Description
In this thesis, I examined the complex interrelationship between the literary vampire and zombie both in literature and pop culture depictions such as film and television. I explored whether these fictional revenants are clearly distinct or aspects of a single, larger undead archetype. Revenants are currently immensely popular as evidenced by such works as "Twilight" and "The Walking Dead," and have endured as popular literary devices or figures, in one form or another, for centuries. Countless readers and viewers have been exposed to these figures, and it is therefore crucial that we understand their popularity and what kind of impact it may have both on individual consumers and on western culture at large. I examined the story of the revenant by interrogating both primary and secondary sources beginning with the prehistoric mythical genesis of the walking dead, through the Romantic literary elevation of the revenant into the Byronic vampire and Shelley's Creature and the mid-twentieth century rise of the zombie movie into contemporary literary, film, and television depictions of revenants. I found that both types of undead tell facets of the same larger cultural narrative about class and consumption: while sharing the same humble origins in folklore, over time the vampire comes to represent the aristocratic elite while the zombie mirrors the struggles of the poor, making each monster a representative of a soldier in class warfare.
