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Zukang Yang

Professor McClure

Writing 39B

18 Feb 2017

Rhetorical Analysis: Mathesons I Am Legend

I Am Legend presents a story of Robert Neville, who appears to be the only survivor in

Los Angeles, battling with vampires infected by pandemic caused by a war in 1975. This novel

was published in 1954 and has gained tremendous popularity since its publication. The author of

the novel is Richard Matheson, a prominent American author and screenwriter whose

representative novels like The Shrinking Man and Hell House have been adapted as movies. In I

Am Legend, Matheson depicts the struggle of a man isolated from human civilization for over

three years to show two points: first, fear and isolation can numb humanity and change humans

kindness to cruelty; second, companion and sympathy can awaken humans kindness from

cruelty. In the following paragraphs, I will prove these two points by analyzing some texts

selected from I Am Legend. To begin with, Matheson portrays vampires strengths to justify

Nevilles fear by utilizing different kinds of diction. Second, the author narrates Nevilles

emotions to nightfall to show Nevilles isolation due to the fear of vampire. Third, he utilizes

flashbacks to reveal the fact that Neville is once kind and caring. Then, Matheson depicts several

scenes to present Nevilles cruelty due to long-term isolation. Moreover, the author makes use of

interior monologue to demonstrate that companion can awaken ones empathy. Finally, Matheson

uses different points of view to show that empathy can salvage ones humanity.
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First, Matheson utilizes different kinds of diction to portray vampires quantity and

strength in order to rationalize Nevilles fear of vampire. Mathias Clasen is a Danish scholar of

horror fiction and the author/editor of three non-fiction books on the horror genre as well as two

horror anthologies. In his article Empire Apocalypse: A Biocultural Critique of Richard

Mathesons I Am Legend, he states that the abstract fear of death can be fleshed out in locally

specific, context-dependent ways (p. 317). Clasens statement is true in I Am Legend. In the

novel, Matheson uses technical diction to describe the damage that vampires make on Nevilles

house. In the very beginning of the story, Matheson says He checked each window to see if any

of the boards had been loosened. After violent attacks, the planks were often split or partially

pried off, and he had to replace them completely (IAL, p.1). In this text, Matheson specifies

how the protagonist checks the damage of the house carefully before nightfall. In the first

sentence, each window implicitly show a huge amount of vampires waiting outside of

Nevilles house at night, because normally windows are constructed on each side of the house. In

order to damage every window of a house, vampires must be huge in amount. On the other hand,

in the second sentence, words like split and pried off sufficiently imply that vampires are

strong enough to destroy the pranks. Since vampires are physically powerful and have

considerable quantity, Neville realizes that he is never able to win over these monsters. More

properly, he can be easily killed by vampires. In this moment, Neville is reasonably intimidated

by vampires because he has fear of death.

Second, Matheson narrates Nevilles emotions to nightfall to show Nevilles isolation due

to the fear of vampire. In the story, Neville especially dreads sunset when vampires start

gathering around Nevilles shelter. There is one time when Neville goes out in daytime to test the

effect of sunlight to alive vampires, his watch stops so that he is late back home before sunset. In
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this scene, Matheson narrates Cold fear poured through his veins at the thought of them all

waiting for him at his house. Oh my God (IAL, p. 30). Realizing that he is late, Neville

becomes terrified of vampires. As the text says, Neville is picturing vampires waiting for him at

his house and his mind is full of fear, the fear of encountering a great number of active vampires.

Clasen believes that In I Am Legend, Matheson translates his fears into an emotionally

saturated narrative (Vampire Apocalypse, p.317). This statement is true when it comes to the

text because Nevilles emotion to being late for home reflects his genuine fear of death. In other

words, since Neville is afraid of coming across vampires, he subconsciously attempts to avoid

being out at night, which shows his isolation from vampires. As he is the only survivor, there is

no second human to be his company, when he isolates himself from vampires, he is cut off from

all possible social activities.

Third, Matheson utilizes flashbacks to reveal the fact that Neville is once kind and caring.

According to a famous website Tvtrope, the trope flashbacks refer to Nevilles past about how

his wife succumbed to the infection, and forced to drive to a government bonfire to burn his dead

daughter. In one of the flashbacks where Nevilles wife Virginia dies from the bacteria and

Neville refuses to burn her, Matheson writes He wouldnt put Virginia there. Not if they killed

him for it (IAL, p. 59). In the story, in order to prevent further infection among human beings,

the law demands people to burn whoever dies from the bacteria. However, Neville wouldnt burn

his wifes body because he has suffered from the pain of burning his daughter Kathy. But its

the law (IAL, p. 63), as Matheson writes. In a society where law is supreme, Neville has to burn

his wifes body regardless of how much he loves her. Clasen thinks that the novels strong

internal focalization with the protagonist, Robert Neville, and its use of free indirect discourse as

a window into his thoughts, emotions and inner struggles, all work toward facilitating empathy
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with Neville (Vampire Apocalypse, p. 317). I agree with Clasens idea because by using

flashbacks, Matheson facilitates readers empathy towards Neville, believing that Neville is once

kind and caring as a husband and a father.

Then, Matheson depicts several scenes to present Nevilles cruelty due to long-term

isolation. On one hand, three-year of isolation turns Neville into a killing machine. In the story,

Matheson writes He was out hunting for Cortman. It had become a relaxing hobby, hunting for

Cortman; one of the few diversions left to him (IAL, p. 107). Clasen holds the opinion that

Fundamentally, Nevilles need for human company remains unfulfilled (Vampire Apocalypse,

p. 319). Within three years, Neville goes out in daytime and hides in his shelter at night; he has

no human company as well as sex; he tries to invent the most efficient cure to beat vampires: his

social need cannot be fulfilled. In this moment, Neville finds out alternative a way to entertain

himself hunting for Cortman. Therefore, Neville has changed from a kind human to a cruel

monster who is hunting for vampires. On the other hand, the long-term isolation makes him lose

the ability to trust another human. In the text when Neville is out hunting for Cortman and sees a

woman walking under sunlight, Matheson states Ive gone madHe felt less shocked at that

possibility than he did at the notion that she was real (110). Long-term isolation firms Nevilles

belief that he is the only survivor in the city, implying that all other human-like creatures are

infected vampires. However, when he sees a woman walking under sunlight, hes belief gets

challenged, driving him mad he would rather believe that she is a hallucination than to trust her

as a human. Later, when Neville drags her back to his house, Matheson writes Now I meet one

and the first thing I do is distrust her, treat her cruelty and impatiently (115). Even though she

has humans features, Neville still distrusts her, treating her in an attitude that he treats vampires.
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The way Neville treats Ruth is the result of distrust after separation from other humans, which is

another kind of cruelty.

Moreover, the author makes use of interior monologue to show that companion can

awaken ones empathy. Over a year of not speaking to someone makes Neville less and less

familiar with himself: When a man didnt hear the sound of his own voice for almost a year, it

sounded very strange to him (IAL, p.93). Within this period, Neville studies the cure of the

disease that causes vampirism; he emerges himself in the library and applies his latest efforts on

vampires to examine the effects: his life is all about vampires. In this moment, he yearns for

companion, communication and a reason to stay alive: when there are no humans around,

apparently even a dog will suffice (Vampire Apocalypse, p.320). Since Neville has accepted the

fact that he is the only human in the world, a dog can be a fortune to him because with the

existence of this healthy living creature, he has someone to talk with, to share, and to love.

Therefore, when he sees the dog wandering on his lawn, he has a strong desire, a desire to have it

and protect it: Ill be good to you when you come and live with me (IAL, p. 90). His interior

monologue presents his sympathy to the dog, which shows his empathy to other livings who are

suffering from what he has been suffered. Thus, when a persons mindset is desperately

vulnerable after a long-term isolation, the simplest thing a dog, can awaken his/her empathy.

Finally, Matheson uses different points of view to show that empathy can salvage ones

humanity. In Nevilles point of view, vampires are enemies: Ill kill every mothers son of you

before Ill give (IAL, p. 19). Neville holds the belief at the beginning of the story that vampires

and he cannot exist in the same world. This belief intensifies his hatred to vampires throughout

the story, turning him from a human to a killing machine. However, on the other hand, at the end

of the story, Ruth has a conversation with Neville before his execution, she says They are
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terrified of you, Robert, they hate you. And they want your life (IAL, p. 157). From vampires

point of view, Neville is the monster who has their families and is stubborn in stopping them

from building a new society. They want to end Nevilles life because he is the threat of the

peaceful new society. Nol Carroll, an American philosopher considered to be one of the leading

figures in contemporary philosophy of art, believes that In the examples of horror, it would

appear that the monster is an extraordinary character in our ordinary world (The Nature of

Horror, p. 52). Neville thinks that vampires are the intruders of the initially peaceful world, so he

kills them for justice. However, when the new vampire generation has conquered the world and a

new society has formed, Neville the vampire killer is considered as an extraordinary character in

the world. After the conversation, Neville realizes that he did not belong to them (IAL, p.

159). After a long-term of hunting for vampires, he has forgotten his identity as a human, has lost

his humanity, and has become blind to see that he is the threat to the world. Nevilles realization,

or his humanity, is awakened by Ruths mercy: When I first heard that they were ordered to

your house, I was going to go there and warn you (IAL, p. 157). After Neville kills Ruths

husband as well as many of Ruths species, Ruth still has mercy over Neville and tries to save

him. It is her mercy that awakens Nevilles humanity, making him realize that he has gone too far

as a killing machine. Finally, Neville acknowledge the new society and swallows the pill, ending

his life.

I Am Legend was published during Cold War where United Stated and Soviet Union

were heavily armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war. In this dark era,

peoples interpersonal relationships were uncertain and vulnerable. The purpose of writing I Am

Legend, is to convey the idea that when people are losing their humanities due to social isolation,
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empathy has the power to overcome the problems between person and person. Only when people

are empathetic about each other, the society can last longer.
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Work Cited

Matheson, Richard. I Am Legend. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, 1995. Print.

Clasen, Mathias. "Vampire Apocalypse: A Biocultural Critique of Richard Matheson's I Am

Legend." Philosophy and Literature, vol. 34 no. 2, 2010, pp. 313-328. Project MUSE,

doi:10.1353/phl.2010.0005.

"I Am Legend (Literature)." TV Tropes. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2017.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/IAmLegend

Carroll, Nol. The Nature of Horror. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 46, no.

1, 1987, pp. 5159., www.jstor.org/stable/431308.