Think about your family and dear friends. Think of all the memories you have had with those loved ones. What would you do if everything familiar, people included, were gone? That is what Robert Neville goes through everyday ever since a drastic plague wiped out all of humanity - except for him. Robert Neville wanted Remember to write in the literary present tense. to survive the vampire apocalypse with a companion. However, his abilities were blocked by the overwhelming ratio of vampires to humans. He thought he was the only living organism left, making the ability to find another mate unfeasible. Over time, he discovered the cause of the sickness of the large vampire population. He tried to develop a plan to recover humanity again, and even eventually found a short time companion. However, he was mistaken, and eventually taken and killed by the highly intelligent group of vampires. In Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, dystopian fiction, irony, symbolism, allusions, and conflict combine to form this intriguing novel. How do these elements contribute to any potential themes? 4/5.
I Am Legend is a dystopian, magical realist novel. The present day life is filled with the living dead. The settings are not idealistic, and very difficult to live under. All of humanity is gone, as well as many resources that a human may need. The constant fear of vampires has become normal to Robert Neville. The vampires have worked their way into his everyday schedule to the point where he doesn't find it unusual. The novel can also be described as magical realism because the unexplained is never completely explained. For example, the beginning of the plague was never fully explained. The reader is left wondering what truly started the disheartening apocalypse. The author explains "all he could think of was what was the cause of the vampire" (p. 86). These examples summaries the idea that Robert Neville's living conditions are miserable and almost unlivable.
