Yesenia Vasquez Serrano
Professor Greg McClure
Writing 39B
2 November 2016
I Am Legend: Connecting Through Compassion
Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, provides an accurate example of how social and
emotional connections are the underlying source of our development. Through his use of both
subversions and fulfillments of horror conventions and the characterization of Neville and Ruth,
the audience realizes that the absence of social and emotional connections eventually leads to
Nevilles death. Neville begins as a lone character in search of a cure for the plague, and later
Matheson develops his character into a man who became what he mostly feared. Throughout my
argument, I will be providing evidence from the essay, "The Nature of Horror", written by the
distinguished American professor of philosophy, Nol Carroll, that explains the difference
between art-horror and natural horror, and what traits are proven to be part of the horror genre.
Mathias Clasen, a Danish scholar and assistant professor in literature and media at Aarhus
University, wrote a paper titled, Vampire Apocalypse: A Biocultural Critique of Richard
Matheson's I Am Legend which focuses on different aspects of the book that help develop both
the characters and the plot. These sources, along with the book itself will be used to describe
Neville and how his character changes each time he has a connection with someone, whether it is
through his physical encounter with the dog or Ruth at the end. I will begin explaining how
Mathesons introduction of Neville is used to describe the character he is, in order to get the
audience to sympathize and feel sorry for Neville. I will also be discussing how the scene where
Neville encounters the dog intensifies the yearning he has for companionship, and finally I will
focus on how his connection to Ruth, leads to both the realization that Neville has become what
he feared the most. Matheson uses this theme throughout the book to stress the timeless message
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that the absence of connections causes a lack of sympathy and compassion towards a society that
is different from ours, in order to get the audience to be more like Ruth: a compassionate and
sympathetic being..
Mathesons introduction of Neville lets the audience know that his lack of any social or
emotional connection has made him an angry character whose only ambition is to kill the
vampires. He develops this characterization through the use of aggressive diction in a specific
passage in the first chapter, which I will be analyzing in this paragraph and the next two: As he
pushed open the front door, he looked at the distorted reflection of himself in the cracked mirror
hed fastened to the door a month ago. In a few days, jagged pieces of the silver-backed glass
would start to fall off. Let em fall, he thought... it wasnt worth it. (Matheson, 3). In this
passage, Mathesons use of the phrase, As he pushed open the front door, lets the audience
know that Neville is angry. Rather than saying that Neville opened the front door, the authors
use of the word pushed portrays the image of someone who is angry and frustrated with their
circumstances. The overall scene describes what Neville does every day to shield himself from
the horror that surrounds him. Nol Carroll writes, ...an occurrent emotional state is one in
which some physical abnormal state of agitation has been caused by the subjects cognitive
construal and evaluation of his or her situation( Carroll, 54). In other words, what Carroll is
saying is that the emotion that is observable, most likely a state of agitation is caused by the
characters perception and interpretation of their surroundings. Neville is surrounded by
creatures that do not resemble his physical appearance, which in return makes his angry and
agitated. In the next paragraph, I will continue analyzing the passage used above and the
importance of the mirror in further describing Nevilles life.
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Richard Mathesons decision to use frustrated diction and imagery as the beginning scene
of the book reinforces the concept that without social and emotional connections, Nevilles life is
extremely delicate and bound to be broken. The phrase he looked at the distorted reflection of
himself in the cracked mirror hed fastened to the door a month ago. In a few days, jagged pieces
of the silver-backed glass would start to fall off (Matheson, 3). As Neville walks past the broken
mirror, he sees a distorted image of himself which foreshadows the character we will continue to
discover in the book, a character that is unstable and forced to face a countless amount of
obstacles as well. The cracked mirror gives the audience the impression of something that is
shattered and cannot be fixed. This image symbolizes Nevilles broken heart and life; the same
way the mirror has broken in just a couple of days, Neville loses a small part of himself every
day he realizes he is the only human free of the plague. This image allows the audience to relate
to Neville and what he has to deal with. Nol Carroll writes, Our emotions are supposed to
mirror those of the positive human characters (Carroll, 53). Neville is portrayed as the positive
human character in I Am Legend, and through Mathesons illustration of the broken mirror, the
audience is able to sympathize with Nevilles struggles against the horror that surrounds him. I
will continue elaborating this idea by examining the end of the passage, and explaining how the
lack in social and emotional connection correlates with Nevilles lack of motivation.
The introduction to Neville gives the audience the sense that having to face a horrific
situation without any connections has led Neville into a situation that makes him believe there is
no reason to continue living. The last two sentences of the passage, Let em fall, he thought... it
wasnt worth it (Matheson, 3). Matheson is referring to the broken mirror pieces that are falling
and how Neville does not care enough to fix the mirrors or even replace them. The use of the
phrase it wasnt worth it stresses the idea that Neville is broken and is giving up; he feels there
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is no reason go even try to fix what is broken, which serves to represent his motivation as well.
His attitude shows his vulnerability towards the situation he is in, emphasizing the point that the
horror that is around him has taken control, to the point where he no longer finds purpose for his
life. Mathias Clasen wrote, Sociality is and has been crucial to human ontogenetic and
phylogenetic development. We depend on other people not just for reproduction and survival, but
for psychological and emotional growth and fulfillment (Clasen, 320). Ontogenetic
development refers to the development of an organism, and in this case, Neville needs that social
connection to help him develop into someone who has a reason to live. Later in the book, the
audience realizes that the reason eventually becomes finding a cure for vampirism.
The interactions Neville has with the vampires begin as violent, and have now switched
to a researcher and scientist relationship; yet this connection is not successful due to the fact that
they cannot meet his need for a human interaction. According to Clasen, This deep need for
sociality is exactly what they cannot satisfy, and their non-social behavior is a crucial feature
(Clasen, 319). Because Matheson portrays the vampires as beings that are non-social and that
disrupted the natural order, Neville is isolated and forced to deal with creatures that he cannot
sympathize with. He may be surrounded by only vampires, but their presence is not fulfilling; the
importance they have is as research subjects. This quest for information, the occasional frenzy
of discovery, is what sets off the plot of I Am Legend, and along with the hope of finding a
companion it is what sustains Neville throughout the narrative. (Clasen, 320) His motivation for
researching vampirism is directed by his desire to capture vampires, test on them, and potentially
convert them back to humans.
As the book progresses, Matheson focuses on Nevilles quest for the cure and how he is
slowly beginning to surrender; yet just before he is about to give up, the description of Nevilles
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encounter with the dog shifts that despairity into hope for the future. Matheson writes, He had
such a terrible yearning to love something again, and the dog was such a beautifully ugly dog
(Matheson, 56). Mathesons use of the phrase terrible yearning gives a feeling of desperation
and longing. The audience realizes that it must be difficult to spend a little over a year without
any contact with humans (mainly because those interactions consist of flashbacks about his
family). Mathesons juxtaposition of the beautifully ugly dog has converted the limping dog
into a dog whose physical features are not as important as what it represents, which is the
underlying motivation to keep living. Clasen writes in Vampire Apocalypse, The dog
momentarily saves Neville from a self-destructive descent into alcoholic despair (Clasen, 320).
Matheson depicts Neville as an alcoholic throughout most of book; he is a man who when faced
with a challenging situation finds comfort in drinking. The dog is referred to as beautiful because
it kept Neville from losing hope, and allowed the novel to progress as well. In the next
paragraph, I will discuss how the push that the dog gave Neville, leads to the development of
Neville and how it unfolds the final scenes between him and Ruth.
Mathesons introduction of Ruth, make the audience feel pleased that Neville now has
someone to connect to, but at the same time suspicious that her connection to him isnt
necessarily beneficial. Ruth comes across as a character who is alone as well, but gives the
audience an uneasy feeling since we arent sure if she is a vampire or not. A UC Berkeley
professor of film studies and rhetoric studies, Carol J. Clover, wrote a book in 1992 titled, Men,
Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, which talks about gender roles in
horror films, and a concept she has named Final Girl, which refers to the last woman character
who lives to tell the story; however, even though her book refers to films, and my argument is on
literature, it can still be applied to the characterization of Robert Neville and Ruth. In her book,
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she writes, There is something about the victim function that wants manifestation in a female
(Clover, 12). By portraying a woman as the victim, there is this delicacy and vulnerability that
comes with her character. When we are first introduced to Ruth, Matheson describes her as a
young woman who has lost her husband and two children. Immediately, the audience feels sorry
for her because she claims to have spent the past three years in hiding with her family, and is
now left alone. Ruths character continues to develop and we learn that she isnt who she claims
to be, and it changes the relationship she was forming with Neville.
The realization that Ruth is actually part of a new society of vampires transforms
Nevilles previous character, a man who is trying to survive a plague, into someone who has lost
most of his humanity, is accomplished through Mathesons subversions of the typical horror
aspects. Even though now we realize that Ruth is a vampire, her failure to meet the expectations
of a vampire pushes the audience to relate to her more than to Neville, who has now shifted into
being the monster. Carroll describes a monster in horror to be so unwholesome that its very
touch causes shudders. And this corresponds as well with the tendency in horror novels and
stories to describe monsters in terms of, and associate them with, filth, decay, deterioration,
slime, and so on. (Carroll, 53). Ruths character has caused to audience to feel sympathy
towards her and not see her as impure. On the other hand, Neville has shifted from being the
character that the audience related to into a man who is insensitive and unsympathetic. Our
expectation of Ruths character has shifted in the way that she is merciful and compassionate
with Neville, someone who has been killing her kind. Nevilles character, on the other hand, has
slowly lost his humanity in the past 3 years and that lack of compassion leads the audience to
believe that he in fact is the outcast of the story, the true monster.
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Ruths character is essential in displaying the message that Nevilles lack of emotional
and social connections has made him the monster, someone that cannot sympathize or feel
compassion for those who are different from him. Matheson began the story by explaining how
Nevilles anger fueled his vampire hunt, but at the end of the book says suddenly he thought,
Im the abnormal one now...he knew that they were afraid of him..he knew that, like the
vampires, he was anathema and black terror to be destroyed (Matheson, 95-96). Neville is
referred to as the abnormal one and anathema, which reinforces the idea that he has become
a monster: a monster that is impure, in relation to the new society, as well as anathema, meaning
detested or shunned. This final description of Nevilles character is a realization that the natural
order that used to be is now replaced with a society that although is part vampire, still has some
humanity in them. This idea is mostly shown through Ruth, a character who was thought to be a
monster but in the end proved to be the heroine of the story. Matheson uses Ruth as the example
character that we should strive to be, a character that was sent to spy on someone outside her
society but in the earned showed mercy and compassion to someone who didnt. He makes it
clear to the audience the timeless message that we need to build social connections with others in
order to be able to sympathize with those who arent the same as us.
Works Cited
Carroll, Nol. "The Nature of Horror." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 46.1 (1987):
51-59. Web.
Clasen, Mathias. "Vampire Apocalypse: A Biocultural Critique of Richard Matheson's I Am
Legend." Philosophy and Literature 34.2 (2010): 313-28. Web.
Clover, Carol J. Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. London:
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BFI, 1992. Web.
Matheson, Richard. I Am Legend. New York: Fawcett Publications, 1954. Web.
