Of the books I’ve read
so far for my Reading in the Genre: Monsters class, I Am Legend
was the most thought-provoking. It’s not a hard read—I finished it in less than
a day—but it left me wondering how I would react if I was the only human left
on earth.
Protagonist Robert
Neville is the only human survivor on earth. His home is boarded up and covered in
mirrors and garlic. This detail first got my interest: Matheson never directly
says who or what Neville is hiding from. The word “vampire” is used sparingly
throughout the novel, yet the reader knows from page three that the threat is
vampires because of the details.
Now what helps Matheson
with this endeavor is that he doesn’t stray too far away from well-known
vampire tropes, such as aversion to garlic and crosses and the inability to
remain in sunlight. Later in the story, Matheson does spin these tropes to give
them a scientific bend, which I thought was clever and believable. Vampirism in
this novel is a pandemic caused by war and spread by dust storms and mosquitoes.
I'm not ashamed to admit that the scientific terminology slowed me down (I’m
not science-slanted at all) but the main thing I found interesting wasn't that
vampirism was caused by a germ. I’ve read other vampire stories with this
explanation and accepted them willingly enough. What I found more interesting
was the “hysterical blindness” that caused the infected to exhibit specific
vampiric symptoms. On pages 105-106 of the 2007 second Tor edition of I Am Legend, the narrator explains, “And,
driven on despite already created dreads, the vampire could have acquired an
intense mental loathing, and this self-hatred could have set up a block in
their weakened minds causing them to be blind to their own abhorred image.” The
infected, believing in their weakened mental state that they were actually
vampires, adopted vampiric traits. The physical symptoms alone were caused by
the germ.
I believe that if
readers will accept anything remotely fantastical in a book, it has to be well
explained in such a way that is easily believable without distracting from the
story. Now, Matheson’s lengthy explanation of why his vampires are vampires
does take some time to plough through, but by this point Neville has already dedicated
his time to discovering the cause of the pandemic. The explanation complements
the plot.
This psychological
symptom of adopting vampiric traits contrasts Neville’s immunity to the
disease. While Neville is physically immune to the germ, he notices that not
all vampires have the disease, rather they simply adopt the psychological
symptoms. In this way, Matheson illustrates that Neville is truly alone in this
brave new world, constantly rejecting his old friend Ben Cortman call “Come
out, Neville!” to join him and the other vampires.
This theme of man alone is ultimately what sustains the story. I had to reflect on the novel to come to
the above understanding, but alone-ness for lack of a better word is apparent throughout the novel.
Through Neville’s reactions to the vampire women, the idea of isolation from human kind is
highlighted from the beginning. Despite how repulsed he is by the vampires—this
disease stole both his wife and child from him after all—he can’t fully control
his sexual desires for the vampire women at the beginning of the novel. This
sexual desire for what he considers monsters is an example of how alone he is.
He is completely deprived of human contact, and this desire for this contact
becomes perverted. He doesn't fully gain control over his libido until near the
end of the book after a forced several years of celibacy. To be celibate is not
to deny one’s sexuality, but to repress it for some other purpose; for Neville,
it was to find a cure. Sexuality in all of its forms is unanimously human, and
Neville is forced to first project then suppress this aspect of his humanity
because there are no more humans.
Psychology and sex
aside, what really solidified this theme of man alone for me was the dog. I’d
heard about this dog from friends who’d seen the Will Smith movie when it first
came out—they said it was the saddest part of the movie. In the novel, the dog represents
just how desperate Neville is for so-called normal contact of any kind. The
time and patience he puts into getting the dog to trust him for it to become a
vampire is almost tragic. The dog was Neville’s last chance at contact with a
creature that survived the pandemic. When Neville learns that the vampires are
banding together to form a new community, to live with the germ rather than
fight it, the tables turn. The entire novel he believed he was the only normal
one alive, when he was actually a freak of nature. He alone was immune, and
while the dog was a false hope that others had and could survive.
Overall, I found this
book to be thought provoking. A piece of great literature? I’m not sure if it
will ever be adopted into the Canon. But I
Am Legend is truly horrifying. Not because of the monsters, but because of
the idea left in the reader’s mind of what if? What if I was the last human on
earth, a pariah in a society of monsters? Happy thoughts.
