In Zone One Mark Spitz is tasked with clearing New York City of zombies to allow humanity to begin developing again. This zombie novel is unique in that the zombies are not thought of exclusively as bloodthirsty monsters, but instead as a separate class altogether. This distinction is explored particularly in the two classes of zombies, skels and stragglers. The relatively docile stragglers only exist to wander the city and are not overly hostile to themselves or others. The skels are extremely aggressive and actively attack the sweepers on sight. Towards the end of the novel, it is discovered that the stragglers are being converted into the skels. This is reminiscent of Karl Marx’s prediction of communism. Wolff and Leopold provide an overview and analysis of Karl Marx’s philosophy that can be found at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/#InjuCapi. Marx’s essential theory is that the proletariat will eventually seize of means of production and cast out the elite. The assumption behind this theory is that once the working class holds the wealth, then segregation and greed will dissolve as there would be nothing to be competitive about. Wolff and Leopold question the integration of justice and communism in section 5.3. They claim Marx believed either that communism and justice were compatible or that communism transcended justice. This idea is expressed in Zone One by the rise of the zombies. Mark Spitz thrives in the apocalypse in a world stripped of class and race. The humans are the only group that distinguishes the zombies between stragglers and skels and could be the bourgeoisie. The zombies are the proletariat and as they begin to “seize the means of production” they become skels and attempt to tear down Zone One. Once the zombies overrun Zone One, Mark Spitz begins to find peace in the second end of the world. The zombies have no concept of class, race, or prejudice. They are all equal once they transform into skels and there are no social issues. The only issue brought up in the novel is that there is also no culture or social functions.
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A prevalent theme in American War is the triumph of revenge over love. The concept of revenge requires a target, however, such as a person or an organization. Dana’s death is unique in that a rogue drone is responsible for the bombing. The reason these rogue drones exist is because the southern states destroyed the command center. Originally, the drones were created by the north as a weapon. Neither country intended to have these drones kill innocent civilians. Dana’s death has a significant impact on Sarat and, ultimately, contributed to her decision to bomb the country. But who or what is to blame for the existence of these rogue drones?
This problem is common and is becoming increasingly prevalent. The advent of self-driving cars in particular highlights this issue as people’s lives is directly in the hands of automation. The article “Self-driving car dilemmas reveal that moral choices are not universal” found at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07135-0 explains the issue of automation. The primary issue is that decisions regarding human lives have to be decided before the events take place. The degree of separation between the decision and the action complicates the morality of the decision made. In the case of Dana’s death, a programmer decided that the drones should engage enemy combatants. The morality of this decision is questionable on the grounds of war being moral at all but is generally accepted even in present United States culture. In the novel, when the command station was destroyed, the programming became scrambled. Civilians such as Dana were sometimes confused with enemy combatants. But the question of who made the immoral decision is obscure. It was not immoral of the south to destroy an enemy weapon that was actively harming them. The north’s responsibility is also questionable since their original objective was to eliminate military targets. No real concrete decision was made to kill Dana, which makes it difficult to assign blame and eventually revenge. This is why Sarat ultimately decides to release the Reunification Plague on the entire country. She feels the need to get revenge, but nobody is directly responsible for Dana’s death. Therefore, she seeks revenge on the entire world continuing the cycle of hatred. A primary theme in “Station Eleven” is the survival of art in the wake of the apocalypse. Long after technology has withered, bands of peoples are brought together by literature. The Traveling Symphony is brought together by the works of Shakespeare and Tyler falls into the bible, creating his own cult. In both cases the art changes how they behave. Tyler, as the Prophet, believes that the Georgian Flu was sent to cull the wicked, like the Flood in the bible. He also reverts to some of the more archaic stories in the bible about having many, young wives. In this way is personality is molded by the stories he keeps in the absence of a defined culture. The end of the novel shows the power of the stories we keep. When Tyler realizes Miranda has also heard of the Dr. Eleven comics he hesitates because the shared experience of reading the comic makes them feel connected.
The nature of the stories in this novel reminds me of the TV show Doctor Who. The show is driven by the “regeneration” of the Doctor. This link shows an example of a regeneration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F84WapAH7M. When this event happens, the Doctor’s physical form and personality burn, and he takes a new completely different form. Functionally this allows different actors to become the Doctor, but it reminds me of this novel because the Doctor only has his memory of the past when he changes. Sometimes his memory of the past becomes blurry and the story he tells himself changes. Normally the Doctor is carefree and follows a set of rules, but occasionally he interprets his past differently. This leads him to change events in time or sometimes punish people for eternity. This emphasizes the importance of stories, especially in the absence of peers who shared the experience. Stories teach us how to behave socially. That is why stories are more important than technology and why art outlasted technology in this novel. Without proper social interactions that are instructed by stories and history we cannot create and use technology because we cannot communicate. |
AuthorI am a mechanical engineering student graduating this semester. Studying the role of societal change in the apocalypse interests me. Archives
April 2021
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