‘(Re)Visiting and (Re)Visioning the Self/Other Divide in Science Fiction Transmutations of the Gothic

Hatter, Janine

Abstract

Literary, cultural and historical critics alike have theorised that society’s values are based on dichotomies: majority/minority, oppressor/oppressed, men/women, young/old and good/evil. As Edward Said notes in his preface to Orientalism (1978): the ‘mind actively makes a place […] for a foreign Other’ (xix), consequently the psychology of the Self/Other divide is also a fundamental societal contrast when adopting postcolonial readings of texts. Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend (1954), Francis Lawrence’s 2007 filmic adaptation of Matheson’s novel and Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002) initially support this conventional opposition by depicting ‘otherness in unitary terms, so that “humanity” is uncomplicatedly opposed to the “alien”’ (Wolmark 46): their protagonists are the good Self of society, while the revenants are the evil Other that terrorise ‘us’, the reader/viewer. For clarity, the creatures of 28 Days Later are referred to as zombies and the I Am Legend creatures are vampires, while ‘revenants’ is borrowed from Clive Bloom to discuss both. This paper considers how society’s values, as represented by the protagonists, are established in these three science fiction texts because its main institutions – politics, family and religion – prioritise patriarchal values, such as female oppression and majority rule. These institutions’ patriarchal values have a long standing history of representation in literature, as illustrated by the traditional Gothic novels that are used as springboards into the postcolonial analysis of the modern texts. Significantly, Matheson, Lawrence and Boyle also depict the revenants following these same values – they reaffirm society’s patriarchal ideologies. Instead of maintaining the Self/Other dichotomy, the texts’ elision of this perceived divide implies that humans and revenants are not opposites, but one and the same. Thus, this article challenges the epigram from Bloom by arguing that the reaffirmation of society’s values at the texts’ conclusions, by the protagonists and the revenants, are not reassuring for the reader/viewer. The true terror of the tales originates not from the revenants, but from the realisation that society’s ideological strictures have been contaminated by the Other; revenants are an essential part of our society because they are us – humans are the evil we are so concerned with destroying.

Citation

Hatter, J. (2013). ‘(Re)Visiting and (Re)Visioning the Self/Other Divide in Science Fiction Transmutations of the Gothic. Supernatural studies, 1(1), 39-52

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2013
• Deposit Date: Aug 22, 2023
• Journal: Supernatural studies
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 1
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 39-52
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4361079
• Publisher URL: https://sites.google.com/site/supernaturalstudiesassociation/previous-journal-issues/vol-1-issue-1