My project, Fixed Gazes on Grotesque Gorging: Deconstructing Humanist Tropes in Cannibal Narratives, is a deconstructive reading of Robert Kirkman’s comic series The Walking Dead. In my research, the whole of which you can read in the “My Thesis” section of this site, I examine the ways in which the series grapples with the divide between notions of humanity and animality. Ultimately, I argue, with the help of a few well known theoretical perspectives, that this series offers a confused and complicated depiction of “human-ness.” This argument is particularly relevant within cannibal narratives, which present a figure that cannot easily be considered solely a part of one group or the other.
Here is a brief overview of the two competing perspectives I consider:
Classical Foundations
Canonical authors like Ovid and Shakespeare, were firmly rooted in a humanist perspective, which looks something like this…
Can you tell who has the upper-hand from this point of view? You’ve got it…the guy in the tights (better known as Superman) is representative of a glorified, universal human identity that reigns supreme over the violent threatening others, the animals. This is the human identity that humanists believed we should strive to embody. Note the singular, definitive border between the two groups. This means that any given being is either considered man or animal, but never both. Because of this dominating perspective in classical literature, cannibals were usually placed in the category animal, to avoid the muddying of “supreme” humanity.
Challenging Tradition
The rise of postmodern thought challenges this perspective, and thinkers like Jacques Derrida (a major influence in this research) offer a consideration of identity that looks more like this…
Notice that the once clearly defined figures become intangible and, rather than being on opposing ends of a singular divide, they are the epistemic ideals on the far sides of what Derrida deems an “abyssal rupture.”
Characters in The Walking Dead confront this abyss with anxiety and resistance. This is where the confusion within the text is most apparent. The central character in the narrative, Rick Grimes, though the product of a writer living in a world greatly influenced by postmodern thought, is stuck in traditional modes of thought. Through my deconstructive reading, however, it becomes evident that the stringent humanist binary between man and animal cannot be upheld in light of new modes of thought.
