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Our Zombies Ourselves Parker Analysis

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In “Our Zombies, Ourselves” author James Parker speaks to moviegoers and monster fans about that slow-moving creature of horror known as the zombie. In the essay, he attempts to uncover the reason for the zombie’s sudden and extreme popularity. To do such a thing he unearths the history of the zombies in film, literature, video games, and other media, and he sheds some light on their real origins – which all lead him to the conclusion that zombies are popular because of their “ex-personhood” (345). Throughout the essay Parker uses analytic language peppered with metaphors, description, and colorful references to some of the latest and greatest depictions of zombies, which help to bring the essay and the monsters to life and keep the audience’s interest. Parker begins the essay with a crash-course on the zombie’s early popularity before moving onto more modern times, beginning with what he considers the start of the zombie’s fame: Romero’s 1968 film, Night of the Living Dead. From there he begins describing the zombie and the media it has appeared in using explicit details and metaphors to illustrate it all to us – the readers. Once he reaches the point of the zombie’s origin he elects not to drum it out like a …show more content…

While the number of sentences in a paragraph varies – sometimes six, sometimes ten, sometimes more – their length changes to give the essay an almost musical rhythm. Even in the longer sentences the mind’s eyes is tickled by Parker’s constant use of figurative language, humor, description chock-full of metaphors and adjectives, and allusions to the biblical, the supernatural, and the historical (especially so in paragraph five). All of these elements work in tandem to slowly but surely illustrate and finally reach Parker’s point as they hold an audience member’s attention and give him a way to slip in facts and citations without boring the

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