Inflexibility in Isaac Marion's "Warm Bodies"

   In Marion's "Warm Bodies", the theme of inflexibility creates a paradoxical state in the novel. The "bonies" and the apocalypse-deadened humans are both characterized by a rigid mental state characterized by binary opposition, an "us-vs-them" mentality. This state is the implied reason for General Grigio's transformation from a human to a bonie, since both the younger humans and the zombies possess a more flexible mental state. This flexibility and adaptiveness represents, according to the author, the best in humanity, since it is a perfectible state. However, the struggle throughout the novel is between flexibility and inflexibility, which is again a binary opposition. The fact that conflict between these two ideologies is inevitable is interesting, because it implies that the conflict is in some way endemic to this situation. As long as individuals with entrenched ideologies exist, they will be in opposition to more dynamic modes of existence. The notion that is presented in the close of the novel, namely reducing the chance for rigid ideologies to develop by exposing individuals to new forms of thought (in this case, the notion that the zombies are not innately threatening) is pleasantly optimistic. However, if this novel is a social critique, it may be too idealistic to be a reflection of contemporary social reality. Rigid ideologies worldwide still find adherents among the dispossessed, rootless and angry, indicating that exposure to more flexible worldviews, by themselves, will not change this problem.

Warm Bodies

What really struck me about Isaac Marion’s Warm Bodies is a part in the beginning, when “R” gets married and how he and his wife are given children and how they are trying so much to be human again but lack the necessary emotion, or humanity. Also, what struck me about this part is that his “wife” has a nametag, she has a name, she has an identity, and yet the zombies have lost the ability to read. This made me think of the clip from lecture last week that led to a discussion of how, in a time when the world is collapsing the most important thing that people really cling to and rely on is the media for information about what is going on. However, part of the characteristics of an apocalyptic setting is the lack of a centralized government, or a lack of unity when getting accurate information to the few survivors clinging to their radios and TV’s with hope of good news. In Warm Bodies, it is the zombies who are clueless and lost and desperately wanting to know what happened, who they were, even just what their names had been. They do not know why they are what they are they just know that they exist. In this sense the zombies are in even more of a state of desperation then the people just because the information addressing what happened to civilization is all around them, they have just lost the ability to read and interpret it. Without knowledge of what to do or where to turn for help, it makes sense why they would give in to the instinct to attack humans, they have nothing to follow that tells them what they should or should not be doing other then whatever their instincts drive them to do. Honestly I feel very bad for zombies, they really are victims of something horrible and yet they are always seen as the bad guys. They may be monsters but somehow it is not entirely their fault.

Warm Bodies and 28 Days Later



When comparing the film 28 Days Later and Warm Bodies, the film takes the perspective of a group trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world.  In this view the zombies, or infected, are viewed as monsters who can be killed without the feeling of remorse otherwise an healthy, non-infected human would be killed or turned into one of the infected.  In Warm Bodies, the perspective of the zombies which gives them more of a human character.  The zombies are more of victims of circumstances that were out of their control and are left doing what they need to survive.  R only eats other humans in order to keep him from being completely dead, which he views as a horrible idea.  Before and after the action of eating the Living, R finds himself disturbed of the act.  This gives the zombies a more survival driven instinct rather that the mindless violence that the zombies in 28 Days Later express.

Zombies from 28 Days Later differ from the conventional zombie as in they are infected with the Rage Virus and are not undead. The zombies are more of a backdrop on the story about survival and to what lengths will humans as a group or individual go to survive. When Major West promises his men woman and that women are a means of a future, it breaks it down to humans as tools. Keeping someone alive was only necessary if they had a use. When Selena and Hannah were dressed up in red dresses I think it alludes to the blood shed that is about to come and the upcoming violence in the final battle.

Warm Bodies

Warm Bodies created a different view of the traditional zombie. The way they live is a contradiction, which correlates with the “living dead” aspect. Yeah, they all are the “living dead” and walk around slowly, moaning as a form of communication, and eat humans but they still have a small understanding of their past life. The zombies still create families; they have a weird type of wedding ceremony, they just give children away and parents watch as their children learn to attack and eat humans. The children still show some type of affection. The zombies still have a creepy way of having sex. They still sleep after a long amount of time. They have small aspects that humans can relate to, yet they manage to keep distant from their humanity due to hunting humans, lacking communication, and most importantly lacking any emotion.

Zombies

The topic of Zombies is a popular theme in thriller movies.  Zombies remind us of the uncanny and the borderline between the familiar and the disturbing.  As we learned in class,, zombie apocalypses often represent the collapse of the government, which signifies the death of order, and our anxieties of trust and civilization.  The novel, Warm Bodies, portrayed an life where there has been a loss of identity for both the humans and the zombies.  The loss of identity is demonstrated by the absence of zombie names and the lack of interest among the humans in the stadium.  Julie states that both her dad and Perry loss their characters and became militarized and robotic after the zombie catastrophe.  This again reflects the uncanny, in that the characters lost their unique identities and began to mimic the motions of life.  This idea is also solidified in the end of the novel when Julie's dad gives up on life and lets himself become a skeleton.  The skeletons represent souls that have submitted to death and stopped fighting against struggles while the transformation into humans represents hope.

Warm Bodies

It was a romance story and I didn't really want to read it, but once I read the book, I felt that the romance wasn’t the biggest part of the story. To me, the big picture seemed to be about how a war-scarred world lost home and discarded itself of humanity. The zombies in this story didn’t seem like zombies because how they were written but more like people who had thrown away or forgotten what made them human. R’s journey back into being human was more like regaining the qualities that makes a person a human. To me it was a story about hope that the things that we believe to be monsters aren’t really and can be saved.