Souman !1
Leonie A. Souman (6078990)
Thesis Master Literary Studies: Literature and Culture - Specialisation English
Dr. R.W.H Glitz
30 June 2014
!
Zombies, Vampires, Humans:
How Monstrosities Demarcate the Border Between Human and Non-Human
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
Souman !2
Table of contents:
!
Introduction
3
1. What is a Human?
4
2. Definitely Not Human
7
3. ‘No Longer Human’
9
4. Mutation
12
5. Without a Body
15
6. Giant Rationality
17
7. The Human Factor
19
8. Talking and Thinking
21
9. Alive
24
10. Mourning
26
11. Dehumanisation and Identification
28
12. The Other
30
13. The New Human
32
14. Being Included
34
Conclusion
36
Works Cited
39
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
Souman !3
!
Introduction
The definition of what features constitute a human being have changed over time. Just as everything else, the contemporary view is rather different compared to the view of earlier times.
In order to find out more about this intriguing subject, it is helpful to look at texts that address
the border between human and non-human. By looking at monstrosities that are considered
non-human, a clearer definition could be discovered. There are of course many different monstrosities, but the focus here will be on the ones that are humanoid or near humanoid in form.
A long tradition of ghost stories and vampire stories exists, along with the more recent zombie
stories. These humanoids with a subtle difference to humans show which features, if lost, deprive them of humanity. By examining some contemporary examples from these traditions,
the biggest threats to humanity become clear. The criteria of what features are necessary to be
considered human can be defined by monstrosity narratives and the results reflect on, and explain, contemporary views of human beings and humanity.
The amount of narratives available on monstrosities is overwhelming, which could be
an indicator of how many people struggle with the question of humanity and to which degree
these struggles reach. Here, six novels and one book series are looked at in order to find an
answer. Firstly, the novel The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse by
Steven C. Scholzman, which is about zombies and the delicate border between the zombie
and the human. Secondly, the book I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, which is about a
world in which vampires form a new community in which humans are a minority. Thirdly,
Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, a story about a boy who is raised by ghosts. Fourth on
the list is The BGF by Roald Dahl, a children’s book about a friendly giant. The fifth novel is
World War Z by Max Brooks, which describes a zombie pandemic. The novel Warm Bodies
by Isaac Marion is the last single volume. It portrays a zombie boy who falls in love with a
human girl. All of these narratives play with the border between the human and the non-human and, at times, blur the border to the extent that the distinction is lost. Finally, the series
about Sookie Stackhouse by Charlaine Harris incorporate vampires, werewolves, shape shifters and faeries.
Souman !4
The main focus here will be on the novels that are about zombies. However, the humanoid figures of the vampire, the ghost, and the werewolf are useful to help demarcate the
boundaries of the human.
!
1. What is a Human?
In order to understand what exactly constitutes a human, a definition of the concept is needed.
According to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, the noun human means ‘a human
being’. The explanation under human being gives the following description: ‘a man, woman,
or child of the species Homo Sapiens’ (693). The online version of the Oxford Dictionary is a
bit more elaborate, as it states that a human being is:
‘A man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other
animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright
stance.’
While this definition seems simple and clear, there are some gaping holes in it. First of all,
superior mental development is not something that is guaranteed in every man, woman and
child. There are countless examples of people with, sometimes severe, issues in their mental
development. To argue that their mental development is superior to that of animals is hugely
problematic.
It is generally agreed upon by scholars and scientist that many different species of
animals have great mental development, for example dolphins and chimpanzees, although
their capacities are deemed less than those of humans, as seen in this quote from Science, Medicine, and Animals by the National Academy of Sciences:
‘Animals, after all, are not capable of many of the more complex functions found in
humans, such as advanced language, moral reasoning, or complex learning skills. But
many of the basic structures and functions of the brain are common to all animals.
Since complex human thoughts are built on a foundation of simpler mental processes
that are evident in animals, animal studies can shed light on uniquely human
behaviors.’ (11)
However, there are many people with mental disabilities that lack the ability to perform these
complex functions. Someone with, for example, Trisomy 21 often has great difficulties with
his speech and learning. One of the common traits of this disability, also known as Down’s
Souman !5
Syndrome, is an IQ that is below average. Extensive research regarding the limitations and
abilities of people affected by this syndrome is ongoing, but there is a general agreement that
they are not as able as regular people. They fail to fulfil all the demands of a human being as
stated by both the online version of the Oxford Dictionary and the National Academy of Sciences. Still, this does not mean that these people are not human.
The last qualification stated by the online version of the Oxford Dictionary is that of
upright stance. This is, again, highly problematic. It suggests that people who are, for whatever reason, unable to stand upright are not human. A person born with Spina Bifida usually
sits in a wheelchair and is unable to walk, due to being born with spinal issues. The same is
obviously true for people born without legs. They have no stance, so therefore they are not
human. And a person who could stand and walk, but loses ability to do so after an accident or
illness, is from that moment on no longer human. These claims are ridiculous, outrageous and
unethical: having disabilities does not mean that a person is not a human.
There are many solutions available for a multitude of illnesses and disabilities, some
of which including a change to the physical body of the patient. For instance the pacemaker, a
devise designed for people with severe heart problems. The devise is a little machine that reboots the heart in case of failure. Batteries, plastic, metal and other materials are used and the
little machine gets implanted into the patient. The technology behind this is incredible and it
cannot be denied that this technology has saved many lives. Although the patient only continues to live due to the pacemaker, and although his body has been altered, the patient is still
undeniably still human. Apart from a few religious groups, that are against any type of intervention and believed that their deity will save them if he deems them worthy to be saved, nobody objects to the intervention doctors carry out in order to save people suffering from heart
conditions, nor do they have any ethical objections.
Nonetheless, there are medical procedures that raise a score of ethical objections from
various people. A clear example to illustrate this is abortion and the controversy around it.
While many people think birth control is perfectly acceptable, their feelings about abortion
can be quite different. Abortion is of course not a means of birth control, as conception has
already taken place and the cluster of cells soon has a heartbeat, while birth control prevents
conception altogether. The grounds for objecting to abortion are usually exactly because the
pregnancy is already considered to be a human being. Whether or not that is true is difficult to
Souman !6
decide. Without the woman to feed it via the placenta and to protect it inside her womb and
body, it would not be able to grow or survive. However, it cannot be denied that the growth
inside the womb is alive, especially once a heartbeat can be detected, which happens at five
weeks after conception.
Another controversial procedure regarding pregnancy is that of embryo selection and
reprogenetics. Embryo selection is a process that allows doctors to screen in vitro embryos for
certain characteristics before placing them into the womb, while reprogenetics is a term used
to describe the genetic modification of said embryos. The screening of embryos allows medical professionals to be certain that the resulting baby does not, for instance, suffer from Cystic
Fibrosis or some other serious ailment. Apart from deciding which ailments are serious enough to eliminate, other possibilities spark yet more debate, as this procedure also allows for
the selection of the sex of the baby. While that is useful for a number of diseases that only affect one of the sexes, it means that prospective parents can choose the sex of their offspring
for no reason other than preferring that sex. Embryo selection and reprogenetics could even
be used to only opt for babies that have blue eyes or brown hair. The possibility of having a
designer baby is there, although this notion is hotly debated.
Exactly how controversial the idea of reprogenetics is, can be seen when looking at the
heated debate surrounding the subject. In 2008, Darthmouth College professor of ethics Ronald M. Green writes in his article “ Building Baby From the Genes Up” in The Washington
Post:
‘Will we eventually see "speciation," the emergence of two or more human
populations so different that they no longer even breed with one another? Will we recreate the horrors of eugenics that led, in Europe, Asia and the United States, to the
sterilization of tens of thousands of people declared to be "unfit" and that in Nazi
Germany paved the way for the Holocaust?’
Richard Hayes, director of the Center for Genetics and Society, responds a few days later to
Green’s questions in his article “Genetically Modified Humans? No Thanks,” in The Washington Post by saying:
‘We want all these things [i.e. favourable traits], yes, and genetic technology might
help us attain them, but we don't want to run the huge risks to the human community
Souman !7
and the human future that would come with altering the genetic basis of our common
human nature.’
The interesting term used by Green and Hayes here is human. Hayes talks about the ‘human
community’, ‘human future’, and ‘human nature’ like there terms have a fixed meaning.
Green refers to ‘two or more human populations’. But if the meaning of the word human is
problematic and inconclusive, then the terms uttered by Hayes and Green lose their validity.
!
2. Definitely Not Human
As shown earlier, finding an accurate description of what a human being is, proofs to be difficult. By inverting the problem, an easier answer may be found. Instead of trying to describe
the characteristics a human possesses, a closer look at figures that are usually regarded as definitely not human could provide some answers. Some obvious examples of non-human figures are found in fiction: zombies, vampires and ghosts. These figures are, unlike animals, still
humanoid in form. That is, their appearance greatly resembles that of a human being and at
first glance they could easily be mistaken for a human. One very intriguing aspect of these
monsters, is that they, at least partially, fit the description of a human being as stated by the
online Oxford Dictionary: all of these figures possess the upright stance.
Superior mental development is harder to prove in all of these humanoids. It is not too
difficult in the case of vampires, as they still possess the ability of articulate speech. Speech
makes it easy to measure mental development and learning skills, but it is not the only way of
measuring said abilities. Besides, the notion of superior mental development is to vague a
term to use in order to accurately describe one of the conditions required to be counted as a
human being. The degree of superiority needed is not stated anywhere, nor is it clearly stated
what the human is superior to. That being said, finding evidence of superior mental development in the figure of the zombie as depicted in popular fiction is difficult. The general consensus about the figure of the zombie is that of a reanimated corpse that has lost all mental
capabilities and just exist in order to feed on human flesh.
According to the Cambridge Online Dictionaries, a zombie is ‘a dead person who is
believed, in some Caribbean religions, to have been brought back to life by magic’. This definition says nothing about the hankering for flesh that popular culture has bestowed upon the
zombie. Ethnobotanist Wade Davis travelled to Haiti in 1982 and afterwards claimed that a
Souman !8
deathlike state could be induced by having two different powders enter the blood stream of
the victim. In his 1985 book The Serpent and the Rainbow, which was later adapted into a
movie, he describes the people affected as being completely subjected to the will of the person that had exposed them to the the powders. Davis’ Haitian zombie differs greatly from the
one depicted in the 1968 George A. Romero movie Night of the Living Dead. Romero’s movie
was the first to present the public with the dead, soulless, reanimated, flesh eating ghouls that
have become the popular way of thinking of the zombie.
The popular view on vampires does differentiate considerably of the view on zombies.
Probably the world’s most famous vampire novel, Dracula by Bram Stoker, has laid the foundation of contemporary views on the figure of the vampire, which make the figure of the
vampire smart, strong, devious, highly educated, ancient, and powerful. That being said, there
are also important similarities to the zombie. Like zombies, vampires are dead and soulless
creatures, who prey upon humans. Unlike zombies, rather than craving human flesh, the vampire saturates his desires by drinking the blood of his victim. The results of these feeding
frenzies are similar in nature: if bitten by a zombie, one becomes a zombie; if bitten by a
vampire, one becomes a vampire. This requires the attacker to only bite the victim and not
feed on him until he dies. Unfortunately, both zombies and vampires are often carried away
by their hunger and will keep feeding themselves until the victim succumbs to his injuries.
Thus, although the vampire and the zombie are different at first glance, they share multiple
traits which helps to identify them and inhumane and even as not being human.
The traits shared by vampires and zombies are not present in ghosts, which leads to the
necessity of another demarcator of what constitutes a human: death. Death seems the most
important criteria when deciding about the nature of the humanoids discussed here: vampires,
zombies and ghosts are all dead. Although vampires are definitely dead, they still posses their
mental capabilities, the power of articulate speech, and upright stance. The rich tradition of
ghost stories provides countless examples of ghosts that can think rationally and have no difficulties in communicating. As mentioned before, it is a challenge to find proof of rational
thinking in zombie narratives, but zombies are undeniably able to stand and walk. The only
criteria that undoubtedly places these creatures outside the area that human beings occupy,
outside the definition as given by the dictionary, is that of living versus dead. Neither zombies
Souman !9
nor vampires posses a heartbeat, while ghosts do not even have a body. Albeit useful, this criteria also means that a person ceases to be human once he dies.
Suggesting that a person is no longer a human being after he passes away, will surely
lead to protests. There will be very few people who, after a loved of dies, will think of that
loved one as no longer being human. Nevertheless, when comparing a deceased person with
the definition of a human being as found in the dictionary, it cannot be argued that the person
fails to meet the criteria. Upright stance, articulate speech and superior mental development
are no longer present in the person and therefore he cannot be considered to be a human. This
troublesome conclusion suggests that the definition of a human being needs to be refined. Instead of simply looking at the human being, it is more fruitful to look at the terms humane and
humanity. A dictionary description will not suffice to explain these terms, as there is a certain
undefinable, and possibly emotional, feeling attached to these terms. This same feeling is attached to the term human, which explains why the dictionary is so unsuccessful at giving a
definition that satisfies the innate imagine people have of these terms. Therefore, a closer look
at some examples of the monstrous humanoids can provide clues about the exact border between human and non-human.
!
3. ‘No Longer Human’
Steven C. Scholzman’s book The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse
paints a grim picture of a world that is infested with zombies. Two point three billion people
have already died from the infection and the ones infected will follow swift: only ‘one-third
of humanity remains’ (9). In Scholzman’s text, a human made virus is responsible for a disease that leads to zombiism: Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficieny Sydrome, or ANSD in
short. The reference to neurology here provides a clue into the essence of what constitutes a
human being, as it suggest that the loss of neurological powers renders people to something
that can no longer be considered human. As stated before, this leads to objections due to the
difficulties in defining a clear border as to what is considered to be enough neurological capability. Scholzman recognises this problem and struggles to find an answer that is acceptable.
The book is set out as a report that incorporates the diary written by neuroscientist Dr
Stanley Blum, an expert in the field of zombies who tries to gain a deeper understanding on
how the zombies function. After some background information in the report, the book conti-
Souman !10
nues with the journal of Blum and his quest to find a cure for ANSD. The disease consist of
four stages, which Blum describes in his diary:
‘Stage I - Onset of extreme hunger with coexisting fever and upper respiratory
symptoms. Cognitive lucidity it maintained. Stage I lasts from two minutes to three
days.
Stage II - Worsening fever with measured temperatures up to 105°F. Cough worsens
and cognitive decline begins with confusion and delirium. Hunger intensifies, with a
preference for large, living organisms. Balance begins to suffer, with a wide, staggered
gait. Arms are often held in front to maintain posture. Names and people are usually
still recognised but with significant confusion. Stage II lasts from one to twenty-four
hours.
Stage III - Ongoing fever, worsening delirium, and significant cognitive decline.
Neurological effects are profound, with frequent falls and increased aggressive
behavior. From observation, hunger appears to increase, though subjects are no longer
able to speak coherently and cannot accurately convey their feelings. Previous
autopsies have demonstrated significant abnormalities in the gastrointestinal organs.
Malabsorption and inability to process food predominate. Stage III lasts no more than
four hours.
Stage IV - Complete loss of human characteristics. Officially categorised as “No
Longer Human” — “NLH” — by the UN and the WHO. These are the true zombies.
That’s what we called them when we first tried to describe their behavior, and the
terms, though crass, works. That’s what they are… They have no capacity to recognise
others as anything other than prey. They demonstrate profoundly hyperaggressive [sic]
behavior. Everything that’s human is gone.’ (13-16)
This long quote offers some insight in the things that appear necessary to humanity. Terms
such as ‘cognitive lucidity’, ‘cognitive decline’, ‘balance begins to suffer’, ’neurological effects’, ‘frequent falls’, ’aggressive behavior’, ‘speak coherently’ and ’convey their feelings’
point to the significance of the requirements of mental development, articulate speech and
upright stance. Stage IV speaks of a ‘complete loss of human characteristics’ and states the
person is ‘No Longer Human’. Blum even goes as far to say that ‘everything human is gone’.
The loss of the criteria as stated by the dictionary means the loss of humanity.
Souman !11
Scholzman’s character Blum agrees with the division into the four stages as suggested
by the World Health Organization and the United Nations. The difference between a human
and a stage IV patient of ANSD is major and nobody could claim that a stage IV patient still
bears any resemblance to a human.
Ethics play a significant part in the story Scholzman has written. Early on in the story,
Blum writes in his diary: ‘I remain firm in my belief that it is unethical to dissect anything
other than Stage IV subjects’ (28). At this point, all the scientists Blum is working with are
infected with ANSD, including Blum himself. However, anyone who has not reached the final
stage of the disease is still considered to be a human and it goes against everything Blum believes in to perform an autopsy on a living human. But even when a patient has clearly reached stage IV, Blum struggles with the procedure, as clearly seen when he writes: ‘I still find
it very difficult to bring the saw to the top of the humanoid’s head’ (34). His qualms are understandable, as the humanoids in the narrative have not actually died, but are merely deemed
‘No Longer Human’. As Blum states:
‘I can’t get my mind around this. These things, these cockroaches, have human hearts
that beat. They’re alive. How can they not be alive? What the hell does NLH mean?
What does “No Longer Human” mean?’ (92)
The underscoring of this question highlights the importance of it. According to the WHO and
UN guidelines that are referred to by Blum, a person is no longer human when he has lost all
human characteristics.
A clear and exact description of the characteristics that are supposed to be human is
not given in the novel. Again, it appears that there is some innate agreement as to what these
characteristics are, while no explanation of them is offered. However, there is one feature
mentioned above that shows up again in this narrative: the divide between living and dead. In
an exchange between Blum and his colleague Pittman, the importance of this argument is
brought to the foreground:
‘The host [e.g. the infected person] should be dead, but isn’t. It is dead, he told me.
That’s why we call them zombies. He smiled nervously. But that’s not the point, I told
him. The point is that the human is dead, but the virus changes us, uses us. We keep
moving even when we’re “technically” dead. Pittman didn’t like this, and I stopped
Souman !12
explaining. They’re dead, he kept saying, mumbling it over and over again under his
breath.’ (105)
The nervous smile that Blum sees on Pittman’s face is a strong indicator of the necessity of
the zombies being dead in order to feel comfortable with performing autopsies on them. Dissecting a living human is unethical and inhumane.
The extent to which performing an autopsy on a living human is problematic becomes
apparent just a few pages further in the story. In a section that is not part of Blum’s diary, but
of the report, a debate about the issue is being prepared:
‘Because neurological damage and the resultant behavioral changes appear irreversible
at Stage IV, we’ll need to study subjects at earlier stages of disease progression. This
means dissecting humans at Stage III or even II of the disease. In other words, we
must consider dissecting living humans, a clear violation of the Atlanta Protocol.
Please arrive tomorrow prepared to discuss the ramifications of this possibility.’ (118)
The ‘Atlanta Protocol’ referred to is designed by the United Nations in an attempt to deal with
the outbreak of ANSD. Further explanation of the protocol is found in Appendix II of the
book, where it says:
‘In keeping with the conventions of the Treaty of Atlanta (3), we will not in this article
refer to or consider these patients as human. Infected patients are considered
manoid” once definitive ICD-10 criteria for Stage IV infection are met (4). Given
unique circumstances, we understand and are especially sympathetic with the
troversies surrounding this provocative change in definition, but in the
the ongoing outbreaks, the reconceptualization of “human” is
“huour
ethical con-
interest of stemming
necessary so that scientific
investigation can proceed with necessary inquiries in the absence of more stringent guidelines appropriately governing the use of human beings
for experiments.’ (148-149)
These statements indicate how disturbingly problematic it is to define the border of human
and the demarcation of its confines.
!
4. Mutation
Some clues that could help to draw a clean line around the notion of a human being can be
found in I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Matheson tells the story of Robert Neville, who,
according to the synopsis on the back of the book ‘may well be the only survivor of an incu-
Souman !13
rable plague that has mutated every other man, woman and child into bloodthirsty, nocturnal
creatures’. These vampires are created by a virus that changes the infected person into a being
that cannot function during the day, drinks blood, is allergic to garlic and cannot be killed by
bullets. Instead, a wooden stake through the heart is one of the few full proof methods to dispose of these creatures, enforcing the legend of the classical vampire. But unlike the traditional vampire, mirrors and running water have no effect on these creatures and the religious
sign of the cross only affects a percentage of them. These strange creatures are a mixture of
legend and nightmare and utterly baffle Neville.
In his search for an explanation, Neville educates himself on a wide variety of subjects. He becomes a builder, a vampire killer, a philosopher, and mechanic, to name a few. He
is ruthless in his attitude towards the vampires and tries to dispose of as many as he can. Unfortunately, the vampires invariably find his house and keep demanding he gives himself up.
Each night, a former neighbour, Ben Cortman, keeps demanding that Neville comes out.
Cortman can still speak, walk and possesses at least some rational thought. However, he is not
able to break into Neville’s house, nor are the other vampires. As Neville observes:
‘He was certain that all the living that came to his house at night were insane. … And
that would explain the fact that they’d never taken the obvious step of burning his
house. They simply could not think that logically.’ (106)
This quote straddles the border of the mental development deemed necessary in order to be
counted as a human. The vampires can think, but not logically enough to reach the bar of human rationality set by Neville.
The quote also reveals the mixed makeup of the vampire population in Matheson’s
story. Albeit a great percentage of them is dead, there is also a high percentage of vampires
that are still living. According to Neville, the reason for this can be found in the bacteria responsible for the vampirism: it needs blood to feed from. If the host, while still living, does not
provide the bacteria with fresh blood, the host will starve to death. The infection than causes
the reanimation of the corps, still using it in a quest for fresh blood. He deems the living vampires as insane. Whether this insanity is caused by the bacteria itself or just a consequence of
the inability of the human mind to cope with being infected, is not clear. It does not matter
much to Neville, as both the dead and the living vampires are after his blood. That being said,
it is obvious that his conscience objects towards the killing of living vampires more than it
Souman !14
does when the vampire is already dead, as can be seen in the following: ‘it was always hard
when they were alive … it was insane, there was no rational argument for it’ (15).
At one point in the story, Neville stumbles upon another human walking around in the
ruins of the city during the day. He first distrusts her deeply, which is not surprising after years of solitude. However, Ruth slowly gains his trust, even when she cannot convincingly pass
the tests to proof she is not infected. Neville is so starved for human contact, that he believes
Ruth’s explanations for her unsatisfactory reaction to garlic and her limited knowledge of how
to ward of vampires. As she was outside in the sun and has a tan instead of the white complexion of the vampires, it stands to reason that she is a human. The sudden appearance of
another human, one of the opposite sex, releases a flood of emotion in Neville. He is afraid to
feel, to care about someone, to love. After years of hardship, he has locked away all human
emotions and the presence of Ruth quickly snaps the chains he has forged to keep this essential part of humanity secluded.
The years of surviving in the post-apocalyptic world have made Neville careful, so he
decides to do one last test. Surprisingly enough, when he tests Ruth’s blood, it is positive for
the disease. Panicking, Ruth hits him in the head to render him unconscious and fleas the house. She leaves a letter containing information that startles Neville to his core. She writes:
‘We are infected. … we’re going to stay alive. We’ve found a way to do that and we’re
going to set up society again slowly but surely. We’re going to do away with all those
wretched creatures whom death has cheated. … we may decide to kill you and those
like you. I didn’t mean to hit you, it nearly killed me to do it. But I was so terribly
frightened of what you’d do when you found out. … Forgive me for having to lie to
you … I was loving you.’ (143-144)
Vampire Ruth is eloquent and describes her feelings. She writes about fear and love, she asks
Neville for forgives for her actions, in short: she displays human feelings. Naturally, it is painful for Neville to digest this letter and the ramifications of it:
‘He felt as if all the security of reason were ebbing away from him. The framework of
his life was collapsing and it frightened him.’ (145)
All the knowledge he has deducted over the years about the morality of killing the vampires
has suddenly been taken away from him. If the living vampires can think, walk, talk, and
Souman !15
build a society, Neville cannot find any moral grounds that justify the murdering of these creatures.
The most startling part of Ruth’s letter is when she turns the table on Neville and
claims that there is a big possibility of the vampires deciding to kill Neville and those like
him. Suddenly, he is the one that is abnormal, he is the one from a different species, he is the
monster. The majority of the people have been infected and Neville is a very small minority.
Via Ruth’s blood sample, he discovers that the bacteria originally responsible for the infection
has mutated. This new variant allows the infected to stay in possession of the qualities that
would classify them as human beings. Neville realises the reversal of roles, as seen in this
quote:
‘I’m the abnormal one now. Normalcy was a majority concept, the standard of many
and not the standard of just one man. … they were afraid of him. To them he was some
terrible scourge they had never seen … he was anathema and black terror to be
destroyed.’ (159)
The living vampires are afraid of the unknown human and they fear this unknown life form
that they do not understand. Neville believed that all signs of humanity were absent in the
vampires. The vampires, on the other hand, belief that there is no sign of, for want of a better
word, vampirity in Neville.
!
5. Without a Body
That humanity is not only found in living humans, is visible in Neil Gaiman’s novel The Graveyard Book. The book is set in a graveyard and tells the story of Nobody Owens, a boy who
is raised by a collection of ghosts after his family is brutally murdered. Starting with the dictionary definition of the human being again, the ghosts in Gaiman’s story seen to qualify: they
can think, talk and walk. Moving on from the dictionary, the next qualification was that of
being alive. Obviously, ghosts are not alive, as they have no heartbeat or even a body. The
presence of feelings and emotions, however, cannot be denied in the characters designed by
Gaiman. Astonishingly, the fictional characters often appear more humane than the actual
humans, although the degree of their humanity differs from character to character and not all
the characters were completely human to begin with. All of this together means that Gaiman
has created a story that supports the fluidity of the term human.
Souman !16
One of the people that takes care of Nobody is Silas, a being that is definitely more
than merely human. Silas has abilities that no human possesses, such a flying, and appears to
have a lot of knowledge. Gaiman’s story reveals that Silas is neither alive nor dead and
through subtle hints the reader will probably come to the conclusion that Silas is a vampire, as
he only consumes one type of food, rests during the day and has no reflection in mirrors. Nonetheless, he cares deeply about Nobody and goes to extremes in order to ensure the wellbeing of the boy. He is intelligent and articulate, walks and can fly, and experiences a range of
emotions. In many ways, Silas would be the perfect example of a human being, apart from the
fact that he is a vampire.
There are more examples of characters who are perfect examples of human beings in
the story. Mr and Mrs Owens, a couple buried in the graveyard the story is set in, adopt little
Nobody after his real parents are killed. They have been dead for over 200 years, which
means that there is nothing left of their earthly bodies. However, being alive is not necessary
to possess humanity and it seems that a body is not necessary either. Mr Owens himself struggles with this, as can be observed when he exclaims: ‘for this here baby is unquestionably alive, and as such is nothing to do with us, and is no part of our world’ (8). The other ghosts in
the graveyard have their reservations as well, as Nobody is ‘a human child, a living child’ (18)
and surely does not belong among the dead. The debate is settled when the Lady on the Grey
arrives and tells the ghosts that ‘the dead should have charity’ (24).
The charity of the ghosts ensures Nobody’s survival and slowly their moral objections
to have a living child amongst them disappear. Although Nobody does not know anything
apart from the graveyard, his youth is carefree and not all that different to that of the children
growing up in the nearby village. He has lessons he needs to attend, parents to obey, a community to grow up in, and friends. As Silas puts it: ‘this is where you live and this is where
those who love you can be found’ (31). As a result of his upbringing and the love of the
ghosts, Nobody does not fear death. In a conversation with Silas about dying, he says:
‘“It’s only death. I mean, all of my best friends are dead.”
“Yes.” Silas hesitated. “They are. And they are for the most part, done with the world.
You are not. You’re alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do
anything, make anything, dream anything.”’ (165-166)
Souman !17
Silas touches onto a very defining human trait here. The ability to do anything, to make anything, to dream anything, or to be anything is reserved to human beings as opposed to other
animals.
However, this does not mean that only living humans can do these things. As seen
above with the vampires in I Am Legend, it is possible for other humanoids as well. Silas
himself has changed dramatically over the course of his existence, and his troubled past can
be seen by the following confession:‘I have not always done the right thing. When I was
younger… I did worse things than Jack [the mass murderer]. Worse than any of them. I was
the monster, then, Bod, and worse than any monster’ (285). Silas refers to himself as having
been the worst monster of all, but he recognises that ‘people can change’ (285). From the
monster he used to be, he has turned into a loving guardian for Nobody. Apart from this function he is also a member of the Honour Guard. When Nobody asks Silas what the Honour Guard does, the answer raises many new questions. The members of the Honour Guard ‘guard
the borderlands’ and ‘protect the borders of things’ (284). What these things are, is never specified, although the most natural conclusion is the border between good and evil. But as there
is no specification, it could just as well be the border between human and non-human.
!
6. Giant Rationality
Another novel that describes humanoids with monstrous qualities is The BFG by Roald Dahl.
This famous children’s book tells the story of a little girl named Sophie and the unlikely
friendship that develops between her and a giant. The great majority of the giants is eats human beings and delights in violence. The giant that abducts Sophie is different: he is kind, loving and gentle. His calls himself the Big Friendly Giant, or BFG for short, as that reflects his
nature. The other giants sport names such as Bloodbottler, Fleshlumpeater and Childeater,
which are also reflections of their nature. The BFG is different to the others of his kind and
the differences cause him to be bullied by the others. He is considerably smaller and this makes it easy for the other giants toss him through the air and beat him up. Their hatred for him
is probably caused by fear, as so often in cases of hatred. Fear of the other, fear of things that
are different, fear of the unknown.
Although the BFG is not educated and muddles up his speech, he is intelligent and
knowledgable. He has learned many things by observing humans, but a great number of
Souman !18
things remain a mystery to him. In a conversation with Sophie, he touches upon a subject that
clearly shows the evil in humans:
‘Human beans [sic] is killing each other much quicker than the giants is doing it. …
Giants is not very lovely, but they is not killing each other. Nor is crockadowndillies
[sic] killing other crockadowndillies. Nor is pussy-cats killing pussy-cats. … they is
not killing their own kind. Human beans is the only animals that is killing their own
kind. … Human beans is always killing other human beans.’ (78-79)
The BFG does not understand why humans continuously kill other humans. A lot of murders
are committed out of emotional responses humans have: love, hatred, jealousy, greed, fear.
Humans are not the only species to experience these feelings, yet the rational capabilities of
the humans do not prevent them from killing. The ability to think rationally is one of the
characteristics of the human being, yet it still allows for a multitude of actions that are not at
all humane.
The humanity of humans is questioned even further by the BFG. When Sophie exclaims that ‘humans have never done them [i.e. the giants] any harm’ (79) the BFG responds
by saying:
‘That is what the little piggy-wig [sic] is saying every day … He is saying, “I has
never done any harm to the human bean so why should he be eating me?” … The
human beans is making rules to suit themselves … Everybody is making his own rules
to suit himself.’ (79)
The BFG refers here to the eating of animals, but his observation rings true for nearly everything. If the rules are constantly adapted to suit the needs and wishes of the person that makes
the rules, then they are not rules at all. And if rules are essentially non-existent, this opens up
the possibility to include many more humanoids into the group of human, as the rules of what
a human being actually is are also non-existent. Instead of claiming that only a life form of the
Homo Sapiens variety is a human, an argument can be made to include every life form that
possesses a shred of humanity, whatever that may be.
Thus, the gentle character of the BFG would mean that he should be counted as a human. However, the BFG has a cruel side to him as well. The first proof of this can be seen
when he makes the meanest of the other giant to have a terrible nightmare. And after an elaborate scheme designed by Sophie, the BFG and the Queen of England, all the man eating giants
Souman !19
have been rounded up. They are locked up in a prison built to make sure that they cannot escape and remain incarcerated. He is not so cruel that he is going to let the others of his kind
starve to death. Instead, he plans on feeding them the disgusting plant that he has been eating
himself for years. The plants, named ‘snozzcumbers’ taste like ‘trogfilth and
pigsquibble’ (201). When throwing the repulsive snozzcumbers to the other giants, the BFG
laughs and shouts: ‘It serves them right left and center!’ (203). Interestingly enough, the
Queen seems to agree with this course of events and praises the BFG for his with, as she says:
‘What a clever fellow you are … You are not very well educated by you are really nobody’s
fool, I can see that’ (203). The ability to complete complicated thoughts, again one of the
traits of the human being, is highly valued.
!
7. The Human Factor
The creatures in World War Z by Max Brooks are certainly not able to complete complicated
thoughts or think rationally. In his novel, Brooks follows the course of a zombie apocalypse
and the subsequent years by conducting interviews with survivors. He starts the story by explaining how he has written about the events for the United Nation’s Postwar Commission
Report and how his report was deemed too ‘intimate’ (2). According to the chairperson, the
original report contained ‘too many opinions, too many feelings’ while ‘we need facts and
figures, unclouded by the human factor’ (2). The narrator is baffled by position taken by the
chairperson and asks:
‘But isn’t the human factor what connects us so deeply to our past? … By excluding
the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from a history that
may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor
the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as “the living
dead”?’ (2)
Once again, the human nature appears to be the only thing that divides the humans from the
others.
In one of the first interviews in the book, the importance of the brain is highlighted. In
order to exterminate the zombies, their brains must be destroyed. Jurgen Warmbrunn, an employee of the Israeli intelligence service remarks:
Souman !20
‘We talk about it today as if it is some feat of magic, like holy water or a silver bullet,
but why wouldn’t destruction of the brain be the only way to annihilate these
creatures? Isn’t it the only way to annihilate us [i.e. human beings] as well? … Isn’t
that all we are? Just a brain kept alive by a complex and vulnerable machine we call
the body? The brain cannot survive if just on part of the machine is destroyed or even
deprived of such necessities as food or oxygen. That is the only measurable difference
between us and “The Undead”. Their brains do not require a support system to
survive, so it is necessary to attack the organ itself.’ (44)
Warmbrunn’s claim that the only difference between the humans and the zombies is that the
human brain needs a support system, while the zombie brain has no need of one. This statement would lead to the conclusion that the only thing that makes a human being human, is the
vulnerable dependency on the body. In other words, a person without a relationship between
their body and their mind is not human and the grounds on which someone can be declared to
be human are purely biological.
The biological argument says nothing about the functioning of the brain. But the zombies in World War Z are described as displaying ‘no conscious thought, just sheer biological
instinct’ (320). They obviously lack the superior mental development of humans, which makes it ‘ironic that the only way to kill a zombie is to destroy its brain, because, as a group,
they have no collective brain to speak of’ (334). The only thing the zombies care about is
food, whether it is in the form of a human or any other animal does not make the slightest difference to them. There is not a shred of emotion left in them, nor can they work together. This
is an advantage for the humans, who can plot and combine their resources in order to win the
war against the ghouls. However, the zombies have the advantage of ever growing numbers,
as each human that dies and is not consumed will become a zombie. On top of that, the zombies have no emotions and do not care when one of their number gets killed, whereas the humans mourn for the death of their comrades.
The fact that humans grieve is enormously important, as this display of emotion is a
very humane trait. In another interview, the person being interviewed says: ‘I’m talking heart,
instinct, initiative, everything that makes us us. That’s why I’m still here … they still haven’t
come up with a collection of chips and bits to replace us’ (379-380). The characteristics he
describes here are all essential parts of what it means to be human and, as seen in the quote, it
Souman !21
is not possible to recreate these elements. The metaphorical heart, the thing that is responsible
for human emotions, is the defining element of the human being. Not, as Warmbrunn suggested, the brain, but the part of the brain that makes it possible to experience emotions is what
sets the human apart from the zombies. As obvious as this may seem, it also creates a problem
when considering the case of ‘quislings’: ‘the people that went nutballs and started acting like
zombies’ (194). These quislings are not infected and are still alive, yet they no longer retain
any humanity or emotions and are zombies in every way except being dead. As an interviewee
says: ‘we could never talk them down. There was nothing left to talk to. These people were
zombies, maybe not physically, but mentally you could not tell the difference’ (196-197).
This single difference between the quislings and the zombies is enough to grant them a
different treatment:
‘our orders were to capture quislings if possible, and use deadly force only in selfdefense. It sounded crazy, still does, but we rounded up a few, hog-tied them, turned
them over to the police or National Guard. I’m not sure what they did with them. I’ve
heard stories about Walla Walla, you know, the prison where hundreds of them were
fed and clothed and even medically cared for.’ (197)
The demarcator of alive as opposed to dead is not of great importance to this individual. By
calling the procedure he was ordered to follow crazy, it is obvious that the interviewed party
does not view these people as humans. Even though they belong to the Homo Sapiens species,
even though they can walk, even though there is physically nothing to stop them from talking,
the absence of rational thought renders them as something that can no longer be recognised as
human. The human factor appears to be an intricate combination of superior mental development and emotions.
!
8. Talking and Thinking
In Warm Bodies, the novel by Isaac Marion, the reader encounters a world that inhabits a multitude of zombies and where humans are the small minority. Marion has written the book from
the perspective of one of the zombies, simply known as R due to the inability to remember his
name. When comparing R to the dictionary description of a human being, he passes the test: R
can walk, talk and think, though each of these functions require great effort from his part. As
he puts it: ‘the rusty cogs of cogency still spin, just geared down and down till the outer moti-
Souman !22
on is barely visible’ (4). R is still a member of the Homo Sapiens species, albeit being a dead
one, and that is the biggest distinction between him and a human. He dislikes this distinction,
as can be seen in this quote: ‘I wince at her use of the word ‘human’. I’ve never liked that differentiation. She is Living and I’m Dead, but I’d like to believe we’re both human’ (41). R is
a sensitive zombie and his emotions resemble that of a human being with increasing intensity
throughout the novel.
R is thoroughly confused by the feelings he experiences: ‘I feel it. I am feeling it.
How is that possible? … Contentment. Is this what it might feel like?’ (172). From a flesh eating monster, R is slowly regaining his humanity. The experiences are new to him, as he has
not had an emotional response to anything for ages. This leads to him having trouble identifying what is happening, as can be seen in a passage where he starts crying: ‘My vision blurs,
and a wet trail streaks down my face. The burning in my eyes cools’ (207). R is just describing the physical signs of crying and leaves out the emotions responsible for the tears. His
scientific observing of his surroundings and the analysis of his awakening feelings allow him
to discover the essence of a human being. The presence of feelings and emotions is what makes a human humane.
The clearest example of this can be found when he describes what he sees when looking at the human girl he is with:
‘The flesh and the bones, the blood and the brain, all the way down to the unknowable
energy that swirls in her core. The life force, the soul, the fiery will that makes her
more than meat, coursing through her every cell and binding them together in millions
to form her. Who is she, this girl? What is she? She is everything. Her body contains
the history of life, remembered in chemicals. Her mind contains the history of the
universe, remembered in pain, in joy and sadness, hate and hope and bad habits, every
thought of God, past-present-future, remembered, felt, and hoped for all at once. … I
understand that I love her. And if she is everything, maybe that’s answer
enough.’ (222)
The dead zombie R has fallen in love with the living girl Julie. Preposterous, outrageous, unheard off, impossible and insane. The dead do not feel, they do not love. R touches here on
the qualities that make a human ‘more than meat’. He lists some feelings and emotions, talks
about the soul and the fiery will. Most importantly, he expresses the hope that his love for her
Souman !23
may be enough to overcome the differences between them. R cares deeply about Julie and has
saved her life on numerous occasions, when he just as easily could have eaten her. At first he
does not understand why he does not eat her, but the urge to protect her is that strong. R is a
changed man.
When Julie’s father discovers R, he explodes in a fit of rage and shouts at her: ‘The
Dead don’t change, Julie! They are not people, they are things! … We’ve done tests! The
Dead have never shown any signs of self-awareness or emotional response!’ (198-199). But,
as Julie points out:
‘How do we know that? Just because they don’t talk to us and tell us about their lives?
We don’t understand their thoughts so we assume they don't have any? … R saved my
life! He protected me and brought me home! He is human! And there are more like
him!’ (198-199)
Julie raises some good questions here. If someone is only human when his thoughts are understandable for other people, then a person who cannot communicate his thoughts is not a
human. After death, nobody is human, as there are no thoughts left. But the people in a coma,
the people with severe brain injuries or mental disabilities, babies and people suffering from
dementia, they are also not humans, as it is not possible to measure their thoughts.
R has thoughts and he can communicate with others. At the start of the novel, he remarks that ‘focussed thought is a rare occurrence here, and we all follow it when it
manifests’ (5). This suggest that all the zombies are able to think, albeit this does not happen
very often. R’s surprise move of saving Julie instead of eating her, has started a change in the
other zombies as well. M, who is R’s friend, is one of the zombies that is changing. M manages to make a phone call, speaking to both R and Julie. The news he tells them is surprising,
but full of hope:
‘“Changing,” he says. “Lots of us . . . changing. Like R.” … “It is not just you?” she
[Julie] says … “This . . . reviving thing?” … “are you saying the plague is
healing?”’ (192)
However incredulous this may seem, the plague is indeed healing and the zombies are regaining their humanity. A new name for them is needed, as they are no longer zombies or just the
Dead. But as they are not living either, they are named ‘Half-Dead’ or ‘Nearly-Living’ (234).
The zombies are still different and cannot be counted as humans, even though they talk and
Souman !24
think. The big issues that still separates them from the humans is that the humans are living
and the zombies are not.
!
9. Alive
Apart from the emotional aspect, the important classifier of the human is that of being alive.
Humanity and emotions are not enough to be granted the title of the human. Vampires, zombies and ghosts all share the condition of being dead and none of them are counted as humans.
But the issue becomes confusing again when looking at a fourth supernatural creature: that of
the werewolf. It is difficult to decide in which category the werewolves belong. They are humanoid in form, but they alternate this form with that of an animal. The books about the
character Sookie Stackhouse, written by Charlaine Harris, deal with a multitude of creatures
that are not human. Vampires, werewolves, werepanthers, weretigers, shape shifters, and demons; they all enter the series at one point. All of those creatures are definitely not human, but
the question of why they are not human is not easily answered.
The vampires are the simplest ones. Harris’ vampires conform to the traditional view
of dead, nocturnal creatures that drink blood and are allergic to both daylight and garlic. In
her stories, they manage to keep their bloodlust under control by drinking artificial blood, but
they prefer the blood of humans. They are dangerous and the humans in the stories do well to
remember that the vampires belong to a different species. The vampires themselves agree to
this, as they see humans more like pets, or meals that walk and talk, than as creatures that are
actually worth something. They do not wish to be regarded as humans, as human beings are
less able than vampires. This also explains the existence of so called ‘fang-bangers’: humans
harbouring a wish to be turned into a vampire themselves and become better than just mere
human.
The other creatures that Harris has designed are more difficult to place. The were-creatures, wether they are wolves, tigers, panthers or any other animal, are all alive. They are human in every way, except for the fact that they can change into animals. This has serious consequences for the definition of the human being. It is difficult to measure the extent of humanity of these creatures while in their animal form, for it is impossible for them to talk while
having that shape. A case could be made to say that they are human when in human form, and
animal when they change their appearance. However, even in human form, the were-creatures
Souman !25
retain some of their animal characteristic. For example, they have a heightened sense of smell,
or stronger than the average human being and heal incredibly fast when injured. They straddle
the line between human and not human to the extent that they seem to be both, which is very
puzzling when trying to decide on absolute borders between these groups.
If the criteria of being alive is the ultimate criteria, then the were-creatures should be
counted as humans. The events in Warm Bodies support this claim. When R wishes to enter
the heavily guarded human city, he manages to fool the guards: ‘my stride is good, I can feel
it, I look normal, alive, and so I snap neatly into a category: “Human”’ (115). R is good enough at pretending to be a human to be let into the city without any hesitation from the guards. But while R can think rationally, can talk and can walk, he is still a zombie. As seen before, Julie objects strongly to the exclusion of zombies. She says: ‘isn’t “zombie” just a silly
name we came up with for a state of being we don’t understand’ (125) and wonders about
what would happen if she kissed R:
‘If I kiss you, will I die? … You said it won’t, right? I won’t get infected? Because I
really feel like kissing you. … And even if you do pass something to me, maybe it
wouldn’t be all bad. I mean, you’re different now, right? You’re not a zombie.
You’re . . . something new.’ (181)
Something new, but still not alive. R still lacks the most important characteristic of the human.
Near the end of Marion’s novel, a remarkable thing happens: R becomes alive again.
He starts bleeding from a wound that is a month old, he has a pulse, experiences pain again,
blushes and gets an erection. All of these things were beyond his capabilities while he was a
zombie, yet suddenly all of these bodily functions occur again. This is further proof for the
claim that one has to be alive in order to be regarded a human being. However, it does not
solve the problem of the were-creatures. In the books by Harris, the were-creatures stay under
the radar for a long time, as they fear the reaction of the regular people. Only in the ninth novel of the series, Dead and Gone, do the weres finally announce their existence to the rest of
the world. In a live television broadcast aired to educated the people about the were-animals,
the spokeswoman says: ‘we’re regular people just like you-all, with a difference’ (9) after
which she turn into a wolf.
Souman !26
The revelation sparks a multitude of reactions, which range from positive to horrified.
As one woman, Arlene, puts it: ‘I thought you were human, not a damn supe!’ (14). This reaction prompts the following response from Sookie: ‘he is human … he’s just got another face,
is all’ (14). Arlene uses words such as inhuman, weird and unnatural in her reaction to the
were-people. In her mind, they are not human at all, despite having been friends with one of
them for a great number of years. Suddenly, this one fact is enough for her to despise all of
them and to no longer include them into the group of humans. Although the were-animals are
alive, their differences cause them to be excluded. Being alive is not a good enough reason to
claim the title of human being. In order to be counted as a human being, there is an extensive
list of requirements to conform to. A person that does not confirm exactly to those requirements is therefore not a human.
!
10. Mourning
So far, the monstrosities in the novels have not succeeded into providing a definite answer to
the question of what a human being actually is. The opinion of scholars could be helpful in
finding out what precisely demarcates the territory of the human. Judith Butler, famous for
her contributions to the fields of feminism and gender theory, has published work on the definition of the human. In Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, Butler explores the boundaries of the human being. Although Butler seeks answers in the problems of war
and the issues surrounding gender theory, her research prompts her to ask questions about the
human being. She wonders ‘how to best depict the human’ (XVIII) and writes about a ‘frame
for conceiving who will be human, and who will not’ (XVI). Fear of the unknown plays a part
in her text, as she asks herself ‘at what cost do I establish the familiar as the criterion by
which a human life is grievable?’ (38).
Butler makes a strong argument when she says that an important criteria of the human
is when a life is grievable. She writes the following:
‘We have seen it already, in the genre of the obituary, where lives are quickly tidied up
and summarized, humanized… But ... we seldom, if ever, hear the names of the
thousands of Palestinians … or any number of Afghan people, children and adults. To
what extent have the Arab peoples, predominantly practitioners of Islam, fallen outside
Souman !27
the “human” as it has been naturalized in its “Western” mold by the contemporary
workings of humanism? What are the cultural contours of the human?’ (32)
It is difficult for people to mourn the loss of the lives of people who have no name or face.
The Arab people are often dehumanised in this way. Since they are different from the norm of
the white, the Western, the Catholic, they are quickly deemed to not be as human as others.
While it is perfectly easy to mourn the loss of a loved one, many people do not care at all
about the thousands that die every day. This is not because they do not feel compassion for
other, but simply due to the fact that these unknown people have been dehumanised to the extent that they are no longer recognised as fellow human beings. As Brooks puts in in World
War Z: ‘don’t write their eulogy, don’t try to imagine who they used to be, how they came to
be here, how they came to be this’ (221).
Butler posts a lot of questions: ‘who is normatively human: what counts as a liveable
life and a grievable death?’ (XV), talks about ‘the question of the human’ (20), and asks ‘who
counts as human?’ (20). All these questions allow for the opinion that Butler herself is not
sure about the answers. In fact, no definite answer about who counts as a human is given, as
the requirements shift for each individual. She confirms that there is ‘a normative notion of
the human’ (33), but gives no explanation of what this notion entails. Instead, Butler remarks
that the notion of what constitutes a human being is highly personal:
‘if I understand myself on the model of the human, and if the kinds of public grieving
that are available to me make clear the norms by which the “human” is constituted for
me … What are the cultural barriers against which we struggle when we try to find out
… when we attempt to name, and so to bring under the rubric of the “human”’ (46)
Butler’s remark opens up the discussion as to whether there can be one definite norm that describes what a human being is. If it is indeed a case of personal beliefs on the matter, then there will never be an agreement. Especially when considering how experiences differ from person to person and how ‘the kinds of public grieving’ available are radically different as well, it
becomes apparent that it is not possible to firmly demarcate the borders of the human.
The grievability of a life can only be measured when taking a close look at the feelings
of individuals. In the books written by Harris, Arlene will not grieve for the loss of the life of
any were-person. She will not mourn the death, unlike other characters in the story, and she
does not view the were-people as humans. Sookie, on the other hand, has many friends
Souman !28
amongst the were-people and mourns the death of each of them. Another example of this can
be found in Warm Bodies, as Julie would grieve for the loss of R, while her father views R as
a non-human. The example of the quislings from World War Z is even more convincing, as
quislings are humans that have lost their minds. As the quotes from page 196 and 197 show,
the interviewee would not mourn the demise of the quislings, but other people did and the
quislings were not killed, but were put into care. These examples show that it is impossible to
find a common denominator of grievability that is true for each person.
11. Dehumanisation and Identification
The media play an important part in the extent of grieve people feel. The dehumanisation in
the media of people such as the Afghan and Palestinian war casualties is to a great extent responsible for how people feel about these deaths. Butler explains the importance of dehumanisation as follows:
‘When we consider the ordinary ways that we think about humanization and
dehumanization, we find the assumption that those who gain representation, especially
self-representation, have a better chance of being humanized, and those who have no
chance to represent themselves run a greater risk of being treated as less than humans,
regarded as less than humans, or indeed, not regarded at all.’ (141)
The same dehumanisation is at work in the novels discussed earlier. In World War Z, one of
the interviewed people declaims: ‘in war … we spend so much time trying to dehumanize the
enemy, to create an emotional distance’ (242). The zombies in World War Z and The Zombie
Autopsies are not able to create any kind of self-representation at all. The zombies in Warm
Bodies are extremely feared when they are not able to represent themselves to the humans, but
due to the changes they go through, this slowly changes as well. The fear of the zombies diminishes when the collective voice of the zombies gets heard. Communication between the
two groups is essential, as is personal experience. People like Julie, who gain first hand experience of the zombies via interaction, lose the fear of the zombies and start to view them as
humans.
The same holds true for the vampires in the Sookie Stackhouse series. They have
come out of the shadows and have gone public. They interact with the general population and
although some people are still convinced that there is nothing humane in the vampires, the
Souman !29
people that have taken the trouble to educate themselves on the issue and acquaint themselves
with the vampires have learned differently. The vampires are different from the humans, but
no two people are the same anyway. Therefore, the us versus them argument loses all validity.
There are plenty of examples of people who are killers and feel no remorse about their deeds,
of people that feel better than others, of people that are dangerous, dimwitted, straight, gay,
black, white, tall, short, skinny, fat, the list goes on. The same can be said about the vampires
in Harris’ stories: stupid, smart, extrovert, introvert, mean, kind, Indian, Asian, all of these
things can be found in the vampire community. There even is a vampire with severe brain
damage who prefers to drink the blood of cats, which proofs how diverse the supposedly perfect vampires are.
The possibility to identify with the other party is crucial for the acceptance of the
Other. The vampires in the stories Harris wrote have made it possible for the humans to identify with them through interaction. The were-people have interacted with the humans for
many years, yet when they reveal their secret, the reactions are mixed. However, as soon as
the emphasis is put on the fact that they are the same people they always were, but with an
extra dimension to their personalities, most people are comfortable with the new situation.
There will always be a few that cannot overcome their personal feelings on the subject, but
those are a minority. The similarities between the were-people and the homosexual people are
easily spotted. Many gay people face the same kind of reactions when they first confess their
sexual orientation to their environment. Thankfully, the majority of the people gets used to it
quickly and accepts it as just another aspect of the person. They may not share the same sexual preference, but they focus on the similarities between them, for instance musical taste and a
love for sports. Identification with the other person does not mean you are each other’s mirror,
it means that you can recognise aspects in the other that you yourself posses.
Butler states that essence of the human being cannot be captured by representation.
She writes:
‘the human is not identified with what is represented but neither is it identified with
the unrepresentable; it is, rather, that which limits the success of any representational
practice … Rather, the human is indirectly affirmed in that very disjunction that makes
representation impossible, and this disjunction is conveyed in the impossible
representation.’ (144)
Souman !30
This statement can appear confusing, as it is the representation that allows for the identification with the Other. Butler is, nonetheless, right. Any representation will only account for a
small percentage of the whole, as it is not possible to represent the whole. In order to represent the whole, the whole most be shown. In order to explain this, the image of a photograph
is useful. The photograph shows an image of, for example, a woman, but does not show all
woman. Nor does it show every aspect of the woman it depicts. That being said, I can still
identify with the woman, as I am one myself. A man can identify with the picture as well, as
he identifies her as a human being and is one himself. If the photograph shows a woman that
is tall, has a dark skin and is elderly, I will still identify myself with her, regardless of our differences. And if that photograph is shows to an elderly, tall, dark skinned man, he may identify himself with her to a greater extent than I do, despite the difference in sex. According to
Butler:
‘Identification always relies upon a difference that it seeks to overcome, and that its
aim is accomplished only by reintroducing the difference is claims to have
vanquished. The one with whom I identify is not me, and that “not being me” is the
condition of the identification. Otherwise … identification collapses into identity,
which spells the death of identification itself. This difference internal to identification
is crucial, and, in a way, it shows us that dis-identification is part of the common
practice of identification itself.’ (146)
Thus, representation and identification work only when there are differences between the represented and the self. This makes sense, because when there are no differences, there is no
need to identify with the Other: the Other does not exist when it is the same.
!
12. The Other
The Other is a term frequently used in the social sciences. The meaning of the term is to describe that what is alien and divergent from the norm. The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas has published a score of works regarding the Other. In “Peace and Proximity”, an essay
in Basic Philosophical Writings, he writes:
‘The Other is the sole being I can wish to kill. I can wish. And yet this power is quite
the contrary of power. The triumph over this power is its defeat as power. At the very
moment when my power to kill realizes itself, the other has escaped me …. I have not
Souman !31
looked at him in the face, I have not encountered his face The temptation of total
negation … this is the presence of the face. To be in relation with the other face to face
is to be unable to kill.’ (168)
However, as Levinas points out, when he comes face to face with the other, it becomes difficult or even impossible to kill him. As soon as there is some identification with the Other, the
Other becomes closer to the Self and therefor killing the Other means the killing of the Self.
Levinas also writes about the bible and the command to ‘love your neighbour’ and ‘you shall
not kill’. Accordig to Levinas, the neighbour is a representation of the Other, even when he
greatly resembles the self. As it is not possible for an Other to be the same as the Self, it logically follows that everyone is the Other.
If indeed everyone is Other, then there can be no norm. But while individuality is often
encouraged, it cannot be denied that humans always search for the denominator they have in
common. This search for the shared characteristic is what makes it possible to exclude certain
beings from the norm. The characteristic of being alive excludes the zombies and the vampires from being counted as humans. The characteristic of the upright stance allows for the exclusion of were-people while they are in their animal form. The fluidity of the term Other
means that any denominator can be used to deny others the rights to call themselves human.
The fear of the Other, as shown by Levinas, invokes the desire to protect against the Other.
The only way to be absolutely sure one cannot be influenced by the Other is by making sure
not to communicate with the Other.
Some people go to great lengths in order to avoid the Other. They refuse to communicate with persons who are different from themselves and if they do come into contact, they
react violently and try to vanquish the encounter. This is not surprising, as it is natural to be
afraid of the unknown and caution is a good quality. Nonetheless, an important characteristic
of humanity is charity. There is not one individual who is perfect, one is not better than the
next, and charity and mutual understanding is the only way to co-exist in the world. The Other
views the next person as being the Other, so it is impossible to tell who the Other is. It is not a
case of majority versus minority, as the people in the minority are people as well. The uniqueness of each person clearly means that the boundaries of any group are merely abstract ideas
that cannot have any clear shape or border.
Souman !32
An example to illustrate this is that of men versus women. At first glance, it appears
laughably easy to place people in one of these two groups. I would belong in the category of
the women, along with the rest of my kind. But why? The reasons people state for assigning
either category to a person are not as straightforward as they seem. If the presence of breasts
makes a person female, then there will be a lot of people in that group who would otherwise
be classified as men. If we refine the argument to incorporate working milk ducts as a requirement, then every woman with problems in that area becomes a man. Anyone with an androgynous appearance will belong to neither category. And that is when only the physical element of the person is taken into account. Transgender people would not agree with the category they would be placed in. Yet, despite all those confusing objections, we do not have any
problems separating most people into the two groups. Identification with the Other forms the
basis the decision. The more a person can identify with the Other, the likelier it is that he will
decide that the Other is like him.
13. The New Human
The topic of when a person can be considered a human being has a long history of debate. The
current discussion often features the inclusion of modern technology and what the technological developments mean for humanity. Elaine Graham touches upon this subject in her article
“Post/Human Conditions” where she writes:
‘Perhaps one of the most pressing issues for the twenty-first century will be the impact
of new technologies on our experiences and understandings of what it means to be
human. For many commentators, this signals the event of the “post-human condition”,
in which digital technologies will have the capacity to reconfigure our conceptions of
space and time; cybernetic devices will enhance and augment bodies and minds: and
genetic modification will challenge the fixity of “human nature” at the most
fundamental level.’ (10)
The use of quotations marks by Graham here indicates the troubled nature of the terms. She
wonders about the exact meaning of the word human, especially in an era where technology is
creating alterations in the human body and mind. The ramifications of the technological enhancement of the human body are far reaching and difficult to envision, but it cannot be denied that the definition of what constitutes a human being is changing.
Souman !33
The term post-human should not be understood the mean after-human. Rather the term
signifies the arising of the new-human, the human that is more than merely human. N. Katharine Hayles explains the term in How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics,
Literature and Informatics, as she claims:
‘In the posthuman, there are no essential differences or absolute demarcations between
bodily existence and computer simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological
organism, robot teleology and human goals.’ (3)
Thus, there is no difference between the human and the technological means used to enhance
the human and this stance allows for a world in which no means of enhancement should be
shunned. The discussion about reprogenetics can be closed, as there are no objections to creating perfect humans. That being said, a multitude of new problems immediately arrises: what
is a perfect human? Who decides what a perfect human is? What to do with everyone who is
not perfect?
These questions are not that different from the ones that get asked when trying to formulate the demarcations between the human and the non-human. There are no objective answers available and the subjectivity of the answers that are available, means that they cannot
be considered all inclusive. Graham pursues the issues by asking the following questions:
‘How will we talk about what it means to be human … Who is likely to be included
and excluded from any future vision of posthumanity? What can be learned from the
hopes and anxieties engendered by the technologies that surround us - and are these
technologies likely to lead to human well-being or to our extinction?’ (12)
The first question she asks is specifically intriguing. It has not been possible to define what it
means to be human and the technological developments have made it even more difficult to
attempt it. Graham tries to find satisfying answers, as can be seen when she writes:
‘For embedded in the various representations of our posthuman future emergent in
new technologies are crucial issues of identity, community and spirituality: what it
means to be human, who counts as being fully human, who gets excluded and
included in definitions of the (post) human’ (12)
However, Graham quickly reaches the confused tangle of blurred boundaries that arise whenever anyone looks past the initial demarcators.
Souman !34
Looking at monstrosities is nothing new, as examples of this can be found throughout
history. Graham remarks on this as well:
‘In the ancient world, a fascination with the conditions of monstrosity - real or
imagined - served a moral and aetiological [sic] purpose. The monster was literally a
“showing forth” of the non-human or almost-human as spectacle, forming a great
warning to its audience; in its deviation from the acceptable norm, it served to remind
others of the proper limits of normality. Teratology thus makes possible a critical
purchase on the processes of definition and exclusion by which the boundaries of what
it means to be (authentically) human are drawn. What we are seeing are not
essentialist doctrines of “human nature” therefore, but the discourses and devices by
which they are articulated. For every assertion of the definitively “human” there is a
refracted “other” - the almost-human, the monster, the alien - who shows the workings
of the principles by which normative and exemplary humanity is defined.’ (20)
The tradition of using monstrosities to demarcate the border between the human is clearly visible in examples such as the Minotaur. But once again, the distinctions only work when looking at the extreme opposites. The Minotaur was the result of a pregnancy conceived after a
woman had intercourse with a bull, which made the baby half-human and half-bovine. Obviously he cannot be regarded as a human being, due to being only half a human. But there
exist no clear answer as to what he is. Half-human, half-bull; half Same, half Other. He does
not fit comfortably into either category and therefore confuses people as to what he is and
where to place him. The boundaries of the different groups dictate that the Minotaur is neither,
so a new category is needed. The same is true for the post-human: he is neither completely
human nor completely non-human, and so the category of the new human arises.
!
14. Being Included
The difficulties of being included into any group are also discussed by Donna Haraway in “A
Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s”. Focussing on feminism, she writes:
‘Consciousness of exclusion through naming is acute. Identities seem contradictory,
partial, and strategic. With the hard-won recognition of their social and historical
constitution, gender, race, and class cannot provide the basis for belief in “essential”
Souman !35
unity. There is nothing about being “female” that naturally binds women. There is not
even such a state as “being” female, itself a highly complex category constructed in
contested sexual scientific discoursed and other social practices. … Who counts as
“us” in my own rhetoric? Which identities are available to ground such a potent
political myth as “us”, and what could motivate enlistment in this collectivity?’ (197)
When substituting ‘female’ with ‘human’, and ‘women’ with people, her argument works just
as well for the human versus non-human conflict. There is no basis for a belief in unity, there
is nothing that naturally binds humans together just because they are human. And the most
interesting part: there is not even a state of ‘being’ human. In light of these claims, it is contradictory that many people are actively pursuing inclusion into a group, yet this is seen over
and over again.
The novels discussed here all express the wish to be included. Not only the humans are
hoping to be included, the other humanoids seek inclusion as well. The vampires in the
Sookie Stackhouse series seem content to stay outside the human group, but they have their
own group. In fact, there are humans who are actively trying to get included in the vampire
group. Warm Bodies zombie R goes to extremes in order to be accepted as a human; the vampires in I Am Legend form their own group into which human are definitely not allowed; the
quislings in World War Z try to be included in the zombie group; Nobody from The Graveyard
Book learns abilities that only ghosts usually possess; and the BFG seeks inclusion in the human world via the means of dreams. The wish is not necessarily that of being counted as a
human being and being included in the group of humans, but the wish to belong to some
group is apparent in all the stories.
One way to feel included in a group is when all the people in that group share an experience. Near the end of World War Z, when the war against the zombies is over and the survivors are rebuilding the world, the importance of the shared experience becomes evident:
‘I am not going to say that the war was a good thing … but you’ve got to admit that it
did bring people together. … Anywhere around the world, anyone you talk to, all of us
have this powerful shared experience. … We had people from everywhere, and even
though the details might have been different, the stories themselves were pretty much
all the same.’ (412-413)
Souman !36
The interviewed party here has found a positive element caused by horrible events he lived
through. He feels included. Included into which group is not clear, it could be the group of
humans, or that of the survivors, or both. It does not matter for the content feeling this man
experiences. Being included into the group is what matters, being allowed into the group that
is seen as the norm. This man is not the feared Other.
!
Conclusion
In the search for the demarcators of the human being, I have found that they do not exist. The
boundaries are fluid and every changing. The definition of the dictionary as to what is a human being is incomplete. It is impossible to create a description that would satisfy everyone
and that allows for the inclusion of all the different types of humans. One of the most important aspects of the human being is the emotional nature of the human and the complex feelings they experience. Love, hatred, hope, despair, happiness, grief: they all contribute to the
intricate design of the emotional landscape of the humans. The emotional aspect can lay claim
to being the most important all the requirements of the human. It does not matter if a person
does not conform to the norm of the traditional human, they do not even have to be alive, as
long as they feel emotions. There are numerous examples of zombies, vampires, ghosts, werewolves and other monstrosities that possess the ability to feel. They interact with each other
and care for others, sometime expressing more humanity than the actual humans in the story.
The human factor seems to consist of the emotions in combination with a range of
other factors. The problematic dictionary description should be viewed as a starting point, but
the deviations from the norm are what in the end make up the group of human being. To state
that any man, woman or child with superior mental development, articulate speech and
upright stance is a human is correct, but it does not account for all the beings that do not meet
this requirements. A new born cannot talk or stand, but is undeniably human. A person in a
wheelchair is a human being; a person with severe brain damage is a human being; someone
who is disabled is a human being; an autistic person is a human being. Sadly, disabled people,
whether it is a physical disability or a mental disability, are often regarded as being less than
human or not human at all, as ‘they fit no dominant frame for the human’ (Butler 34).
By looking at some humanoid monsters, I have found that humanity lies not in the criteria presumed by the dictionary. The foundations on which the incorrect view that disabled
Souman !37
people are less human lays, are therefore faulty, as the they are not the things that describe the
essence of a human. To paraphrase Plato: ‘beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’. The same
is true for humanity. The questions of human and non-human, humane and inhuman, humanity or the absence of humanity: they are all personal and cannot be answered in a way that
rings true for everyone. The contemporary views on these issues or complicated and no
straightforward claims can be made. This is seen in the quotations from other scholars, as they
often resort to using quotation marks when talking about what constitutes the human being.
Up to this day, there exist no definition of the human that is accurate. Instead, things are continuously getting more complicated due to developing technology and a better understanding
of the biological workings of the human body. I doubt that there will ever be a concise description of the human being, but, as Scholzman says in The Zombie Autopsies: ‘We must not
lose hope’ (9).
The other side of the medal of emotion, is that the emotion of fear is a strong incentive
in people. Fear of the unknown, fear of things new, fear of the Other. Arlene in Dead and
Gone is mortally afraid of the were-people, Neville in I Am Legend is afraid of the vampires,
the vampires in I Am Legend are afraid of Neville, both the zombies and the humans are afraid
of R and Julie in Warm Bodies, the BFG is scared of people and doctor Blum is afraid to become a zombie in The Zombie Autopsies. Fear is everywhere and it drives the ‘humans’ and
the decisions they make. People are scared of disabled people, people are afraid of homosexuality. Fear is not an emotion that is exclusive to humans or humanoids, it is also present in
animals. The difference here lies in the fact that humans are able to rationalise and this allows
them to overcome their fear. Unfortunately, this does not always happen and as it would mean
that people need to come out of their comfort zone. And astonishingly enough, only humans
and humanoids fear things that have no rational grounds to be feared. Because we can complete complex thoughts, we can envision things that might happen and develop a fear of those
things, even when there is no probability of these things actually happening.
In the end, the matter of what constitutes a human being is too complicated to grasp.
Everyone has an idea about it, an innate picture that springs to mind as soon as they think
about it. This complicated nature gives the human being a mystical and etherial quality. It
could very well be due to this mystical value that people have such strong feelings on topics
such as abortion and genetic modification of embryos. The soul of a being, the essence, the
Souman !38
core, it is that what makes a human human and we cannot pinpoint the place where this core
is located. It is a place hidden deep into the superior mental capabilities of the human. The
final words of Matheson in I Am Legend are perhaps the best ones to give a description of
what a human being is: ‘I am legend’ (159).
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
Works Cited:
Brooks, Max. World War Z. New York: Broadway, 2006. Print.
Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso, 2008.
Print.
Dahl, Roald. The BFG. New York: Puffin Books, 2013. Print
Davis, Wade. The Serpent and the Rainbow. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1985.
Print.
Souman !39
Gaiman, Neil. The Graveyard Book. London: Bloomsbury, 2009. Print.
Graham, Elaine. “Post/Human Conditions”. Theology and Sexuality. Sage Publications, 2004.
Web. 7 Jun. 2014.
Green, Ronald M. “Building Baby from the Genes Up.” The Washington Post. 13 Apr. 2008.
Web. 8 May 2014.
Haraway, Donna. “A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in
the
1980s”. Feminism/Postmodernism. London: Routledge, 1990. Print.
Hayes, Richard. “Genetically Modified Humans? No Thanks.” The Washington Post. 15 Apr.
2008.
Web. 8 May 2014.
Hayles, N. Katharine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature
and
Informatics. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1999. Print.
Harris, Charlaine. All Together Dead. London: Gollancz, 2011. Print.
- - -. Club Dead. London: Gollancz, 2011. Print.
- - -. Dead and Gone. London: Gollancz, 2011. Print.
- - -. Dead as a Doornail. London: Gollancz, 2011. Print.
- - -. Dead in the Family. London: Gollancz, 2011. Print.
- - -. Dead to the World. London: Gollancz, 2011. Print.
- - -. Dead Until Dark. London: Gollancz, 2011. Print.
- - -. Definitely Dead. London: Gollancz, 2011. Print.
- - -. From Dead to Worse. London: Gollancz, 2011. Print.
- - -. Living Dead in Dallas. London: Gollancz, 2011. Print.
“Human”. Concise Oxford English Dictionary. 11th ed. 2008. Print.
“Human being”. Oxforddictionaries. Web. 2 May 2014.
Marion, Isaac. Warm Bodies. London: Vintage, 2010. Print.
Matheson, Richard. I Am Legend. New York: Tor, 2007. Print.
Night of the Living Dead. Dir. George A. Romero. 1968. VHS.
Levinas, Emmanuel. “Peace and Proximity”. Basic Philosophical Writings. Ed. Adriaan T.
Peperzak. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1996. Print.
Scholzman, Steven C. The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Zombie Apocalypse.
London: Bantam, 2011. Print.
Souman !40
Science, Medicine, and Animals. National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy
Press, 1991. Web. 13 May 2014.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. London: Wordsworth, 2000. Print.