The Folklore of the Undead Essay

What makes us alive and what makes the zombies dead or undead? Well it all has to with neuroscience and most importantly the brain. The biggest question is what the requirements of life are? The requirements are the process to maintain homeostasis and the ability to adapt to changes. Do zombies maintain homeostasis for the undead couldn’t cause of the decay wouldn’t be able to because it couldn’t respond to change in the environment and don’t the ability to heal or repair. Unlike the livening dead would be able to adjust to the changes also could maintain the in the internal environment.

Zombies, as we know them today, have mortified movie viewers for the last forty six years. Modern zombies first appeared in George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead in 1968. These zombies were the slow moving, staggering ghouls that one has seen in countless films, but in 1985, Return of the Living Dead featured a new kind of zombie, the first fast moving and talking ghoul. Both Night of the Living dead 1968 and Return of the Living Dead 1985 feature the zombie as its villain, but Return of the living dead’s fast moving, talking zombies are a more modern take on the movie monster.

     Some say that people never change. They may be right, but no one really knows. What people do know is that every living person has one thing in common, something that will never change. Everyone will die, there’s no way around it. Every “new” and “old” generation will succumb to the same ghastly fate. The differences in the “old” generation and “new” generation sometimes collide in life. The contrast between generations in James Joyce’s “The Dead” is similar to the contrast in the generations today. The “baby boomer” generation is the old fashioned generation preoccupied with hospitality and tradition, where as, “generation x” is the new generation, preoccupied with knowledge and intellect.

The day started like that of any other these last couple of weeks. Mysterious incidents kept popping up in the news, of small groups going mad and becoming savage. Life was like that in Lampeter. Very little going on in town, whilst the whole world around us lives with a constant stream of danger. Some people were getting worried, afraid it was some sort of virus going around, but that happens all the time. One small case of a disease and the world’s in an epidemic. Happened with bird flu, E-coli, and we had just got over the joys of swine flu. Now this. Some people were becoming wary, uneasy around other people, fears of catching this mystery virus afflicting the nation and forcing its way into people’s minds. The unfortunate thing was,

In the novel The Dead, Gabriel Conroy, who is the nephew of Julia and Kate Morkan, is the main character of the story. One night he and his wife attended a party, which was given by his two aunts, and there were many other members in the party. The story revolves around their life and memories.Gabriel Conroy felt a blur between his soul and the dead. Some people died, but they are still alive because they have true love. Some people are alive, but they are still dead because they never love.I like the story for three reasons.

To be a vampire, you have to take something from someone else to benefit yourself, whether that be anything from blood to money. Vampires weren’t always what we see today in “Twilight. Vampirism does not always have to do with vampires but selfishness, exploitation, and refusal to respect.

Imagine, if you will, a brisk night wind coming fast across a lake carrying a pungent smell, something you can’t quite identify, but is nonetheless familiar enough to send a shiver up your spine. As it hits the trees, they creak out a somber call in the still night air. Or was that groan something more…human? You notice, for the first time, the absence of tires humming on pavement and you wonder if it’s that late, or maybe just a slow night. The soft tapping of your shoes on the sidewalk is the only accompaniment your slow breathing has as you move towards the warmth of your home, holding thoughts of a warm bed in the palm of your hand to keep the chill away. You don’t notice at first, perhaps because the reality of what you’re hearing is

AHHHHhhhhhh........! Imagine being awakened by a soft, distance scream. Wide awake, the world returns to being silent except for a racing heartbeat. Suddenly, a soft resonating moan starts to fill the empty air of the bedroom. Looking out the window, the world is an eerie grey with nothing moving but the occasional garbage blowing in the wind. Suddenly the horizon begins to change as a crowd of people begin to emerge. Watching nervously, the figures get closer and turn into something much more menacing. They are all disease-invested, flesh-rotted, brain-hungry zombies! Where did these undead monsters come from? How do they survive? What

The vampires many people image today are very different to those imagined in olden times. According to Michael Molina from the “Vampire: Folklore, Fantasy and Fact” video, many ancient societies had myths of vampire-like monsters. For example the Mesopotamians had myths about a creature called Lamashtu that drank blood, had a lion’s head and a donkey’s body. The Ancient Greeks also had myths about a creature that were described as “blood thirsty birds” called Striges. These ancient creatures differed greatly from different societies, but they shared one common characteristic: they all fed off of living organism (Molina). As the years went by, many of

Death is the scariest part of living. Humanity has always been acutely aware of this horrible inevitability, and as a result of this almost near obsession with mortality certain practices, precautions, and even religions have been developed to ease the weary minds on death. Self- preservation, preparedness and survival motivate almost faction of human interest and behavior but becoming prepared for the conceivable anything and asking all the “what if” questions in the world still might not save humanity when analyzing how many devastating catastrophes can essentially wipe out life on this planet with ease. Not hard to imagine, mass extinction in history has happened at least five times estimated as far back as 440 million years ago at the

Medieval China, as seen in the Stories from a Ming Collection, was characterized by distinct separations between men and women’s abilities, typical old fashioned family structure, and a desire to advance their social status. Throughout all the stories in this book, it dives deep into different aspects of how men and women are treated, how families were structured and how that affects their lives, as well as the values these people held. A very common trend in the stories was how different men and women were treated and the limitations they may or may not had.

Sleep in a coffin. An association with bats. Red eyes. Cold touch. Great strength. Possess a hypnotic power. Have the ability to transform into a variety of animals. They avoid garlic, sunlight, crosses and holy water. May need to sleep on their native soil. Acute night vision. Immortal The History Of Vampires Where The Name Originated The word 'Vampire' is thought to have come from No one is absolutly sure, though. Where The Myths About Vampires First Appeared And Why Where? The myth of the Vampire has popped up in many different cultures over the centuries and it has changed and developed over the years. There have been stories as far back as 600 BC about vampires in Ancient Greece, but most of the tales began in the late eighteenth century. "In China Tsze-Chan reported in the 'Tsachwen' the existence of vampires in 600 BC. This idea was also common in ancient Babylon and Assyria. Most vampire tales originated in Eastern Europe and Balkan countries, such as Albania, Greece, Hungary, and Romania. Why? No one is sure where the myths really first started, but doctors and scientists have discussed actual medical conditions that may have lead to the reason that it carried on. The old reasons that people were thought to be a Vampire are, in suspected corpses, if the body has: No odor, lack of rigor mortis, and an excessive amount of bloating. Internal organs of the 'vampire' are similar in appearance to that of a healthy, living

The concept of a dead person returning in his living physical form and feeding on the living is considered a vampire. The

In order to explain things around them, early civilizations would often create stories on things that could not be explained. This had been seen in the creation of the world as well as why people die and what happens after. The vampire can reasonably be seen in this category, where an explanation would be needed to explain the spread of a disease or why a village would be suffering constant death. In folklore, the vampire in most cultures especially ones that were Slavic, would have been the undead and mostly looking grotesque as well as appearing as having just returned from the grave. (Orlomoski 5)(Barber 40) One of the major points in the case of the vampire, in most of the stories from Eastern Europe, the creature will have returned from the dead to feast on the living with only certain methods that would repulse or kill the creature. There are several distinctions between the vampires of

Since the beginning or recorded history, there have been stories told about vampires. Bram Stoker’s renowned novel Dracula was published in 1897, and since then the myth about vampires has evolved and changed. We now have Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Saga and HBO’s True Blood examining whether vampires exist in the known world. Whatever you think, you should be aware that vampires are creations of fiction writers based on old folk tales. On the other hand there are those who believe in Vampires.