Category: McCoy 432 Spring 2018

In class we discussed how Zone One deals with containment and how it can often be futile. The one main example of containment and its futility that I saw in the novel connected with one of our course concepts, memory. Mark Spitz mentions how, in this post-apocalyptic landscape, it’s necessary to only worry about the immediate future, otherwise, you’re not going to survive. He tries to contain himself in the present moment as much as possible but memory makes this effort futile. Mark is continually dragged back into the past, seeing and, more importantly, remembering faces of people he had “known or loved” in the zombies, such as his past teacher, Ms. Alcott. Even when survival requires living in the moment, the past still upwells in the form of memory. No matter how hard Mark, or anyone else, tries to contain themselves in the present moment, past experiences force themselves into consciousness.

Continue reading “Memory and the Futility of Containment on a Smaller Scale”

After Monday’s class discussion I found myself very entrenched in thinkING about the thread of conversation that several of my peers brought up regarding films and movies that had been altered after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. Beth brought up how this directly ties into performances of memory and forgetting, and I wanted to explore this further as it really got me curious about the process of altering media after a communally disturbing or terrorizing event takes place. What we have read so far in Colson Whitehead’s novel, Zone One, centers, for the most part, around Mark Spitz’s experiences as a sweeper scouring for skels in the demolished ash and debris of post-plague lower Manhattan. Through this, Whitehead is evoking an eerily similar setting to that of post-9/11 New York City and consciously performs a remembering of this traumatic time. This is definitely quite contrasting to what I found when researching media that came about in the wake of 9/11. Continue reading “Memory and Media”

When reading Zone One, the phrase “Bring out your dead.” really stuck out to me for some reason that at first I couldn’t place. Then, it hit me: it reminded me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I have embedded the clip above, but essentially, the person collecting the bodies of those who died from the Black Death calls “bring out your dead!” Eventually, around a minute in, one person tries to drop off a “body” that isn’t dead and hilarity ensues. [Sidenote: if you’ve never seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail or the musical version Spamalot, please do.]

Besides the obvious parallel between a not-dead body and the skels of Zone One, Colson Whitehead is clearly referencing the body disposal practices from the Black Death era as performed in this skit, performing a memory of another plague and another time of need for the prevention of the spread of disease. Continue reading “Monty Python and the Black Plague as a Model for the Zombie Apocalypse”

As a cigarette smoker of five years (yes, I know, I should quit) I can’t help but pay special attention to the cigarette references Whitehead makes throughout Zone One.  Cigarettes come up on multiple occasions to fulfill different purposes. Sometimes they’re used to complete a metaphor or simile, like when the narrator describes shell casings falling to the ground like “tossed cigarette butts” (94). Other times they’re used simply to set the scene, like the various moments when Gary lights a cigarette before bed or after killing a skel. These casual moments are everywhere and deliberate enough to stand in for something bigger.

The symbolism of smoking cigarettes in Zone One is actually pretty ironic. While the skels seem to be the most widespread and dangerous ghost from the past, cigarettes are there in the backdrop– ghosts that are just as dangerous and present as they were in a world before the plague. The irony plays out nicely when the soldiers move conversation from skel-killing glory stories to “cigarette-salvage possibilities” because of how much smoking had picked up since the plague (44). This moment is so painfully human. I personally cannot even recall how many times I’ve gone out for a cigarette in a moment of high stress, to find myself conversing with another smoker who I know for no other reason except that they’re a smoker. The conversation follows a similar dialogue to the one seen in Zone One: we share some stories, talk about our stresses, and then finish with the conversation of cigarettes themselves. Continue reading “Cigarettes as a sign of civilization”

How many ways can an author attempt to build a world within a books plot? The simplest way could be to just let the story begin within the context of the real world. Let the setting start within that of the actual world and edit from there. Some authors choose to write entirely new worlds, new time lines, or even alternative physics like those found in the Star Wars franchise. Regardless of how different this world’s history is from our own, authors must address their world in a way that allows readers to adjust to the new setting and understand enough of how that world works so that they can follow the plot. However, not everything one reads may seem like it was necessary to further the plot of the story. Continue reading “World Building in Literature”

“Usually disasters like this bring out the best in everybody, and that’s what we expected to see. Now we’ve got people that it’s bringing out the worst in.” This is a quote from the Governor of Louisiana Kathleen Blanco in 2005 during the after effects in Hurricane Katrina as presented in When the Levees Broke. I was brought back to this moment and this concept while talking about zombie narratives in class on Friday, and while I was reading Zone One.

In reading the rather convoluted text Zone One, something that grounded and grounds me is the zombie genre and how familiar it is to me. This was true for a lot of people in the class like Spencer and Jenna, for example. I have experienced the “zombie disaster” genre through many mediums–video games, television shows, movies–but approaching Zone One, I became aware of how similar this–hopefully–fantasy genre is to the course concepts and materials we have covered.

Continue reading “What Does the Zombie Genre Really Say About Us?”

WARNING: This post may be construed as depressing for some, so if you just want to see some puppies and other animals, don’t read any of this and just watch the videos. Take care of yourself and if you need to take a break, do so.

Zombies have dominated pop culture for the last decade or two; they lord over TV with shows like The Walking Dead and iZombie, they share the subway with you on your way to a cubicle in a metal and concrete box populated by computers and board meetings, and they’re all over Colson Whitehead’s Zone One. Even though a plethora of papers has come about in an effort to explain just what it is about zombies that makes them so applicable to allegory in a new age of technology, the idea of an undead thrall that feeds on the living is an almost timeless one.

Continue reading “Touch of Gray”

I’ve always heard my grandpa say “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink,” and I really couldn’t tell you why he says it. The actual line comes from an 1798 text, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I can safely assert that my grandpa has never read that and he was never a sailor. But, I found this to be a fitting title for this blog post and next time I see him, my grandpa will enjoy hearing about his five seconds of blog fame.

Anyway, due to the nature of this course, I’ve found that water is everywhere. Yet, I was still shocked to find the “language of water” in Colson Whitehead’s Zone One since water isn’t the driving factor of the plot. I mean at least not yet. I think it’s funny, because of the sheer nature of fluidity, that this recurrence of water has been grounding my thinking as I’m reading. I’ve been able to use language that is evocative of water, its properties and its force, as something I can hold onto as I dive into (see what I did there) a novel filled with specific genre conventions that I’m not very familiar with. It also allows me some ways to connect the novel with the ideas of churning and cycling that I’ve been thinking about all semester. Continue reading “Water, Water Everywhere”

I would like to configure this post in conversation with the post written earlier this week by Jenna, Jonathan, Aidan, Madi, Clio, and Cameron. This group writes thoughtfully about Hurricane Iniki and its impact on the Hawaiian Islands; what I wish to do is expand on one of their points by drawing connections back to previously-examined course content.

Continue reading “The Least We Can Do: Bearing the Weight of Iniki and Others”