he would do anything for. These two passages combined together brought up a sense of what love truly is. In a disastrous time period where people are becoming infected and are transmitting diseases, it seems odd to find a pair of people that illustrate what love is and should be. Pearson stands out in this apocalyptic period as the only person who accepts Chris for who she really is and defies the societal norms that focus on beauty. It is always reassuring in times of disaster to see hope and joy from someone who has gone through it all, and through his love for Chris, Pearson exemplifies the hope that survives during an apocalypse. It also is very interesting to see Chris feel the same way towards another guy. Maybe these two main characters are shown with romantic feelings as a way to escape the disasters that they have encountered, illustrating how even in the darkest of times, there still is a light that shines and gives hope. 

I will be writing on the Arab-Israel conflict and how religion underlies this conflict, but there are currently many other reasons for the dispute

1. Arab-Israeli Conflict: Role of religion 
http://www.science.co.il/Arab-Israeli-conflict-2.asp#Arab-Empire

In this article, the author explains the history of Arab nationalism and the rise of the Islamic Empire and how the state of Israel is completely surrounded by Islamic States. It also touches on past Arab countries disputes with other countries, occasionally based on religion. Finally, with the most application to my own topic, it compares and contrasts the Islamic Religion and Judaism. Through these contrasts, the article explains conflicts from these religious contrasts.

2. Sharia Law
http://www.billionbibles.org/sharia/sharia-law.html

In order to understand and be able to compare and contrast Judaism and Islam, I read into the tenants of Sharia Law. The Sharia Law itself covers many topics, including public behavior, private behavior, and private beliefs. Some of its tenants are radical but it is mandatory to follow as it the law of the Arab States. It is implemented in most states and in secular states it is even preferred to be the main type of legal system.

3. JEWISH AND ISLAMIC LAW, A COMPARATIVE REVIEW : The Relationship between Jewish and Islamic Law 
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0011_0_10121.html

This article begins by explaining how the Quran was made from Jewish ideals but as it continues, it shows the differences between Islam and Judaism. These differences sparked from daily life choices, such as jobs and activities, and therefore changed religious laws to accommodate these activities. It later touches on the Muslim influence on Judaism ideals, specifically on how Arabs want all other religions to convert to Islam. The article continues with how Islamic Law contradicts Jewish Law and the implications that come from it, as well as where these laws are formed from for each religion. The final and most relevant part of the article to my writing is the legal literature of the two laws and the legal systems based off of the religion's values.

Ragnarok: Creation Story

"The gods made the world from the dead giant. The thin child was disturbed at having to imagine this; there was no scale by which she could measure it, although she could grasp the shadowy semblances that linked the bits of dead Human to the creatures and structures in the world."

Byatt, A.S. (2012-02-07). Ragnarok: The End of the Gods (p. 26). Canongate U.S.. Kindle Edition.

After reading this relatively short passage from Ragnarok, I immediately became enveloped in the character of the thin child. It was remarkable to see how she, at such a young age, began to question some of the hardest ideas to grasp in life. To think in such a methodical, intelligent way illustrates the uniqueness of the thin child. But what grabbed my attention the most was the parallelism to the idea of religion. In this creation story, the thin child questions the authenticity of the story, which parallels to the many thinkers today that argue against the idea of the creation stories involving a God. At such an early stage of the book, the author, through the thin child's actions, has the reader already making connections to the questioning of religion and its authenticity. Like the thin child wondering how the world could be created from a dead giant, many people wonder how a God could create the world in 7 days and 7 nights. This parallelism sparked an extreme amount of interest in me and made me want to continue reading the novel.

Interpretations on How the Quran was Written

While reading selections from the Quran, what truly has caught my attention was the switch between showing punishments and then rewards. In one of the first statements in Jonah, the Quran states, "He reproduces it, that He may with justice recompense those who believe and do good; and (as for) those who disbelieve, they shall have a drink of hot water and painful punishment because they disbelieved." It surprised me that right from the start of this holy book that there were threats to those who do not follow. Normally, just from an advertisement stand point, a person would want to portray the benefits of something before showing the harms of it, just so that the person would be interested in it. However, the Quran, on the other hand, begins with a threat to those who do not believe in Allah. Considering that we have learned that the Quran is a relatively modern take on religion that is updated based on past books, it would seem likely that the authors at the team, being prophets, would have written it in a different, more appealing way. Also, I find it very interesting that the Quran is translated in 3 different ways. It makes a relative blur between all the texts that distracts from the true meaning of the text. Overall, I am surprised at how this holy book was written. It offers insightful ideas, but since religion is partially an advertisement game, it is interesting to see how it was written in a different, non-typical way.

The Book of Daniel

While reading The Book of Daniel, I had a very hard time seeing the story as one that was true. With all of the prophecies and the infinite horns, I felt as if I was reading a novel. Sure, the story has many symbolistic ideas in it, such as the horns representing the 4 kings, but overall this felt like another viewing of the Clash of the Titans. It felt as if there were many Gods involved in making the prophecy, or the multiple dreams, come true. And as a Jewish person, myself, one who has been exposed to hebrew stories before, I felt kind of disappointed that the religion I believed in offered a story that seemed to have many faults in it. Sure, not everything in the old testament has to be true, but I never thought that the religion I believed in would parallel ancient greek classics where a prophecy that shall be fulfilled would dictate how actual living times would be run. Overall, I was just surprised after what I read, and felt as if the concepts involved were not true.

Babel and its Similarities to Evolution

I find it very interesting that after reading a story that comes from a religious text that I am consistently thinking about evolution. The two concepts completely contradict each other but right now, they work hand in hand. Babel tells the story of how language began and spread throughout the world, and my first connection was gene flow and how alleles used to be in Africa and now are all over the world. The connections continue in that Africa has the most genetic diversity of any continent as thats where homo sapiens arose and today, Africa is home to the most languages of any continent. While a weird connection, the similarities prove to very amusing and contradicting in that no one believes religion and evolution can work together hand in hand.

Death, as explained by historical tales

After reading the creation stories that were either in the Bible or in The Epic of Gilgamesh, each story came with a moral. Whether or not the stories were true and told of actual events, each tale taught the reader the importance and reality of death. In many stories, the hero thinks he is invincible and can escape death, but as seen in these readings, death is truly inescapable. While the stories are different and have different events, each one leads to the same understanding. Death is inevitable. It is one of the truths of the bible, that even though many things in the holy book can be argued, this one fact cannot. No one can escape death, and these stories provide clarity and understanding of what will happen to everyone.

Reaction to Religulous

After watching Religulous, I felt as if atheism was being thrown onto me. Personally, I am very interested in the sciences. Biology is my major and I find it remarkable to learn how everything works and where the organisms living today have come from. So it would seem that I like to have answers for everything, and that would be correct. But what bothered me in this film was that it felt as if Atheism was the only correct option in this debate. I consider myself a semi-religious person. I believe that there is a higher up power, and I also like to look for proof, but my proof doesn’t have to be the same as the proof of Bill Maher. I completely support the idea of Evolution, but my only difference is that I believe there is some other force out there that can control what is around us. I may be right; I may be wrong, but I found it kind of insulting to have my ideas shot down in a biased documentary. If this documentary offered both sides of the debate, and with that information proved my opinion wrong, I would be more willing to accept it. However, since Bill Maher and his crew, although they were very educated about the topic, took a stance that completely attacked my beliefs, I felt pressured in that my ideas were wrong. For an Atheist, this documentary would be perfect and hilarious, but for me, some parts were funnier than others and ended up making a documentary that contradicted my ideals.

Reaction to Religulous

After watching Religulous, I felt as if atheism was being thrown onto me. Personally, I am very interested in the sciences. Biology is my major and I find it remarkable to learn how everything works and where the organisms living today have come from. So it would seem that I like to have answers for everything, and that would be correct. But what bothered me in this film was that it felt as if Atheism was the only correct option in this debate. I consider myself a semi-religious person. I believe that there is a higher up power, and I also like to look for proof, but my proof doesn’t have to be the same as the proof of Bill Maher. I completely support the idea of Evolution, but my only difference is that I believe there is some other force out there that can control what is around us. I may be right; I may be wrong, but I found it kind of insulting to have my ideas shot down in a biased documentary. If this documentary offered both sides of the debate, and with that information proved my opinion wrong, I would be more willing to accept it. However, since Bill Maher and his crew, although they were very educated about the topic, took a stance that completely attacked my beliefs, I felt pressured in that my ideas were wrong. For an Atheist, this documentary would be perfect and hilarious, but for me, some parts were funnier than others and ended up making a documentary that contradicted my ideals.

Y The Last Man

I've never been a huge cartoon guy, besides reading Captain Underpants, of course, but this one really interested me. I'm not completely sure what grabbed my attention, but after reading so much about catastrophes, this article took me for a thrill ride. I found it so gripping to find out what was going to happen next. Aside from it's weak attempts at humor, the cartoon had suspense and plot twists and seemed to be a great possibility for a movie. But of all the things that interested me, what grabbed my attention the most was the disaster that happened in this cartoon. After reading about ecological problems and theories, I couldn't even imagine this disaster. A WHOLE POPULATION ERASED. I've been studying biology recently and this just blew my mind. It's a brilliant concept and I couldn't even imagine having to live in a world like that, filled with power struggles and an impending end to the world with no men. It was a radical idea that grabbed my attention and I'm truly happy I had the opportunity to read such a different piece of work.

Contagion: The End of the World and the Beginning of Our Fears

Contagion is our first view into what a true disaster could be in an Apocalypse. So far we have read about economic, ecologic, and societal disasters, but nothing compares to the magnitude of what happens in this movie. Contagion is what keeps the conspiracy theorists going. It has all the details of the possible end of the world in it. It encompasses death and plague, two of the horsemen of the apocalypse. However, the thing that makes Contagion, so enticing and hard to look away from is the mere possibility of something like it actually happening. Finding out that the whole chain of events was caused by a chef shaking hands with a woman inspires fear into all. This causes one of the revelations that Zizek speaks of. We learn to fear for our lives at all costs. We understand that these things, while unlikely, have the possibility of happening. They make up what the end of the world could be, and it keeps us humans on our toes all the time. This idea keeps us up at night, scared of what's to come. In the back of our minds, we are all scared for what could happen in an event like this, and thanks to Contagion, we know the deadly and destructive result.

Capitalism: Two Sides to the Story

Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine truly puts a new viewpoint on how important and effective capitalism is in this world. From our history and Economics classes, we are taught that our economic system benefits all and is used to set up better futures for our country. However, after reading Shock Doctrine, it is apparent that what we have been taught is not always true. To me, it is appalling seeing Americans, people who are viewed as the people that help those who are in need, focus on putting money in their pockets rather than helping people in need. By misleading survivors that things will get better in the future and not focusing on the now, capitalists contradict their mission in allowing for any person to benefit. Humans who are left in rubble with nothing to their name have little to no opportunities to get up again and reach the top without the help of others. And with those others who are supposed to help actually putting the money in their pockets, the whole system is flawed. It proves that there actually are two sides to every story, no matter how normal and non-flawed the system actually seems.

The Four Horsemen: Are we the real problem?

After spending most of the week reading Zizek and learning about his Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Ecology, Economy, Biology, and Society), it was a relief to hear a new opinion on such a large part of the end-all-be-all. Burroughs writes that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are Death, Famine, Plague, and War, but his most interesting decision was to use the metaphor of the Horsemen actually being human beings. Like we have read in other pieces, this implies that we as humans, once again, are going to the be cause of the end of the world as we know it. Burroughs allows the reader to come the realization that the Apocalypse isn't going to occur in a split second, like how the tall tales say it will. Rather, he implies that humans are at fault. Humans made Famine. Humans made War. Humans made Plague. Humans lead to death. So often do we attribute these powerful entities to the acts of a God, but in reality, our actions have led to these Four Horsemen. Our breakthroughs in science, a topic that I am so very interested in, could lead to our downfall. The disparity and difference in amount of food people in different parts of this world could lead to our downfall. Our selfish decisions to attack another country over differing opinions could lead to our downfall. Burroughs' ideas have a common understanding with Diaz and Zizek. While they all are different thinkers, some being more radical than another, they all believe that the end of the world can be attributed to the actions of humans, and their information to back up the claim is hard to reject.

Zizek's Ideas: Are they too Extreme or Do they Lead to Important Morals?

The apocalypse is less about catastrophes and disasters than it is about revelations. While a brief concept, this ideology draws revelations in itself. So often we think of the apocalypse as being the end of the world, filled with tornadoes and volcanoes and other disasters (possibly ending phonetically with "Oes"), but as Zizek puts it, the apocalypse that "we are currently living in" is filled with new opportunities for understanding and other revelations. Zizek talks about a possible technological breakthrough called the Sixth Sense that allows humans to be in contact with all possible information. However, as Zizek states, "Sixth Sense does not really represent a

radical break with our everyday experience; rather, it openly stages what was always the case" (Zizek 338). This simple sentence allows for person revelations in that we already do certain things that Sixth Sense does, like projecting our personal beliefs out for the world to see. His ideas, while often radical and extreme, allow us to come to the realization that we are creating things that have the ability to end our personal lives, in this case socially. I firmly believe that these ideas are extreme and probably unlikely, but they open up for possibilities in the future that seem like a great idea, but in reality prove to hinder us. Through Zizek's ideas, we are able to come the realization that while something may sound great and look great and seem to fix all our problems, we can be causing more and more problems, eventually leading to a different type of world where new problems will be found and eventually lead to a new downfall. Although we have heard it a million times before from our mothers, there are consequences to our actions, and we need to be aware of what those consequences are so that we don't lead ourselves to the downfall of our civilization. 

Apocalypse: What Disasters Reveal - Reaction by Jake Pozin

Of all the insights that Junot Diaz offered in his piece, the most interesting and thought provoking idea was of how we perceive disasters. Whenever a disaster occurs, the first thing we think of is that the disaster was a natural cause. Diaz offered the idea that the disasters in reality are caused socially. The idea itself is mindblowing! People often assume the apocalypse is the end of the world and will occur naturally, but by the way Diaz explains it, these disasters, in reality, are caused by us. We take for granted the small chances of problems that our actions may cause. For example, the United States government's decision to sell hundreds of square miles of wetlands to developers sets up a prime opportunity for accidents to occur. This insight by Diaz allows for thought-provoking reflection upon how our actions affect the world around us. It brings up the importance of sustainability and makes us think of our true impact on our surroundings. Diaz's ideas are so often overlooked, but after reading his work it truly makes one reflect about his impact on the world and the possible apocalypse.