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Young Hoon Song


Professor Gregory John McClure
Writing 39B
23 October 2015
I Am Legend and the Horror Within Us
Do humans only see the monster in front of them? Are the qualities humans find
terrifying in monsters the very same that they refuse to see as realities in themselves, or
are monsters truly creations of beyond most of our imaginations? Richard Mathesons I
Am Legend, uses the character development of Robert Neville, the development of the
plot, and the expectations of the horror genre in order to show that mans greatest fear
is the fear of himself. Matheson plays on his audiences expectations of the horror
genre, specifically those outlined by American philosopher Nol Carroll in his own 1987
essay, The Nature of Horror, by manipulating Robert Nevilles character development in
respect to the plots development. By ending the book with a change in perspective and
a realization of the bigger picture at hand, Matheson creates a situation where his
audience must question Neville and his humanity. Mathesons development of Robert
Neville can be seen as a slow progression, and he does so in order to enforce the idea
that the physical humanistic traits of a character do not define its humanity. The
progression of the plot, however, occurs rather quickly, and we see that a monster is
truly defined by the perspective from which its viewed. These two progressions play on
his audiences expectations of the horror genre, and thus help the readers realize the
truth behind a mans darkest fears. By turning the very character that readers root for
into the antagonist of the story, Matheson is heavily emphasizing mans true potential to

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actually become the monster that many of us imagine and fear. He creates the most
realistic monster that surpasses any monster of fiction by making it one that can be
found within ourselves, and thus readily accessible.
Matheson uses the fact that Robert Neville is the only human on Earth in order to
force readers to deem him the protagonist of the story. When readers then realize that
hes the only human on Earth, he becomes the most relevant and also the most
relatable character. By being described to be the last human on Earth, Matheson
creates a situation in which the readers have no option but to side with Neville as a
protagonist. The story is told in his perspective, hes human, and he shows qualities of
being normal, so readers have no real choice but to feel empathy for him as hes the
only actual candidate for it that has been shown thus far. Matheson is playing on the
expectations of the readers by doing so; he understands that in comparison to the other
characters throughout the book, Neville is the only one that is truly relatable to by
readers. He masks the traditional horror-genre qualities of Robert Neville that Nol
Carroll wrote about, the idea that Neville is actually the extraordinary character in a
newly ordinary world, by depicting Neville as an ordinary character if he were a reality.
This also plays on another idea that Nol Carroll wrote about in his essay, The Nature
of Horror, the Thought Theory, which is how audiences of the horror genre will recreate
the character they read about by perceiving them as a quasi-real being. Readers think
of Neville, a human, in the circumstances of the real world, and thus he is automatically
deemed a candidate to be the protagonist.
Matheson proceeds with Nevilles description by describing Nevilles habits
specifically in his past, in order to solidify Nevilles human-like qualities. We learn that he

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has very human qualities during a flashback of a conversation with his wife that is
shared with the readers. In the scene, he is unknowingly watching the progression of his
wife as she turns into a vampire, and we learn that he was very concerned over what he
thought was just an odd illness. Matheson writes the short exchange between husband
and wife, Still feel weak? [Robert] asked. [Virginia] tried to sit up but she couldnt.
Stay there, hon, he said. Dont move. He put his hand on her brow. You havent got
any fever, he told her (Matheson 27). Here we can see very usual qualities of a
husband, very normal and yet extremely intimate. Matheson here is emphasizing the
idea that before the present day, Neville lived a very normal life, with a wife and kid, and
through these moments we find that Neville has had some humanity to him. We become
able to understand his alcoholic habits and his anger when we realize that he really had
lost everything beforehand. Through the humanization of Robert Neville, Richard
Matheson further enforces the notion that Neville is the protagonist of this story, and
solidifies Neville as a human being.
Matheson utilizes the fact that Neville is the only suitable protagonist candidate in
order to establish a character in which the audience must face a love-hate relationship
with in order to make it easier to create an antagonist out of him later. Matheson clearly
displays Nevilles flaws during an early description of part of Nevilles routine, where
Neville thinks to himself Then why dont you stop pouring alcohol into yourself? he
thought. Why dont you shut the hell up? he thought (Matheson 7). Here we can see
that Matheson wants the readers to know that Neville is relying on alcohol as a crutch in
his constant battle that is his everyday life. Here, through the repetition of the words he
thought Matheson also goes onto emphasize the fact that Neville is slowly losing his

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battle with loneliness, resorting to talking to himself in an actual conversational manner.
Matheson, by giving Neville such qualities, creates a very average character; Neville is
really a personification of any of us. Neville doesnt commit suicide in the face of
extreme hardship, the quality of the one of the most basic human instincts, which is to
survive. He has the basic extents of humanity that most of us would expect to have, but
he also has the flaws that we would also expect out of anybody. Neville isnt the perfect
protagonist; he really seems like an unlucky guy who got dealt a bad hand in life. We
can see that Matheson, by making the audience side with Neville as the protagonist of
the story, solidifying Nevilles humanity, and then creating flaws in this humanity, sets up
the fall for this character, while also developing the character to be in the likeness of any
of his readers.
Matheson then slowly transforms Neville from one of us, to someone
extraordinary in respect to even the readers, in order to create a monster. This falls in
line with Nol Carrolls theory of the horror-genre monster being an extraordinary being
in an ordinary world. In particular, by showing the degradation of Nevilles humanity,
Matheson creates a monster figure out of a character that we had once been able to
relate to. We can see this in an exchange between Neville and Ruth, Its horrible," she
said. He looked at her in surprise. Horrible? Wasnt that odd? He hadnt thought that for
years. For him the word horror had become obsolete. A surfeiting of terror made terror
a clich. To Robert Neville the situation merely existed as natural fact. It had no
adjectives (Matheson 80). Here we can see that Robert Neville shows less emotion
than Ruth, who we later find out to be a vampire. Ruth is depicted as to feeling remorse
and emotions, but the mere idea of it is foreign to Neville. Matheson writes that the

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situation had no adjectives and by doing so hes really emphasizing that Neville is
actually devoid of emotion. By showcasing the comparative reactions of both
characters, Matheson has lowered Nevilles humanity to lesser than that of a vampire.
Hes extraordinary, as he can kill and kill continuously and efficiently, and the only thing
keeping him as the protagonist in our eyes at this point is the fact that he, as a
character, is still human, but by the definition set by Nol Carroll, hes a monster.
Matheson develops the plot, on the other hand, in a direction that establishes
some humanity within the vampires. Matheson is making the vampires more relatable
and more likable in comparison to how he first introduced them. When Matheson writes,
Abruptly that realization joined with what he saw on their facesawe, fear, shrinking
horrorand he knew that they were afraid of him. To them he was some terrible
scourge they had never seen, a scourge even worse than the disease they had come to
live with (Matheson 95), hes really showcasing that fact that these new vampires can
exhibit fear and awe, they see Neville as a legendary figure. They also now want to
build a civilization and want to bring society back to a normal state of order. By pushing
the vampires and the plot in this direction, Matheson is making the vampires much more
relatable and he imbues them with traits of humanity. They fear what hurts them and
they want to survive, and even more so want to survive beyond the basic necessities of
survival in peace and order.
Matheson develops the plot in the opposing direction as to how he developed
Nevilles character in order to emphasize the moment in which you realize that Neville is
the monster of the story. Ruth can be seen exhibiting the same emotional response that
Neville exhibits earlier. Tell me about your husband, he said abruptly. Something flitted
over her face, a shade of memory. She lifted the glass of dark wine to her lips. Not

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now, she said. Please (Matheson 75). The same love for a partner that Neville, the
main human protagonist, showed earlier, can be seen by Ruth, a vampire, here, and
thus she is exhibiting very human-like qualities as opposed to Neville, who, at this point,
is still devoid of emotion. One lover was taken by the disease, while the other was taken
by Neville, and thus we see a contradictory moment in which Neville is also the position
of the victim and the monster. Matheson levels out Neville and the vampires in terms of
humanity and qualities and by doing this, makes comparing the vampires to Neville a
much gentler comparison for the vampires. The reaction of awe and fear the vampires
have to Neville as a legendary figure is the same as to how he once regarded the
vampires earlier. We can see that Matheson is ending the story with the vampires being
in the position that Neville once was, thus when readers finally realize that Neville is
truly the monster of the new world, its a much more contrasted change in perspective.
By using both the development of the plot and the development of Neville as a
character, Matheson fulfills the expectations of the horror genre in a way that succeeds
in representing the idea that man is the greatest monster, and thus mans deepest fear
is of his own potential evil. Matheson has literally switched the reactions between
Neville and the vampires. Although in the beginning, Neville fears the vampires and
sees them as monstrous, at the end, the roles are reversed and Neville is the monster.
Matheson here is playing on perspective, according to TVTropes.com , a database of
fiction writing techniques, If a story takes the point of view of animals or relatively weak
or primitive non-humans, there'll be a Perspective Flip (Humans Are Cthulhu). In other
words, because although the vampires may be monstrous in our eyes and in our reality,
in the reality of the monsters, Neville himself is a being of evil and malice who has

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worked to destroy them, thus being, categorically, a monster. By slowly transforming
both Neville and the rest of the story in opposite directions, Matheson slips the rug out
from under his readers in the last few pages of the novel by out rightly having Neville
state that he himself is a scourge (Matheson 95), and a legend (Matheson 96),
explicitly revealing the buildup hes been working on all along. Matheson drives in the
point even more so by making readers fall partly in love with Neville as a character,
instilling him with qualities that were so human initially. By also being the average man
as discussed earlier, Neville, in a way, represents all of us, and by making him a
legendary monster in the eyes of another society, Matheson showcases that man and
his potential to do wrong, is the ultimate evil, and thus our own ultimate fear.

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Works Cited
Carroll, Nol. The Nature of Horror. 1987. Print.
"Humans Are Cthulhu - TV Tropes." Humans Are Cthulhu - TV Tropes. Web. 4
Nov. 2015.
Matheson, Richard. I Am Legend. New York: ORB, 1995. Print.

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