Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Part 1

By Jamie A. Thomas

Brainstorming in my seminar course, *Languages of Fear, Racism, and Zombies* (Spring 2016) on February 17.

"There was, however, a savage wildness that could only impress us with forebodings respecting Mr. Farewell and his party, of whom we were in search, which led us to apprehend that they had all fallen by the savage hands of the tribes who might occasionally visit the coast." - Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa: Descriptive of the Zoolus, Their Manners, and Customs, Vol. 1 (1836, p. 10)

"Scary Sh*t."

In the seminar course I'm teaching this semester, we'll be attending a movie theater showing of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) next week. This in mind, my goal has been to prepare my students for a critical examination of the film by studying concurrent 19th century discourse. Jane Austen's novel was originally published in 1813, the same time in which European colonial expansion was underway, slavery in the U.S. (and Americas) was reaching its zenith, and modern linguistics and anthropology were also taking shape. Other texts from this historical period include Nathaniel Isaacs' Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa, Vol. 1 (1836), famous for its (now debunked) descriptions of King Shaka Zulu, as well as Solomon Northrup's (1853) autobiographical account (now feature film) Twelve Years a Slave, and Charles Darwin's Descent of Man ​(1871).

As I critically examine key examples of thought and discourse from this period together with my students, we are additionally drawing crucial connections to the rise of the zombie in U.S. American popular culture. This week, we examined excerpts from each of Isaacs' and Darwin's popular pieces. This was for my ongoing Spring 2016 course, Languages of Fear, Racism, and Zombies. In class, I guided students in using critical discourse analysis to examine these important texts.

During class time, students used chalkboard space to annotate their reactions to each reading. As they began to more deeply fathom the extent to which the authors' phenotypical descriptions and commentary on behaviors comprised a rich network of highly racist discourse, students articulated the toxicity and horror of these outdated perspectives in their own words: 

• "scary sh*t"
• "ludicrous distortions"

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Students also took particular note of the ways in which Isaacs (1836) detailed people he encountered after being shipwrecked on the shores of the Zulu Nation, in areas that would later become colonial South Africa:

• "discovered"
• "savage"
• "wild natives"
• "Hottentot - the civilized African"

"...The inference was that they had all been sacrificed by the ferocious natives...to suffer every species of inhuman treatment, or to be sold as slaves."
​- Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa, Vol. 1 (1836, p. 16)

Together, we used the chalkboard to plot discursive elements linking these texts with others, both visual and written. In this way, we began to better understand how to use intertextuality as a wellspring for our analysis. 

It became increasingly fascinating to consider how Isaacs, a British national who sought his fortune by trading in goods and enslaved Africans, could describe the Africans who helped him survive his shipwreck in such fearful terms. Who knew the slaver's worst fear was to be himself enslaved! 

We drew connections to our earlier discussions of the Wild Man of the European Renaissance court, to Bear Gryll's Man vs. Wild series, the tragic story of Saartje Baartman, and the continuing construction of the Other through narratives of survival horror.

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Stay Tuned for Our Movie Reviews!

In the coming weeks, I'll be sharing my students' reviews of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016).  We look forward to using these movie reviews as a way of critically exploring the semiotics of gender, race, and class, as well as our enduring fascination with discourses of survival horror.