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Ryan J. Picariello
UWRT 1103-019
October 21, 2014
Brains:
An Investigative Look into the Psychology of the Walking Dead

The morning mist settles around the trees and flowers in the field. The sharp smell of
burnt wood stings the insides of your nose. The shovel in your son's hand and the solemn yet
terrified look on his face signifies the recent passing of a loved one. Your sons mother was
killed last night, her life taken at the hands of a thief. Regret and shame sets in as the realization
hits that your only son buried his mother alone, for you did not have the strength to do so. The
familys home thought to be safe is gone, torched and destroyed by the same raid of thieves. The
chill morning air seems ironic given the blaze that occurred just hours ago. At an age where in a
normal life he would be looking forward to the next iteration of power rangers, instead, looks
like a hardened veteran. He has been through more than most soldiers in the last few months. He
has survived numerous thief raids, gang wars, and bounty hunters. At such a young age, he no
longer laughs, instead he goes out to find food to help the family survive. He no longer smiles,
instead he sits with rifle in hand, staring into the open field with no tears shed for the recently
departed. This world has changed him, and no amount of protection could have stopped it. He
has matured far beyond his limits, having to take on responsibility usually given to those twice
his age. You raise your head as you think about what he has been through, and the field seems to
harmonize into silence. Just as you get a grip on the situation, your son looks over and nods. Its
time to go, Hes just seen the real threat approaching. Tens upon hundreds of the undead slowly

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emerge from the tree line as though they were crawling out of the trees themselves. Drawn by the
fire and lusting for the taste of meat, they approach with sickening lethargy. Knowing that to stay
is to die, your son grabs what is left of your belongings and guides you to safety, abandoning yet
again another home.
Of course the undead are for now, a matter of fiction. This description is something that
could very well be found among the many fiction works there are about zombies. Brought to us
by the various tribal religions of the Caribbean, the zombie represents one of the greatest fears of
mankind (Possible Source). Complete lack of control over our bodies and minds is something
that has terrified humans for generations, so its no surprise that zombies in pop-culture have
been successful. Since their introduction to western pop-culture, zombies have latched
themselves on to the fear of the populous and hitched a ride to the most iconic of symbols. Many
movies and TV shows have been made from the concept of the undead, but very few go as in
depth and detailed as AMCs The Walking Dead. The walking dead franchise has been
cherished by fans since the comics release in 2003; The franchise, now consisting of videogames
and TV shows, follows the trials and obstacles of an ex-sheriff Rick Grimes and his friends and
family as they struggle to survive in a post- apocalyptic world overtaken by the living dead
(POSSIBLE SOURCE). Children, much like Ricks only son Carl, are forced to mature and
take on responsibilities beyond their years, hardening them significantly. Death is an everyday
theme, and the ethical line becomes blurred as people become accustomed to it. Gender roles
seems to deteriorate to an older setting as woman struggle to raise their children while men
protect and hunt for their families (POSSIBLE SOURCE). Living in a world where the old
rules no longer apply, and new ones must be made in order to survive is a terrifying prospect;
one that puts morality on hold and questions the ethical boundaries on humanity. In the face of

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overwhelming change, and constant threat, people begin to push the limits on their own
humanity. More specifically, my paper will explore the ethics, social implications, and ruptured
psychology of the post-apocalyptic world, as portrayed by Robert Kirkmans The Walking Dead,
and how it mirrors the ethics of current real world extenuating circumstances across the world.
Before I attempt to explain in detail the morality of actions committed by survivors, I feel
it is necessary for me to explain my bias. I have been an avid watcher and fan of the TV series
since its release, and I follow Rick as the main character. As such, I am tempted to think that
Rick has higher moral standards than others, even though that is not the case in the comic series.
The world that we live in is not an apocalyptic one, and I am not attempting in any way to
portray myself as an apt judge of moral character, I merely tend to lean towards the actions that
Rick commits because I root for him to stay morally above everyone else.
The Walking Dead, the most watched TV show on television, has acquired one of the
largest fan bases of any media experience of the 21st century (POSSIBLE SOURCE). As such,
the amount of fan-generated content about the show, and its characters, floods the internet in
copious volume. The topic of ethics is prevalent in fan-content, probably due to the amount of
opinion that goes into the study of ethics. Many credible sources such as professors and
professional reviewers happen to be fans of the show, and very interesting studys appear with
relevant value to physiological and ethical studies, all revolving around the story line of The
Walking Dead.
Gender roles are approached in The Walking Dead from a survivalist standpoint.
According to Elena DellAgnese, Gender relations and race relations need to be reassessed
The Walking Dead tends to cast characters of colour and women in subordinate positions. The
Walking Dead seems to favor culture rules closer to that of the old west than modern day

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(DellAgnese). Women are usually tasked with jobs related to maintenance and care taking, like
watching children and cooking meals; the men however, are usually always tasked with the job
of protecting, defending and gathering supplies for the camp. According to Christopher
Moreman, the zombie apocalypse specifically sets woman in a subordinate role, due to the men
wanting to take charge in the most stressful of situations (Moreman). This is backed up by my
own observations from assignment one, where it is quite obvious that women have been
classified as a weaker and subordinate sex, a view that should have been discarded centuries ago
(Picariello). In this sense, the apocalypse has de-evolved culture, and set our social norms back
centuries.
Social implications aside, the inner psychology of people since the apocalypse has
changed in The Walking Dead. Eric Deggans of NPR in 2013 gave a description of one of the
shows main antagonists, The Governor. The Governor was revealed this season as a man
broken by the zombie disaster and turned into something pathologically ruthless and twisted
(Deggans 2013). People are forces to do obscene and inhumane things in this world witch has
been made hostile to its inhabitants. The Governor for example, adopted daughter to fill the loss
of his own, and caused her to be bitten by a walker, with little remorse. People in this new era
have become ruthless, they kill and hurt, and all of them feel justified by their accumulative goal
of survival. Some people snap under pressure, the kind of pressure that the apocalypse causes.
No one can quite escape it, Rick holds up quite well to a degree, but Bibiana Loza states that
even he will fall. Rick may be fine now and may not exhibit any signs of mental illness
currently; however, his wellbeing may deteriorate years later from all the stress of having to
worry about the wellbeing of everybody and zombies being everywhere (Loza). Deggans and
Loza show readers that the scariest part of the apocalypse isnt the un-dead walkers roaming the

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earth, but people twisted by aggression that seek to kill. The hardest part of The Walking Dead, it
seems, is figuring out who and what to trust and what to kill, without being killed yourself.
With the danger around every corner, and the constant threat of losing everything, ethics
become twisted and cloudy as people try to determine the correct path of action. Dawn Keetley
mentions in her essay Were all infected that in the movie 28 weeks later, US soldiers are
commanded to shoot at everyone when the difference between zombie and human becomes to
too subtle to tell. People are forced to make decisions that are beyond their ability to determine
the right path of. The main goal of survivors according to Keetley, it seems, is that they all wish
to provide and achieve a state of stability similar to the pre-apocalyptic era. Many problems arise
from the conflict of protecting whats yours, versus assisting those in need, as can be seen in the
first season of The Walking Dead (Picariello). The problem with this is that the humans who are
left are evolving with the zombies, and people start to do anything to achieve this utopian goal.
Many cultures around the world have many names for the undead. The Gashadokuro of
Japan represents those starved by war, silently chasing down and eating those that walk alone.
The Norwegian Gjenganger left something undone during his life, and it comes back to wreak
havoc by spreading disease by primarily attacking the face. The concept of the undead coming
back and feeding on the living has been in circulation for hundreds of years. In many cases,
survivors in these myths end up being emotionally detached, or even insane. Being around the
dead for any period of time can develop slight mental issues, and the folk legends of the world
prove that mental instability is a topic that people are genuinely interested about. Today we as a
culture have seen the rise of the zombie age, a people obsessed with zombies in pop culture.
Many fans think that The Walking Dead is the most accurate portrayal of post-apocalyptic life
in the modern world. So many events happen throughout the show, many of them ethically

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borderline, such as how to kill the undead, that many people wonder what the ethical boundaries
would be like during an actual apocalypse.
Ethics plays a large role in any movie or show involving the undead. Hit TV shows like
The Strain use concepts like humanity and humility as obstacles that the protagonists have to
overcome as part of the survival process. This may have stemmed from the humanistic need to
stay human, and to hold on to humanity no matter the cost. The reason that these shows become
so prevalent, the reason that shows involving the undead have the best ratings in the world, is
because they challenge what makes us human, our minds, our humanity, and our souls.
Because of the interest that shows like The Walking Dead have drawn, fans have
created their own world to fit the circumstances of The Walking Dead, complete with their own
rules and regulations. People rarely have a chance to see how they would react through various
circumstances, and most people would realize if given the chance that they are completely
different people in bad situations. One of the biggest ethical dilemmas, as brought up by Wayne
Yuen, brings up the question of what to do with loved ones when they are bitten (Yuen). Death
changes people, and it would only be natural to assume that being around the dead for a long
period of time would fundamentally deteriorate once strong social boundaries. Using what we
know about ethics and current social boundaries, I will analyze the ethics, politics, and social
boundaries of post-apocalyptic culture, as seen in The Walking Dead.
Raising a child is a formidable task, and one that takes years of practice to do correctly if
at all. The psyche of a child is completely different from that of an adult. It is easily altered, and
not easily broken. Whereas adults may struggle with the everyday danger that faces them just
outside the walls of the safe house, the children are raised with that, or even born into it. Born
into a completely different lifestyle based on survival rather than leisure, children are sure to

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attract some mental issues. Rick is capable of ruthlessness, but he's held somewhat in check by
the desire to set a good example for his son Carl, whose humanity seems to be gradually
succumbing to the amorality of the new apocalyptic world (Thompson). Because of the
difficulty to survive in the new era, there are few children in the show. Carl, one of the few main
child roles in the show, and Ricks son, acts a good gauge of the younger generations spirit
during various stages of the show. There are few other child actors, but none show consistent and
rapid change quite like Car. Because of the constant work that needs to be done in order to
maintain safe protocol, Carl is forced to mature very quickly as he is given responsibility far
before he should be meant to carry any burden at all. He gets quickly adjusted to the theme of
death, with the frequent loss of friends and the always ever present need to kill off walkers. He
becomes almost immune to the sadness and grief that follows death, as if he were building an
immune system to the plague of sadness that has the world in its grasp.
The stress and worry that is places on the heads of the survivors and their families is
unbearable. Because of the constant stress of starvation, walkers, and even other people, the
survivors who are left tend to get strained relations with one another. The apocalypse changed
the way that people gathered and bonded socially. People seem to be forever closer to their
families, due to the knowledge that they could be gone at any minute. There also seems to be a
right hand man for every survivor, so that everyone as someone to count on in a bad situation.
There are very little racial issues for those growing up in the after-world. The only minor hints of
racism and sexism now come from those who grew up before the apocalypse who have it
ingrained in their brain. The Walking Dead does a great job of portraying what people would
actually do in tough situations, and providing a means from which to grasp ethical and social
lessons from it.

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Due to the soul wrenching nature of the apocalypse, sometimes Rick loses himself in his
problems, and cannot be there to act as a proper father figure to Carl. As a result, Carl tends to
like to be alone towards the later years, and takes on a lot of responsibility without his fathers
consent. He took it upon himself to learn how to shoot and kill, and even taking it upon himself
to help look after his baby sister when Rick was unable to do so. As a result, Carl never had a
nurturing environment of which to grow up in, and therefore, never had a proper childhood; this
greatly affects the kind of person he is becoming. His constitution is strong, and he is
emotionally one of the strongest in the group. Most would agree though that a child should not
have to be the strongest. Sometimes have a built in immunity to look past the sorrow of death
helps one to survive in the apocalypse. Growing up in this situation makes Carl one of the first of
his kind, a child brought up in the newest era of the world. His ethical boundaries are
fundamentally different from those of Rick and the other older members of the group. While
Rick has been hardened by the real world the apocalypse, and wont trust anyone he comes
across, Carl wishes to keep an open mind and help people if they can. On the other hand, while
Rick might find it hard to let people go, as death is a sensitive subject in the real world, Carl has
become desensitized to it
The Walking Dead brings to the table, a lot to think about. In a world run by the un-dead,
the ethical boundaries, social implications and psychological processes become cloudy and dark.
People are forced to do things that they didnt think themselves capable of. Gender roles are
forced back to the old west, ethics become blurred as we lose track of the real enemy, and we
lose ourselves to insanity when the horror catches up with us. People growing up in this world
have learned to grow and adapt with it, and the now broken world has begun to produce children
who are ready to tackle it. Lessons can be learned from how members of the walking dead

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handle situations, as any apocalyptic situations would be the same no matter what the catastrophe
was. Ethics are an interesting topic to study, one that all should look into.

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Works Cited
Deggans, Eric. "Zombies And Hope On 'The Walking Dead'" NPR. December 2, 2013. Accessed
October 9, 2014. http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/12/02/248185378/zombiesand-hope-on-the-walking-dead.
Dell'Agnese, Elena. "POST-APOCALYPSE NOW: LANDSCAPE AND ENVIRONMENTAL
VALUES IN THE ROAD AND THE WALKING DEAD." Geographia Polonica 87, no.
3 (2014): 327-41. Accessed October 9, 2014.
http://rcin.org.pl/Content/47366/WA51_64234_r2014-t87-no3_G-PolonicadellAgnes.pdf.
Keetley, Dawn. "We're All Infected." In "We're All Infected": Essays on AMC's The Walking
Dead and the Fate of the Human, 3-8. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 2014.
Loza, Bibiana. "The Walking Dead Character Analysis." Annual SC Upstate Research
Symposium, no. 10 (2014): 18-24. Accessed October 9, 2014.
http://www.uscupstate.edu/uploadedFiles/Academics/Undergraduate_Research/Symposiu
m/Symposium 2014.pdf#page=18.
Moreman, Christopher M. "They're Us: Zohmbies, Humans/ Humans, Zombies." In Zombies Are
Us: Essays on the Humanity of the Walking Dead. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2011.
Picariello, Ryan. "The Walking Dead." Assignment One 1, no. 1 (2014): 1-16.
Thompson, Matt. "Why Black Heroes Make Zombie Stories More Interesting." NPR. October 1,
2013. Accessed October 9, 2014.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/09/30/227943197/why-black-heroes-makezombie-stories-more-interesting.
Yuen, Wayne. "The Only Good Walker Is a Dead Walker." In The Walking Dead and
Philosophy Zombie Apocalypse Now, 195-196. Chicago: Open Court, 2012.