HUM184 MILE4

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What is Literature?

Up to this point, we have discussed the integration of history and religion to understand the historical context for the development of Haitian Voodoo and the relationship of it to zombies. Now we will discuss the discipline of literature and the importance of literary analysis. Then we will explain how the writing of William Seabrook and Zora Neale Hurston brought zombies to American popular culture.

In the video below, John Green discusses the importance of

https://youtu.be/MSYw502dJNY?si=LBvCPJ9KCKPdxcc1

What is Literary Analysis?

It is important to be able to analyze what you are reading. It allows you to think about the reasons for why something was written. The context in which it was written and even the bias of the person writing it is an important part of literary analysis.

The Nature of Analysis

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Define analysis.

2. Show how we use analysis in everyday situations and in academic writing and discussion.

3. Understand the components of analysis (assertions, examples, explanations, significance), and explain why each is a necessary part of any analysis.

4. Show how too much attention to one particular component of analysis makes an essay seem like a different type of writing.

Jeff is not happy. His clock shows 2 a.m., but his computer screen shows nothing. For the last four hours he has tried to get started on an essay on William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, but he just doesn’t know where to begin. “It’s Professor Johnson’s fault I’m in this mess,” he thinks to himself. “My other teachers always told me exactly what and how to write, but Professor Johnson asked us to focus on what each of us finds important about the play. She even told us that no one knows Shakespeare’s real intentions, and that a million ways to analyze the play are possible.” Jeff slams his hand down on the table. “If this is true, how do I know when I’ve found the right interpretation?” And Professor Johnson made it even more difficult for Jeff by instructing her students not to summarize the plot or give unsupported opinions, but to come up with their own interpretations, show why they are important, and justify them through close readings of particular scenes. “No one has ever shown me how to do this,” Jeff grumbles to himself as he gulps down his third cup of coffee.

In actuality, Jeff already possesses the ability to write an analytical essay. He would have realized this if he had considered the discussions and activities he engaged in during the previous week. In planning a date, and in thinking of the best way to convince his parents to send him more money, Jeff had to carefully evaluate a variety of situations to develop a point of view that he then had to justify and show why it mattered. In each of these instances, he made plenty of assertions, statements which present points of view; used examples, specific passages, scenes, events, or items which inspire these points of view; gave explanations, statements which reveal how the examples support and/or complicate the assertions; and provided significance, statements which reveal the importance of the analysis to our personal and/or cultural concerns.

Analysis is a way of understanding a subject by using each of these elements, expressing an opinion (making assertions), supporting that opinion (including examples), justifying that opinion (explaining the examples), and showing why the opinion matters (extending the significance). The second letter in the second component (examples) helps create the acronym AXES, which is the plural form of both axe and axis. This acronym provides a way not only to remember the four components but also to visualize them working together. Like an axe, analysis allows us to “chop” our subjects into their essential components so that we can examine the pieces more thoroughly, and, like an axis, analysis inspires insights that become the new reference points around which we rearrange these pieces.

Though a complete analysis always needs to use these elements, the reasons for engaging in it may vary widely. For instance, sometimes the goal is to persuade the reader to accept an interpretation or to adapt a course of action, and other times the goal is to explore several possible interpretations or courses of action without settling on any one in particular. But whether the goal is to persuade, explore, or enlighten, analysis should always spring from a careful examination of a given subject. I always tell my students that they do not need to convince me that their points of view are correct but rather to reveal that they have thought about their subject thoroughly and arrived at reasonable and significant considerations.

The structure and form of an analysis can vary as widely as the many reasons for producing one. Though an analysis should include attention to each of the four main components, it should not be written in a formulaic manner, like those tiresome five-paragraph essays you might recall from high school: “I spent my summer vacation in three ways: working, partying and relaxing. Each of these activities helped me in three aspects of my life: mentally, physically and psychologically.” At best, formulaic essays serve as training wheels that need to come off when you are ready for more sophisticated kinds of writing. Rigorous analysis doesn’t rely on formulas or clichés, and its elements may occur in different orders and with various emphases, depending on your purpose and audience. In fact, individual elements may sometimes blend together because a section may serve more than one function. With practice, you won’t even need to recall the acronym AXES when producing an analysis, because you will have mastered when and how to express each of its components.

Though it would be impossible to outline all the possible manifestations and combinations of these elements of analysis, this book will help you to create, balance, and express each of them with precision, clarity, and voice. The first task is to make certain all these elements are present to some degree throughout your paper, because when any one is missing or dominates too much, the essay starts to drift from analysis to a different mode of writing. Consider, for instance, how Jeff might have gotten off track when trying to respond to the following speech from The Tempest, when the character Prospero becomes morose as the play he is putting on within the play becomes interrupted:

Our revels now are ended. These, our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air; into thin air.

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision

The cloud capped towers, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep

(Act IV, Scene 1: 148-57).

Response 1: Review (assertion emphasis)

This is a very famous speech about how our lives are like dreams. No wonder Shakespeare is such a great playwright. He continuously and brilliantly demonstrates that he knows what life is about; this is why this is such a great speech and I would recommend this play for everybody.

Assertions are necessary to communicate your points of view, but when you make only declarative statements of taste, your essays will seem less like analyses and more like reviews. A review can be useful, especially when considering whether a movie might be worth spending money on, but in an analysis you should not just state your opinions but also explain how you arrived at them and explore why they matter.

Response 2: Summary (example emphasis)

First Prospero gets angry because his play was interrupted, causing his magical actors to disappear. Next, he shows how everything will dissolve in time: the sets of his theater, the actors, and even “the great globe itself.” He concludes by comparing our lives to dreams, pointing out how both are surrounded by sleep.

Like a review, a summary can sometimes be useful, especially when we want the plot of a piece or basic arguments of a policy described to us in a hurry. However, a summary stops short of being an analysis because it simply covers the main aspects of the object for analysis and does not provide any new perspective as to why it is significant. Though you need to provide examples, you should select and discuss only those details that shed the most light on your points of view. Always remember that people want to read your essay to learn your perspective on what you are analyzing; otherwise, they could just examine the piece for themselves.

Response 3: Description (explanation emphasis)

In Prospero’s speech, Shakespeare points out how life, plays, and dreams are always being interrupted. He makes a lot of comparisons between these different areas of existence, yet makes them all seem somewhat similar. I never really thought about how they are all so similar, but Shakespeare helps me consider ways they all kind of fit together.

Though you should explain how you derived your assertions from your examples and not just let the piece speak for itself, you should not do so in too general a manner. You do not want to give the impression that you are trying to remember the details of a piece that you are too lazy to pull out and reconsider, but that you are engaging in a close reading or a careful consideration of all the aspects of an issue. Your analysis should seem like it was a challenge for you to write, and not something that you pieced together from vague recollections.

Response 4: Tangent (significance emphasis)

This speech reminds me that life is short. My father keeps telling me that life is over before you even realize it, and he should know because he’s getting pretty old (he’s in his late 40s!). I think it also shows that it’s important to be careful about what you dream of because these dreams may affect the way you choose to live your life. I dream about being a famous surfer and that’s what makes me try hard to be one.

If an essay had no significance, the reader might constantly think, “So what?” You might provide a very close reading of the piece, but unless you have a reason for drawing our attention to it, your essay will not leave the reader with anything new or important to consider. Be careful, however, not to leave the piece completely behind when discussing why it matters, or your essay will seem less like an analysis and more like an excuse to deliver a soapbox speech or to write about something that is easier for you to discuss.

Response 5: Analysis (attention to each aspect)

In The Tempest, William Shakespeare connects plays, lives, and dreams by showing that while each contains an illusion of permanence, they’re all only temporary. The “baseless fabric of this vision” of “cloud capped towers” may immediately refer to the painted sets contained within the “great globe itself,” the name of Shakespeare’s theater. Yet when we measure time in years rather than hours, we can see that most of the real “cloud capped towers” of the Seventeenth Century have already faded and at some point in the future even the globe we live on will disappear and “leave not a rack behind.” Likewise, it is not just the actors who are “such stuff as dreams are made on,” but all of us. We are unconscious of the world before we are born and after we die, so our waking lives mirror our sleeping lives. Thinking of it this way leaves me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I find it a bit disturbing to be reminded that neither we nor our world are permanent and all that we do will dissipate in time. On the other hand, it inspires me to enjoy my life further and not to worry too much about my inability to accomplish every one of my goals because nothing I do will last forever anyway.

Had Jeff not waited until the last minute to write his essay, he might have come up with a paragraph like this last one that gives adequate attention to each of the elements of analysis. The main assertion that our dreams, our lives, and our creative works only provide an illusion of permanence sets the analytical stage in a compelling fashion. The examples are well chosen and intelligently explained. For instance, the analysis shows that whether we see the “cloud capped towers” as actually existing or as paintings on the sets of the stage, they both have succumbed to time. Finally, it reveals the significance of the author’s perspective without coming to a trite conclusion or skipping off on a tangent. In general, the analysis reflects the thoughts of a writer who is engaged enough with the text to take the time to carefully consider the quote and reflect on its implications. Though the paragraph could use a more thorough development (especially of the significance) and a more deliberate style, it certainly reveals a more compelling analysis than the previous four paragraphs.

So is it a waste of time to write paragraphs that mostly consist of summaries, opinions, descriptions, or tangents? Absolutely not. Thinking and writing are not separate processes but occur simultaneously, and we often need to produce responses that focus on one of these simpler rhetorical modes before we can understand the underlying complexity that allows us to develop a more thorough analysis. And Jeff will experience essentially the same thinking and writing process when he switches from his Shakespeare essay to the ones he’s composing for his courses in history, political science, and psychology. Understanding an event, an issue, or an aspect of human nature requires careful attention to the details of what happened and to the arguments and theories that make up a particular perspective. But before Jeff can develop his own point of view on any of these subjects, he first needs to consider what might influence the way he sees them, a process that will require him to look at his culture and his experiences while consulting the points of view of others.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

· We use analysis many times throughout the day, especially when trying to persuade others to see our points of view.

· Analysis consists of four main components: assertions (our points of view), examples (evidence that supports these points of view), explanations (justifications of these points of view), and significance (discussions of why these points of view matter).

· These components need to be present for an effective analysis, but not in a strictly formulaic manner; they can appear throughout an essay to various degrees and in various orders.

LICENSES AND ATTRIBUTIONS

CC LICENSED CONTENT, SHARED PREVIOUSLY

· The Nature of Analysis. Authored by: Anonymous. Provided by: Anonymous. Located at: http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/a-guide-to-perspective-analysis/s04-01-the-nature-of-analysis.html. Project: A Guide to Perspective Analysis. License: CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

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What Is Film Studies?

Film studies is not about the making of films but the analyzing of them. It is about understanding the way they were made, why they were made, the message they are sending and even their historical context. Film studies combines art, literature and history and in some cases films can act as a social critique on society. So you see once again, multiple disciplines are brought together. In the videos below, Professor David Thorburn talks about what film studies is and what the goals are for his course on film studies. This competency encourages you to think about and apply those goals.

https://youtu.be/e0pgB4jWUjA?si=kfHHD3nFOF0SVNTa

https://youtu.be/nIMlZ8ErLfs?si=y0RkPOlihkhsEX4G

Activity Details

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Description

What Is Film Studies?

The Interaction of Film and Literature

As you have learned in the previous activity, film intersects with many disciplines. The article below explains the intersection of literature and film very well. You will also see this in the next learning activity.

· Literature and Cinema: Ways of Interaction in the 21st Century

Just as there are steps for analyzing literature, there are also steps for analyzing film. The following articles discusses this in more detail.

How to Analyze a Film

Characteristics

Films are similar to novels or short stories in that they tell a story. They include the same genres: romantic, historical, detective, thriller, adventure, horror, and science fiction. However, films may also include sub-groups such as: action, comedy, tragedy, westerns and war. The methods you use to analyze a film are closely related to those used to analyze literature; nevertheless, films are multimedial. They are visual media made for viewers. Films take command of more of our senses to create special atmospheres, feelings or to bring out emotions.

Along with the literary elements such as plot, setting, characterization, structure, and theme, which make up the text or screenplay, there are many different film techniques used to tell the story or narrative. Attention is paid to sound, music, lighting, camera angles, and editing. What is important is to focus on how all the elements are used together in making a good film.

Below is a list of elements and questions to help you when analyzing films.

Film Contents

Film Facts

· Title of film

· Year film was produced

· Nationality

· Names of the actors

· Name of director

Genre

· What main genre does the film fall under? – romantic, historical, detective, thriller, adventure, horror, and science fiction.

· What sub-grouping does the film fall under? – action, comedy, tragedy, war and westerns.

Setting

Setting is a description of where and when the story takes place.

· Does it take place in the present, the past, or the future?

· What aspects of setting are we made aware of? – Geography, weather conditions, physical environment, time of day.

· Where are we in the opening scene?

Plot and structure

· What are the most important sequences?

· How is the plot structured?

· Is it linear, chronological or is it presented through flashbacks??

· Are there several plots running parallel?

· How is suspense built up?

· Do any events foreshadow what is to come?

Conflict

Conflict or tension is usually the heart of the film and is related to the main characters.

· How would you describe the main conflict?

· Is it internal where the character suffers inwardly?

· is it external caused by the surroundings or environment the main character finds himself/herself in?

Characterization

Characterization deals with how the characters are described.

· through dialogue?

· by the way they speak?

· physical appearance? thoughts and feelings?

· interaction – the way they act towards other characters?

· Are they static characters who do not change?

· Do they develop by the end of the story?

· What type of characters are they?

· What qualities stand out?

· Are they stereotypes?

· Are the characters believable?

Narrator and point of view

The narrator is the person telling the story.

· Is there a narrator in the film? Who?

· Point of view means through whose eyes the story is being told.

· Through whose eyes does the story unfold?

· Is the story told in the first person “I” point of view?

· Is the story told through an off-screen narrator?

Imagery

In films imagery are the elements used to create pictures in our minds. They may include:

· Symbols – when something stands not only for itself ( a literal meaning), but also stands for something else (a figurative meaning) e.g. The feather in the film Forrest Gump symbolizes his destiny.

· What images are used in the film? e.g. color, objects etc.

· Can you find any symbols?

Theme

· What are the universal ideas that shine through in the film (in other words, what is it about, in general)?

Cinematic Effects

Soundtrack

· includes both dialogue and music, as well as all the other sounds in a film.

· enhances the atmosphere of the film (what effect does the choice of music have? Does it suit the theme?)

· Are any particular sounds accentuated?

Use of the camera

· A camera shot is based on the camera’s distance from the object.

· The four basic shots used in films are:

· a close-up – a very close shot where the camera lens focuses on some detail or the actor’s face.

· medium shot – a shot where the camera lens picks up some background or upper half of the actor.

· full shot – a shot where the camera lens has full view of the actor.

· long shot – shot taken at a distance from an object.

· What camera shots can you identify in the film? How are they used?

· A camera angle is how the camera is tilted while filming.

· straight-on angle – The camera is at the same height as the object.

· high angle – The camera is filming from above the object.

· low angle – The camera is looking up at the object.

· oblique angle – The camera is tilted sideways.

· Does the way in which the camera is held say anything about the character?

Lighting

· Lighting focuses the audience’s attention on the main character or object in a film.

· It also sets the mood or atmosphere.

· While high-key lighting is bright and illuminating, low-key lighting is darker with a lot of shadows.

· What special lighting effects are used during the most important scenes?

· Filters are often used to soften and reduce harsh contrasts. They can also be used to eliminate haze, ultraviolet light or glare from water when shooting outside.

· Using color like red or orange can be used to enhance the feeling of a sunset.

· Can you find any examples where a filter has been used in the film?

· What effect did using a filter have on the scene?

· What colors are most dominant?

Editing

Editing is the way in which a film editor together with the director cuts and assembles the scenes. The way the scenes are joined together creates the rhythm of the motion picture. Scenes can be long and drawn out or short and choppy.

· Can you see a pattern to how the scenes are cut?

· How would you describe the pace/tempo of the film?

Conclusion

When analyzing films for school work or projects, you may be asked to use some or all of the characteristics above. Link those elements together that seem most logical. Try to think of the film as a whole and how the elements mentioned above work together to bring out the main message of the film.

LICENSES AND ATTRIBUTIONS

CC LICENSED CONTENT, SHARED PREVIOUSLY

· How to Analyze a Film. Authored by: Carol Dwankowski, Catharine Rudd, and Celia Suzanna Sandor. Provided by: NDLA. Located at: http://ndla.no/en/node/10649?fag=42. License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

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First, Another History Lesson

In order to understand how Zombies became a part of American popular culture, you need some historical background. Oh yes, history has not disappeared from the class...remember this is a class on integrated studies.

U.S. Invasion and Occupation of Haiti, 1915–34

Paragraph 1: Following the assassination of the Haitian President in July of 1915, President Woodrow Wilson sent the United States Marines into Haiti to restore order and maintain political and economic stability in the Caribbean. This occupation continued until 1934.

President Woodrow Wilson

Paragraph 2: The United States Government's interests in Haiti existed for decades prior to its occupation. As a potential naval base for the United States, Haiti’s stability concerned U.S. diplomatic and defense officials who feared Haitian instability might result in foreign rule of Haiti. In 1868, President Andrew Johnson suggested the annexation of the island of Hispaniola, consisting of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, to secure a U.S. defensive and economic stake in the West Indies. From 1889 to 1891, Secretary of State James Blaine unsuccessfully sought a lease of Mole-Saint Nicolas, a city on Haiti’s northern coast strategically located for a naval base. In 1910, President William Howard Taft granted Haiti a large loan in hopes that Haiti could pay off its international debt, thus lessening foreign influence. The attempt failed due to the enormity of the debt and the internal instability of the country.

Paragraph 3: France, as the former colonizer of Haiti, retained strong economic and diplomatic ties with the Haitian Government. In the 1824 Franco-Haitian Agreement, France agreed to recognize Haitian independence if Haiti paid a large indemnity. This kept Haiti in a constant state of debt and placed France in a position of power over Haiti’s trade and finances.

Haitian Coat of Arms

Paragraph 4: Although unhappy about the Haitians' close connection to France, the United States became increasingly concerned with heightened German activity and influence in Haiti. At the start of the 20th century, German presence increased with German merchants establishing trading branches in Haiti that dominated commercial business in the area. German men married Haitian women to get around laws denying foreigners land ownership and established roots in the community. The United States considered Germany its chief rival in the Caribbean and feared German control of Haiti would give them a powerful advantage in the region.

Paragraph 5: As a result of increased instability in Haiti in the years before 1915, the United States heightened its activity to deter foreign influence. Between 1911 and 1915, seven presidents were assassinated or overthrown in Haiti, increasing U.S. policymakers’ fear of foreign intervention. In 1914, the Wilson administration sent U.S. Marines into Haiti. They removed $500,000 from the Haitian National Bank in December of 1914 for safe-keeping in New York, thus giving the United States control of the bank. In 1915, Haitian President Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam was assassinated and the situation in Haiti quickly became unstable. In response, President Wilson sent the U.S. Marines to Haiti to prevent anarchy. In actuality, the act protected U.S. assets in the area and prevented a possible German invasion.

Paragraph 6: The invasion ended with the Haitian-American Treaty of 1915. The articles of this agreement created the Haitian Gendarmerie, essentially a military force made up of U.S. citizens and Haitians and controlled by the U.S. Marines. The United States gained complete control over Haitian finances, and the right to intervene in Haiti whenever the U.S. Government deemed necessary. The U.S. Government also forced the election of a new pro-American President, Philippe Sudré Dartiguenave, by the Haitian legislature in August 1915. The selection of a President that did not represent the choice of the Haitian populace increased unrest in Haiti.

Philippe Sudré Dartiguenave

Paragraph 7: Following the successful manipulation of the 1915 elections, the Wilson administration attempted to strong-arm the Haitian legislature into adopting a new constitution in 1917. This constitution allowed foreign land ownership, which had been outlawed since the Haitian Revolution as a way to prevent foreign control of the country. Extremely reluctant to change the long-standing law, the legislature rejected the new constitution. Law-makers began drafting a new anti-American constitution, but the United States forced President Dartiguenave dissolve the legislature, which did not meet again until 1929.

Paragraph 8: Some of the Gendarmerie’s more unpopular policies—including racial segregation, press censorship and forced labor—led to a peasant rebellion from 1919 to 1920. The U.S. Senate sent an investigative committee into Haiti in 1921 to examine claims of abuse, and subsequently the U.S. Senate reorganized and centralized power in Haiti. After the reorganization, Haiti remained fairly stable and a select group achieved economic prosperity, though most Haitians remained in poverty.

Paragraph 9: In 1929, a series of strikes and uprisings led the United States to begin withdrawal from Haiti. In 1930, U.S. officials began training Haitian officials to take control of the government. In 1934, the United States, in concert with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy, officially withdrew from Haiti while retaining economic connections. 

To use the information in this article in the milestone, cite the title and the paragraph number where you found the information.

The article source is: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/haiti#:~:text=Following%20the%20assassination%20of%20the,This%20occupation%20continued%20until%201934.

Literature and Zombies

Paragraph 1: While the US Army occupied Haiti, two Americans visited Haiti to study Haitian culture, particularly Vodou. These Americans were William Seabrook and Zora Neale Hurston. William Seabrook was a travel writer who had a flare for making cultures in less developed nations seem exotic and shocking. For example, when he wrote about visiting Africa, he states that he actually ate human flesh while staying with a group of cannibals. He wrote from the 1920s through the 1940s and people back then were willing to believe his unconventional stories.

Paragraph 2: William Seabrook visited Haiti and wrote a book about his experience called The Magic Island. One of the chapters in this book is called Dead Men Working in the Cane Fields and zombie scholars link the US obsession with Voodoo and zombies to this chapter. You can read the chapter below. As you read this chapter, consider what you know now about literary analysis and analyze the chapter. While Seabrook is a contemporary of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and other talented novelists of the interwar period (1919-1941), many question whether his writing even compares to that of these other literary masters. What conclusions about this can you make based on your own of his work?

Dead Men Working in the Cane Fields

Paragraph 3: In his book, The Magic Island, Seabrook engaged artist, Alexander King to provide the illustrations for the book. The illustrations convey the Haitian people as primitive. The article below discusses the book as well as the illustrations. Look at the illustrations and think about how they are a product of their time and the meaning they are trying to convey. Just like The Magic Island the artwork does nothing to promote the true cultural values of the Haitian people. The book and the artwork are a reflection of the time period in which it was written. It is important to not forget that.

On the Magic Island

Paragraph 4: Zora Neale Hurston's book, Tell My Horse, portrays Haitian culture in a more realistic way. Hurston was an African American woman who earned a bachelor's degree and started on graduate work in anthropology in the 1920s. In the 1930s, Hurston worked for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as part of the New Deal. She was hired by the WPA to collect oral histories from former slaves in Florida, which was her home state. She also worked with authors from the Harlem Renaissance such as Langston Hughes. From 1936 to 1937, she conducted field work in Jamaica and Haiti on the culture of both countries. While she is in Haiti, she observed real Vodou ceremonies and actually interviewed Vodou practitioners about the zombi. This resulted in Tell My Horse published in 1938. Tell My Horse discussed what she learned about Jamaican and Haitian culture in a much more realistic way. Her work in anthropology, the WPA and her skin color all helped her gain inside information about traditions and rituals that Seabrook never gained. Yet, Seabrook is the one that gets the credit for bringing the zombie to American popular culture.

Paragraph 5: Hurston wrote many other books including novels that did not become noticed for their literary quality until after her death. She died in 1960 and was buried in an unmarked grave. Ten years later, another African American female writer, Alice Walker, discovered Hurston's work and made it her goal to mark Hurston's grave and give her work the acknowledgement that it deserved. Perhaps, one of Hurston's books that you would be most familiar with is Their Eyes Were Watching God as it was turned into a film in 2005 starring Halle Berry.

To cite the links above in the milestone, use their titles. To cite the other information, use Literature and Zombies and the paragraph number.

Film: The Zombie Comes to the Big Screen

William Seabrook's chapter "Dead Men in the Cane Fields" in The Magic Island led to Hollywood making the first zombie film called White Zombie. The video below discusses how this came about and how the Haitian Vodou zombi became the Voodoo zombie of American Popular Culture.

The video below is the same one from Modules 2 and 3, but around the 8 minute timestamp, the narrator starts talking about William Seabrook, White Zombie and zombies in American film and literature.

https://youtu.be/KIGmsxBMnjA?si=3ZmF2anRZG73w2xl

And now for your viewing pleasure, White Zombie. Watch it and think about how one analyzes a film. What message is this movie conveying about American colonialism in Haiti? Why do you think the zombies and the bokor are white instead of black? After the film is an article that gives you insight into the meaning of this film. Oh and yes, the film is in black and white but realize it was made in the 1930s. It is almost 100 years old. You are viewing history. If you want to watch a larger format version of it, you can find it for free on YouTube. YOU MUST WATCH THE FILM BECAUSE YOU WILL HAVE TO DESCRIBE SCENES FROM IT IN THE MILESTONE. IT IS NOT A SCARY FILM.

https://youtu.be/NV3B2z0HkKA?si=1ka-SppAUtMQzWHL

The article below explains the meaning of both White Zombie and Night of the Living Dead. You do not have to watch the Night of the Living Dead but if you want to it is free on YouTube.

Race and the Revived Dead: White Zombie and Night of the Living Dead

Paragraph #1: The contemporary Western zombie featured in novels, films, and television shows such as World War Z and The Walking Dead has been said to represent current American foreign anxieties, such as the War on Terror. But was the threat of foreign violence an influential reason for the public’s fascination with zombies during their early days in film? Directors Victor and Edward Halperin’s 1932 film White Zombie and George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead from 1968 both represent keystone films in the zombie genre: the former marks the first American zombie film, while the latter sets the stage for the modern understanding of zombie tropes.

Paragraph #2: Jeffery Cohen writes, “The monster’s body is a cultural body [that] signifies something other than itself.” 1 So what did the zombie represent in the 1930s and 1960s, and how has that influenced our contemporary interpretation of the flesh eating undead? This analysis will seek to understand how the zombie monster fits specifically in relation to the racial divides of each time period, including the U.S.’s foreign dealings with Haiti and their domestic issues during the Civil Rights Movement. This is not to say that the zombie figure was necessarily connected to race intentionally, as intention in texts is difficult to determine. Rather, this examination seeks to illustrate how the zombie engages with these social and political issues, intentionally or not. In analyzing the zombie’s relationship to race, we will find that the zombie simultaneously reinforces and critiques racial prejudice in the same way it is simultaneously dead and alive, or “living dead”—it defies and deconstructs social binaries, which has allowed it to last and evolve as much as it has over the past century.

Paragraph #3: White Zombie is an American Pre-Code horror film, meaning it was released during the brief era before the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code in 1934 that established guidelines surrounding sexual innuendo, profanity, violence, and other potentially offensive content. Though the film is Pre-Code, it is relatively tame in these aspects, especially by contemporary standards. The film did not receive favourable reviews at the time of its release: Frederic Smith of Commonweal described the film as “interesting only in measure of its complete failure,” and the New York World-Telegram stated: “The plot … is really ridiculous, but not so startlingly so as the acting.” 2 That being said, modern critics have since praised the film for its establishment of atmosphere, and it has developed its own cult standing as the first zombie film.

Paragraph #4: The advertising for the film at the time was highly racialized, as “exhibitors were encouraged to ‘hire several negroes’ to beat ‘tom toms’ while adorned in ‘tropical garments’” in front of a display with several “magic” props—including handcuffs—outside the theater. 3 This high contact advertising campaign involving “black magic and white bodies” 4 is the first indication of the film’s placement in reality—the horrors the audiences were about to witness were not bound within the cinema or even the realm of fantasy. This campaign particularly suited the film’s place in American-Haitian history, as it was released within the final two years of the States’ nineteen-year invasion and occupation of Haiti. At this time, there was a predominant cultural unconscious that could have easily connected the zombies of the film to the “colonial rule, unpaid slave labor, and the democratic injustices of American empire” in Haiti, and this was mirrored in the political world, as the “United States was finally beginning to withdraw from this unpopular and, by all accounts, unsuccessful mission of democracy when White Zombie opened.” 5

Madeleine is the white zombie under Murder Legendre’s spell

Paragraph #5: As a Gothic text, White Zombie sets its zombies in a highly Gothic space: the island gives a sense of isolation with little means of escape, and the exotic foreignness of the island effectively places the monster outside of America, where such things were perceived to not possibly occur. This setting alone introduces the film as inherently nationalistic. White Zombie’s nationalist message is further supported throughout the content of the film, such as when the protagonist, Neil, tells Dr. Bruner about the “corpses” and asks, “Surely you don’t believe it, do you?” to which Dr. Bruner responds, “No! … Haiti is full of nonsense and superstition.” 6 This contrast between the rational white men and the “prevailing stereotypes of the ‘backwards’ natives” is strikingly unoriginal in its support of “western imperialist superiority.” 7 The characters even emphasize the Haitians’ underdeveloped belief system by incorporating a sense of Gothic time, such as through Dr. Bruner’s explanation that “some of [their superstitions] can be traced back as far as ancient Egypt.” 8 Exposing the folly of the ancients is characteristic of a Gothic text, as is also seen in Frankenstein through Victor’s professor’s discouragement of his work on ancient alchemy as “nonsense.” 9

Paragraph #6: That being said, similarly to Frankenstein in how Victor’s research turns out to be horrifyingly correct, it is the natives who focus on ancient superstition who turn out to be right—the white man’s disbelief and superiority complex, in this case, reveals his folly, leaving room for critique of white nationalistic propaganda. In the same vein, the film has been read as “an indictment of the U.S. for its early twentieth-century occupation of the island nation,” 10 especially due to its timely release during the Great Depression. African-Americans arguably suffered the most during the Depression, as white men often called for all black people to be fired or no longer paid as long as white people were out of work. 11 It is no coincidence that the small percentage of people who remained economically steady during the Depression were white men who profited off the backs of black slaves, such as through U.S.-owned sweatshops that ran in Haiti during the occupation, and continue to run to the present day. 12 The film inhabits this political era and, by presenting the slave owner as the villain of the film, can also be said to effectively critique it.

The Haitian zombies working on Murder Legendre’s plantation

Paragraph #7: But while it may be critical of the States’ involvement in Haiti, it also does not propose a solution to the issue. At times it even implies that nothing can be done, such as when Murder Legendre is asked, “What if [your slaves] regain their souls?” to which he responds, “That, my friend, will never be,” 13 implying an impossibility of a world without slavery. The end of the film further supports this notion when the slaves fall over the side of the cliff with their master—they are never freed, and the white characters never care to free them.

Paragraph #8: This is possibly due to one key connection between zombies and people of colour: the zombies in the film are described as “not men,” but rather “dead bodies,” 14 in the same way that people of colour have historically been perceived as less than human. This will also be seen in the analysis of Night of the Living Dead, as Ben is killed at the end because the “posse sees Ben as one of the Other, and as such fails to distinguish him as human.” 15 The zombie therefore inhabits an in-between space of dead and alive in a similar way that black people have inhabited an in-between space of fully human and black human, or even human and (perceived) animal. But while the plight of the zombie can be interpreted as similar to the plight of the African-American, that comparison is faulty in that zombies cannot feel any emotion—that is, they cannot recognize their persecution—and they are still portrayed as the monster of the narrative. This connection reveals how White Zombie can serve as both a reinforcement and critique of American racial prejudice and colonial rule.

Night of the Living Dead

The poster for Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Paragraph #9: Unlike White Zombie, Romero’s 1968 American independent horror film was both controversial and highly successful in its time, and remains influential to this day. Part of its controversy surrounded its heavy use of gore and violence and public concern over children’s viewing, due to its release just before the Motion Picture Association of America began rating films. A Variety critique of the film called it an “orgy of sadism” and called for the Supreme Court to establish “clear-cut guidelines for the pornography of violence.” 16 Despite this controversy, five years later Night of the Living Dead was the “most profitable horror film ever … produced outside the walls of a major studio.” 17

Paragraph #10: Romero claims he drew inspiration from Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend for the film—a novel surrounding vampire-like creatures that plague the earth and prey on humans. 18 Similarly to I Am Legend, Romero never calls his monsters zombies, but rather “ghouls,” as he argued that they were so dissimilar from the Haitian concept of zombies that they were “something completely new.” 19 That being said, audiences began referring to them as “zombies,” so Romero eventually accepted this term in his sequels to the film, marking his trilogy as a keystone for the domesticated American zombie character despite their original more fluid identity.

Are they ghouls? Zombies? Something else entirely?

Paragraph #11: Night of the Living Dead is especially significant for its time due to its casting of a black man as the lead role. Romero claims he did not intend for the role to be played by a person of colour, but intended or not, the role was resonant for audiences who were living during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. 20 Ben’s murder at the end by a group of rural American white men hunting zombies was especially poignant, as Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination was only months previous to its release. Despite Romero’s lack of intentions regarding the film’s commentary on race, his choice to cast a black actor led to “the film [being played] in more inner-city theatres than in white and affluent theatres.” 21 This fact alone reveals how racialized and racially divided the first contemporary zombie film came to be, despite the director’s intentions.

Paragraph #12: While Night of the Living Dead, like White Zombie, sets its story in a claustrophobic, isolated Gothic space of farmland—that is, far from civilization and any form of assistance in an emergency—rural Pennsylvania is far closer to home for American audiences than Haiti. Romero’s placement of the tale within the American border already opens up the potential for social critique, as it emphasizes that the danger can come from within the American public, not outside of it. Romero makes this setting clear from the beginning of the film with a close-up shot of an American flag in the graveyard, which serves as a reminder that even in death, one cannot escape their political landscape. There is also possibly an implication that the actions of the zombies, who come from American earth, can also be interpreted politically, as will be expanded on later. This concept of the domestic as monstrous is further emphasized within the home where most of the film takes place. There is a question and debate in the film over which tactic is safer: to move deeper within the home and claustrophobic space of the basement, or to stay upstairs where there is more risk, but also the possibility of escape, which preserves a sense of freedom. What makes this film particularly horrific is that the answer to this debate is neither; the white man’s daughter in the basement becomes a zombie, and the zombies outside eventually break in and takeover the main level. In this way, the film reveals how insidious the dangers occurring on American soil—such as the growing violence against African-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement—can become, as households are disturbed and places of respite from politics grow virtually non-existent. The iconic, full-screen scene of one zombie breaking a car window with a brick in order to get to the helpless Barbra is the ultimate image of the film’s critique that real-life horrors cannot be escaped, and that the film’s fourth wall is meant to be broken so that audiences may reflect on how the plot of the film relates to the politics of their everyday life.

The American flag in the graveyard reminds us that we cannot escape politics through death

Paragraph #13: One notable way that Romero’s film can be seen to simultaneously reinforce and critique racial stereotypes is through analysing Ben’s relationship with Barbra. To begin, simply the fact that Romero paired the lead—who is often also characterized as both the hero and the romantic lead, either implicitly or explicitly—as a black man with a white woman reveals how the film is comfortable with playing with taboos, in this case the taboo of interracial coupling. While this may immediately appear to reveal the progressiveness of the film, it is important to analyse the nuances of their interactions before making such a judgement call. One scene to consider is when Ben attempts to reason Barbra out of her delusional state, and when reason fails, he grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her. On one hand, this scene can be seen as a display of the public’s anxieties around their perception of black men’s violent interests in and power over white women—a stereotype that has been used for centuries to support the oppression of and violence against African-American men. On the other hand, Ben only does this out of concern for her, not out of a bought of rage, as seen by how he “quickly subverts this aggression by providing compassion and concern.” 22

Paragraph #14: Also, the fact that he is portrayed as the rational one between the two of them further reveals that he is not prone to irrational rage; it is quite the opposite, as his moments of violence throughout the film are calculated and methodical. The same concept occurs later in the film when Ben is faced with Harry, a white man who increasingly thirsts for dominance over the household. Harry’s craving for power culminates when he threatens Ben with a rifle and Ben is forced to kill him, which is an act of “the ultimate demonstration of black rage.” 23 That being said, he does this out of protection for both himself and the women, which further reinforces his superior rational sense compared to the other white characters. While this multiplicity of possible interpretations of Ben’s actions were not intended by Romero, since they would not be so ground-breaking when performed by a white man, they are still pertinent in understanding how Night of the Living Dead disrupts stereotypes and binaries when it comes to whiteness versus blackness.

Ben helps Barbra by putting her shoes back on

Paragraph #15: How the zombies are characterized in the film also upholds this concept of binary disruption in relation to race. One critical distinction that is made between humans and zombies is the question of mind versus brain: at one point the zombies are referred to as “mindless bodies,” and at another point they are called “bodies with reactivated brains.” 24 This question of how a zombie can have both an active brain and be “mindless” is mirrored by the previously discussed notion of Ben being both African-American and also the most rational person in the group. In the same way that Romero breaks the binary of mind-as-thoughtful-self versus brain-as-physical-conductor, the film also disrupts the racist idea of white-as-civilized/rational versus black-as-primitive/irrational.

Paragraph #16: There is also a connection here to W. E. B. DuBois’ double consciousness, which illustrates the difficulty of the African-American in being both an American and a black person—a binary of identity that cannot be inherently separated, in the same way the mind cannot be entirely separated from the brain. The zombies represent almost a form of ideal equality in the sense that “revivified death conveniently obscures racial, class, and gender differences” 25 in a much different way to White Zombie’s highly racialized black slaves. Instead, they all simply share the same craving: human flesh, of any race or gender. In terms of desire, the zombies of Night of the Living Dead can therefore be seen to represent the 1968 American longing for solidarity and a disruption of binaries—such as left versus right or black versus white—during a time of vast social and political change.

Ben’s murder by the white posse was unexpected and highly impactful

Paragraph #17: Since the 1930s, the zombie has evolved from the Haitian concept of the hypnotized slave to the American adaptation of the flesh eating undead. Throughout this change, one characteristic that has remained the same is the zombie’s connection to race and racial controversies. Each film’s sense of Gothic setting, interactions between the characters, and complex portrayal of what exactly a zombie is reveals and complicates the social and political contexts of each time period’s understanding of race. As a vehicle that can be used to both reinforce and critique racial prejudice, Steven Shaviro argues that the zombie is not only a “monstrous symptom of a violent, manipulative, exploitative society,” but also, “with [its] destructiveness and cannibalism, [a] ‘remedy for its ills.'” 26 The zombie’s cultural flexibility as an “uneducated ‘blank slate’” 27 is part of what makes it so appealing to audiences of different social contexts, which allows it to constantly revive from the pop culture graveyard. After all, though the monster may be defeated in the films, what it represents in reality—in the case of this analysis, racial stereotypes and divides—continues to remain very much alive.

To cite the above article in the milestone, type its title and the paragraph number where you found the information.

Works Cited for the above article. These are the sources the author used in his article. They are not for you to use in the milestone.

1. Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. “Monster Culture (Seven Theses).” Monster Theory: Reading Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. 3-25. PDF, p. 4. ↩

2. Rhodes, Gary Don. White Zombie: Anatomy of a Horror Film. Jefferson: McFarland, 2001. EBook, p. 265, 267. ↩

3. Fay, Jennifer. “Dead Subjectivity: White Zombie, Black Baghdad.” The New Centennial Review 8.1 (2008): 81-99. Project Muse. Web. 17 November 2017, p. 83. ↩

4. Fay, Jennifer. “Dead Subjectivity: White Zombie, Black Baghdad.” The New Centennial Review 8.1 (2008): 81-99. Project Muse. Web. 17 November 2017, p. 83. ↩

5. Fay, Jennifer. “Dead Subjectivity: White Zombie, Black Baghdad.” The New Centennial Review 8.1 (2008): 81-99. Project Muse. Web. 17 November 2017, p. 82. ↩

6. White Zombie. Dir. Victor Halperin. Perf. Béla Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn. 1932. United Artists. YouTube. ↩

7. Garland, Christopher. “Hollywood’s Haiti: Allegory, Crisis, and Intervention in The Serpent and the Rainbow and White Zombie.” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies 19.3 (2015): 273-83. Scholars Portal Journals. Web. 17 November 2017, p. 276. ↩

8. White Zombie. Dir. Victor Halperin. Perf. Béla Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn. 1932. United Artists. YouTube. ↩

9. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. 3rd ed. Eds. D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf. Toronto: Broadview, 2012. Print, p. 74. ↩

10. Garland, Christopher. “Hollywood’s Haiti: Allegory, Crisis, and Intervention in The Serpent and the Rainbow and White Zombie.” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies 19.3 (2015): 273-83. Scholars Portal Journals. Web. 17 November 2017, p. 277. ↩

11. “African Americans, Impact of the Great Depression on.” U.S. History in Context. Gale. 2004. Web. 17 November 2017. ↩

12. Garland, Christopher. “Hollywood’s Haiti: Allegory, Crisis, and Intervention in The Serpent and the Rainbow and White Zombie.” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies 19.3 (2015): 273-83. Scholars Portal Journals. Web. 17 November 2017, p. 278. ↩

13. White Zombie. Dir. Victor Halperin. Perf. Béla Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn. 1932. United Artists. YouTube. ↩

14. White Zombie. Dir. Victor Halperin. Perf. Béla Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn. 1932. United Artists. YouTube.

15. Berchilloy, Andre. Not Under My Roof: Interracial Relationships and Black Image in Post-World War II Film. MA Thesis, Northern Illinois University, 2015, p. 42. ↩

16. Higashi, Sumiko. “Night of the Living Dead: A Horror Film About the Horrors of the Vietnam Era.” From Hanoi to Hollywood: The Vietnam War in American Film. Eds. Linda Dittmar and Gene Michaud. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990. EBook, p. 175. ↩

17. McCullough, Paul. “A Pittsburgh Horror Story.” Take One 4.6 (1973). Web. 17 November 2017, p. 8. ↩

18. Russo, John. The Complete Night of the Living Dead Filmbook. Virginia: University of Virginia Press, 1985. EBook, p. 6-7. ↩

19. Robey, Tim. “George A Romero: Why I Don’t Like The Walking Dead.” The Telegraph 08 November 2013. ↩

20. Jones, Alan. The Rough Guide to Horror Movies. London: Rough Guides, 2005. EBook, p. 118. ↩

21. Berchilloy, Andre. Not Under My Roof: Interracial Relationships and Black Image in Post-World War II Film. MA Thesis, Northern Illinois University, 2015, p. 36. ↩

22. Berchilloy, Andre. Not Under My Roof: Interracial Relationships and Black Image in Post-World War II Film. MA Thesis, Northern Illinois University, 2015, p. 40. ↩

23. Berchilloy, Andre. Not Under My Roof: Interracial Relationships and Black Image in Post-World War II Film. MA Thesis, Northern Illinois University, 2015, p. 39. ↩

24. Night of the Living Dead. Dir. George Romero. Perf. Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea. 1968. Image Ten. YouTube. ↩

25. Fay, Jennifer. “Dead Subjectivity: White Zombie, Black Baghdad.” The New Centennial Review 8.1 (2008): 81-99. Project Muse. Web. 17 November 2017, p. 82. ↩

26. Fay, Jennifer. “Dead Subjectivity: White Zombie, Black Baghdad.” The New Centennial Review 8.1 (2008): 81-99. Project Muse. Web. 17 November 2017, p. 81. ↩

27. Garland, Christopher. “Hollywood’s Haiti: Allegory, Crisis, and Intervention in The Serpent and the Rainbow and White Zombie.” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies 19.3 (2015): 273-83. Scholars Portal Journals. Web. 17 November 2017, p. 278. ↩

“Race and the Revived Dead: White Zombie and Night of the Living Dead.” The Artifice. Accessed February 18, 2022. https://the-artifice.com/race-zombie/#:~:text=White%20Zombie%20is%20an%20American,and%20other%20potentially%20offensive%20content.

adeleine is the white zombie under Murder Legendre’s spell