Race And Inequality In The 1950's America

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In the 1950’s America was recovering from the Second World War and just starting to address the issues around segregation and prejudice. Matheson uses I am Legend to discuss and address race and inequality in 1950’s America. The premise of the book is a world where a global apocalypse has destroyed most of humanity. In the ashes of society a virus has infected the survivors and turned them into bloodthirsty monsters. Robert Neville is the sole survivor and he lives out his days isolated and alone in New York, and at night he seeks out and destroys these creatures.
Robert has a very complex relationship with the Vampires. Throughout the book Robert goes back and forth from describing the vampires as predatory savages, to helpless diseased humans. Robert thinks about the vampires’ freedom:
“Why cannot the vampire live where be chooses? Why must he seek out hiding places where none can find him out? Why do you wish him destroyed? Ah, …show more content…
The motives for racism and prejudice usually stem from the fear of outsiders, or cultural invaders. Robert realizes that he is the feared outsider:
“To them he was some terrible scourge they had never seen, a scourge even worse than the disease they had come to live with. He was an invisible spectre who had left for evidence of his existence the bloodless bodies of their loved ones. And he understood what they felt and did not hate them…Robert Neville looked out over the new people of the earth. He knew he did not belong to them; he knew that…he was anathema and black terror to be destroyed.” (Matheson 95).
In this new culture of afflicted humans, Robert Neville has become the monster. The same dehumanization that characterizes racism has been applied to him. There is no place for him in this new culture, and he must be extinguished. Robert’s race has been erased to make room for a new society that does not understand, sympathize or pity
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