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Jayda Le

Greg McClure

Writing 39B

18 February 2017

In I am Legend, by Richard Matheson, I will be analyzing the novel through a feminist

lens. From the beginning of the novel, when Neville journeys out to the find the cure for the

plague he only targets women as his victims because he is unable to cope with the idea that the

vampires killed his wife. Similar to how Neville chooses to experiment only on women,

vampires will directly target female vampires to satisfy their need for blood. In the novel,

Matheson explains how Nevilles life is repetitive and how the world has forced him to be

celibate projecting that women are only sex objects in society, even though every decision he

makes is revolved around the death of his loved ones that were female. With Men, Women, and

Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, By Carol J. Clover, an expertise in horror and

credited for final girl theory in her book, I will define how females play significant roles in the

genre of horror culture. Through Nol Carrolls excerpt, a well-known figure in being an art

horror expert holding multiple masters, The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart

explains how feminism brings the inner monster out of Neville. When Ruth is introduced into the

novel she exposes Neville to the concept of feminism through her resistance. Matheson displays

that Neville is unable to accept the new society and how women are equal in the world, similar to

sexism today, and eventually he accepts his fate that he is going to die. With that, Matheson is

expressing that in todays society feminism tremendously influences all aspects of the world

because it allows females to have rights and allows them to take positions with great power. I am
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going to explain how Nevilles constant conflict with himself and society revolves around

feminism and how it is also the solution to his monstrosity and brings him back to humanity.

Nevilles whole existence in the post-apocalyptic society is revolved around two females

in his life, his wife and daughter that he lost by the plague; his continuous massacres and

experimentation on women are for them, but male vampires constantly target female vampires as

well when they become desperate. When Neville does his daily chores, he opens his front door

and glances at the bodies, sprawled on the sidewalk; the other one was half concealed in the

shrubbery. They were both women. They were almost always women which depicts that even

Neville notices how inhumane male vampires are to their own kind (Matheson 12). The vampires

symbolize the past society that is dead, but also still living with the concept of anti-feminism.

Neville represents how the past society is transitioning into a society that is an advocate for

feminism, but still has conflict with fully converting. The last, but brief sentence that ends the

paragraph saying that they were always women displays how Neville has some empathy for

the fully deceased female vampires because he, too, lost his wife and daughter. Those sprawled

up women could have been young daughters or mothers to someone, but then he remembers

those individuals are also the reason his family is dead. The short sentence gives great

significance to Nevilles character because it displays how women have affected him immensely

by becoming this hunger killing monster. Especially when he ventures out to kill vampires in

abandoned houses, he always takes a pause questioning, Why do they all look like Kathy to me

(Matheson 15). He hesitates to kill the female vampire because then he is killing his daughter,

but it is ironic because all his killings are for his daughter and his wife. Neville believes his

murders are justified because they are for his family, but it is a coping mechanism to keep

Virginia and Kathy alive by killing their murders. In reality, the vampires did not kill his family,
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the plague did, but he needs someone to blame. When he doubts his justification before he kills,

Neville is displaying, when they cease to be threatening, they cease to be horrifying (Carroll

28). He seems unthreatening because he hesitates at the idea that the individual he is about to kill

is female, which makes Neville sympathetic in return shows that he is human. In the end, he

chooses to murder them because he cannot live with any females that are not Kathy and Virginia.

Neville is frustrated with females because they are not Virginia, but also because they

symbolize a powerful authority that controls him. He becomes agitated with women because they

make it so difficult, he thought, the women posing like lewd puppets in the night on the

possibility that hed see them and decide to come out (Matheson 7). Matheson suggests that

Neville perceives women as sexual beings that attempt to accomplish their goal by displaying

arousing movements with their body language. In the novel, the female vampires are defined to

be lewd puppets but being a puppet means that it has to have a master. The female vampires

are only being obedient and showing what their master wants and Matheson suggests that Neville

is vulnerable because women are powerful with their provocative body language, but Neville

rejects the temptation, which is also a symbol of rejecting feminism. Neville believes life without

sex is, an insult to a man. All right, it was natural drive, but there was no outlet for it any more.

Theyd forced celibacy on him which indicates how being deprived of sex is only an insult to

men because it is seen to be a necessity, but for women they are just individuals that participate

in the act and not actually crave sex (Matheson 8). People feel that sex is one of the most

important factors to survival next to food and water, but being deprived of sex does not kill

someone or make them any less healthy. If women were present in I am Legend, then they would

be perceived to be individuals that just have potential to repopulate the society no matter their

sexuality. Because Neville describes celibacy as being an insult to men, women would feel
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obligated to give up their dignity to satisfy a mans needs and their wants for power. Even when

Neville dragged Ruth to his house, he acknowledged If she had come two years before, maybe

even later, he might have violated her because he believes sex is a necessity (Matheson 24).

Neville had to learn to acclimate to the idea that sex is not a necessity anymore since society is

gone, but when he says maybe even later inferring he would have violated her, but how much

time would that be for him not to violate her. Suggesting that Neville is hungry for sex and is

denying his desire because Ruth has been extremely resistant ever since they have encountered

each other. Feminism is not attractive to him because it goes against everything in the past

society and how it functioned.

The assumption Neville immediately has when finally having contact with a female was that

they were going to have sex. When Ruth is introduced into the novel, Neville instantly

visualized something on the order of a Hollywood production; stars in their eyes, entering the

house, arms about each other, fade out because it is perceived that they are the only known two

people in the world, so they can repopulate it since they are not vampires (Matheson 114). Since

Neville is a man he decides that he is in control of the situation and that Ruth is obedient and

easily manipulated into his way of living. Neville is oblivious because the moment they meet is

when he is fully exposed to feminism and when Ruth is introduced as the Final Girl who

encounters the mutilated bodies of her friends and perceives the full extent of the preceding

horror and of her own peril; who is chased, cornered, wounded; whom we see scream (Clover

35). Neville attacking Ruth makes him the monster because his craving for attention from a

woman forces him to behave in a derange manner. In Nevilles mind, he believed that there

would be stars in their eyes because it can be inferred that Ruth has been alone for a while and

needs a safe place. His concept of women is that they cannot fend for themselves. Neville feels
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entitled that he can come to her rescue, not knowing that he is the one that she is the most afraid

of, which shows how She looks death in the face, but she alone also finds the strength either to

stay with the killer long enough to be rescued or to kill him herself (Clover 35). Ruth stays with

Neville, the one who killed her husband and mistakenly perceives that every vampire is the

same, because she wants to experience if he is the true monster that Matheson presents him as.

The final interaction between Ruth and Neville displays how a strongly anti-feminist man has

finally accepted that todays society is going to be filled with powerful women standing next to

men. When Ruth reached up quickly and unbuttoned her blouse. Reaching under her brassiere,

she took out a tiny packet and pressed it into his right palm which is a suggestion from her

heart, but also represents the old society dying and a new utopia being built (Matheson 158). If it

was a man, instead of Ruth that came to speak to Neville, then he would have been rude and

possibly would have fought back, but since Ruth is a female he was not reluctant or

confrontational. At this moment he has allowed a woman to be superior towards him, which

symbolizes Ruths powerful role in society. Neville could have easily put up a fight with Ruth,

but she positively affected him and realizes that his anger was revolved around losing special

females in his life. His conflict was rooted by females and his solution came from a female as

well, symbolizing that women have a great impact on society and how it functions. At their final

goodbye, Ruth bent over him and her cool lips pressed on his which represents a peace treaty

between men and women, and how the past society is completely obliterated (Matheson 158). It

also symbolizes how an equal society is being built with both genders in power determining the

best interest for all of mankind. Nevilles death is the last piece to the old society and illustrates

the final conflict between the two societies completely transitioning.

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Matheson is conveying that women are positively changing the world through their ability to

be free and not be suppressed by men. Even Neville acknowledges that Ruths smile was the

tight, forced smile of a woman who was trying to forgo being a woman in favor of her

dedication because in his lifetime women had to work vigorously to be noticed (Matheson 156).

She feels the tendency to make her gender not relevant still because she has not adjusted to the

concept that a female is in command but also the final girl is usually described as

boyish, in a word. Just as the killer is not fully masculine, she is not fully feminine-not, in

any case, feminine in the ways of her friends. Her smartness, gravity, competence in

mechanical and other practical matters, and sexual reluctance set her apart from the other

girls and ally her, ironically, with the very boys she fears or rejects (Clover 40).

Her tight and forced smiled can be supported through Clovers claim about the final girl; Ruth

tends to put on a facade because she does not want to be seen weak any longer. Neville

acknowledges how the smile is forced because she has dedicated a tremendous amount of effort

to be where she is, but he makes her sympathize with the past society. When Matheson writes

trying to forgo a woman explains that women are trying put their gender behind them because

their assigned sexual organs are what kept them from being in authority, but they are also the

reason that Ruth is ranking officer in the new society. Neville points out immediately that the

meaning behind the forced, tight smile is in favor of her dedication because he rarely smiles,

but also he realizes that she is above him and he has accepted that his constant conflict has been

resolved by the one thing that he has been fighting, feminism. He is finally allowing feminism

consume him and comprehends that it will not hinder society like how he thought it was, but will

enhance it because women have positive perspective. Women have a different perspective from

previous leaders of society since they were all usually male.

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Females have transitioned the society into a world where women can be equal with men.

Through Mathesons novel, I am Legend, he gives a positive message about feminism in a

subliminal manner. Neville represented the current men in 1954 that were constantly struggling

with the concept of women becoming powerful. For Matheson to be a man and support feminism

around the 1950s is extremely rare because women barely were given equal rights thirty years

earlier. His writing allows readers to become more open minded about the idea about feminism

because it is written in the book discreetly without directly exerting that feminism should be

supported by everyone in society.

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Works Cited
Carroll, Nol. "The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart." Philosophic
Books 32.3 (1991): 28. Routledge, 1991. Web. 18 Feb. 2017.
<https://guionterror.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/philosophy-of-horror.pdf>.
Clover, Carol J. Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton U, 1997. Print.
Matheson, Richard. I Am Legend. N.p.: Paw Prints, 2012. Print.