Abstract
Contemporary zombie narratives challenge the limits of capitalist realism. Zombie narratives have long been critical of capitalism, having roots in slave narratives. It is a genre spurred from a conversation on race, marginalization, crisis, and capitalism. Over time the context of race was lost as the genre has passed through multiple stages, yet recently this context of race and marginalization is being reintegrated into the zombie narrative. The contemporary zombie narrative puts itself in direct confrontation with the concept of capitalist realism, the belief that modern society no longer has any ability to view past the capitalist system. The contemporary zombie narratives test the limits of this argument by exposing how marginalized perspectives in times of crisis pose the greatest stress on the systems of capitalism and the possibility for alternatives to capitalism taking place. This view on capitalist realism reflects how marginalized perspectives on current crises hold a similar position in making alternatives possible. Zombie narratives show the real weakness in capitalist realism by reflecting a scenario in which a demographic is so exploited there is no avenue left but to visualize past the capitalist system. This thesis focuses on two primary examples of contemporary zombie narratives, The Girl with All the Gifts and Zone One. Using the lens of Mark Fisher’s definition of capitalist realism, each text is examined in how the text frames capitalism in the narrative, how marginalized perspectives within the text critique capitalism, and how the responses to the texts hint at inspiring action to circumvent the notion of interpassivity. The first chapter analyzes The Girl with All the Gifts, focusing on the importance of generational shifts and how marginalized perspectives can break the conditioning of the ideological state apparatus. The second chapter examines The Zone One, focusing on how marginalized perspectives can critique notions of futurity. The chapter shows how ignoring the context of race is detrimental to combating capitalist realism. In the third chapter these two texts are compared to marginalized perspectives on the Covid-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter protests, and climate change. This thesis, thus, shows how contemporary zombie narratives directly reflect the ways in which marginalized perspectives test the limits of capitalist realism in times of crisis. Ultimately, contemporary zombie narratives point out capitalist realism’s faults in not considering marginalized perspectives and how critical texts can participate in a gradual change toward a vision of alternatives to the system.