As the only zombie novel on our reading list, Colson Whitehead’s Zone One presents a bleak twist on the genre. The zombies in Zone One have overtaken the city, and a new government focused on restoration aims to rebuild New York City after all the zombies have been eliminated. The novel follows an unremarkable man, Mark Spitz, over a weekend in New York City as he completes his duties as a “sweeper.” His team’s task is to find and remove all of the stragglers, a type of zombie, in the area. This leads us to the unique addition of two types of zombies in this world: skels and stragglers. Skels are the typical bloodthirsty zombie you see in these types of novels, but stragglers seem to be stuck in time, unmoving in the last task of their lives. Though this concept seems to suggest hope for the future of New York, the novel dashes these hopes almost immediately and leaves the reader with a sense of hopelessness for the world.
Whitehead ponders on what it means to survive in the face of a devastating situation. Mark repeatedly disparages the idea of feeling hope for the future and instead tries to focus on the present, or death by skel is an inevitability. There are not many uninfected humans left in the world, especially in the center of the city where the characters find themselves, so they have to proceed with caution and manage their emotions. The novel also explores the connection between survival and safety. Safety in Zone One is fragile. The barricades will not last forever and the walls will eventually fall. Mark knows better than to place his full faith in these constructions, or else he will feel total despair when they fail. The end of the novel cements the hopelessness of the situation. A straggler suddenly attacks a member of Mark’s team, which seemingly confirms the idea that had been floating around that stragglers develop into skels. Upon return to the fort for help, Mark finds that it is being overrun by skels and escapes with officials from the compound. He then learns that the summit for reconstruction will not be happening and the officials believe that rebuilding is essentially impossible. At this moment, Mark decides to fight through the swarm of skels to find his team even though he knows his chances of surviving are very low. When hope for the survival of the world is totally lost, Mark throws away his self-preservation as there is nothing to survive for anymore. This sudden intense climax utterly destroys any tentative hope a reader may have and leaves nothing but despair in its wake. However, that is not to say one should immediately give up hope in terrible situations. Keep fighting and you could make it through just fine. For futher reading, please visit: Bookforum: Bookforum talks with Colson Whitehead npr: Whitehead's 'Zone' Is No Average Zombie Apocalypse JSTOR: Against the Post-Apocalyptic
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AuthorHi, I'm Brooke! In these blog posts, I will be reflecting on content in post-apocalyptic literature. Archives |