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The Passage Justin Cronin Research Paper

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The Passage by Justin Cronin is a science fiction, horror novel about a young girl named Amy who is determined to save everyone from vampires, also known as “virals” that are infected with a super virus spread by bats that is very contagious in a post-apocalyptic world. Even though the novel takes place over many centuries Amy continues to be the main character. There are many themes in The Passage by Justin Cronin such as mortality, hope, religion, and the many flaws of human nature. Most of these themes are brought about because this book is considered horror and gothic literature. Horror literature is defined as “popular fiction and drama whose chief purpose is to thrill its audience with dread, disgust, and terror. Although many old works …show more content…

Like most apocalyptic/ post-apocalyptic novels mortality or more so immortality is one of the major themes in The Passage. All of the vampires in the novel and Amy are immortal because of the highly contagious virus. Professor Lear travels to the Bolivian jungle because he believes he has found the cure but ends up discovering how viral the vampires really are. Although the vampires are immortal they seem to be inhuman and soulless. Then there is Amy who is also an immortal but is seen as almost an angel in disguise. Her angelic role can also be linked to the religious aspect of this novel which I will elaborate on further on. Many argue that death is essential to storytelling. Justin Cronin used mortality and immortality in The Passage to prove that mortality in humans is inevitable, but one of the greatest fears humans have. “We are all mortal people in the world, but sometimes we often want to go beyond the time and the space” (Spenser 2013). I also have discovered that in almost all apocalyptic novels, especially The Passage that the immortal creatures are most often seen as the evil or bad characters. This could be because “immortality is necessarily to be viewed negatively” (Slusser Westfahl Rabkin …show more content…

There is a lot of Christian symbolism in this novel. One of those that really stands out is how Amy is portrayed. Like I said before, Amy was also inhuman because of the virus, but she was not like the other vampires. The other vampires continued to savage for victims but Amy hid away and when she was rediscovered she had an angel like role in the novel, even asking to make snow angels. Although she did not have very many coherent thoughts or feelings she still did what was right. For example, toward the end of the novel peter gets ahold of vials that can turn the non-infected humans into virals, who are the same as Amy. Before peter can do anything with them Amy destroys the vials of the virus in a fire so no one else can end up like her. “I’m sorry, Peter,” Amy said. “But it would have made you like me. And I couldn’t let that happen” (Cronin 863). This just showed how angelic and heroic Amy was. Even though she was “inhuman” she could not handle seeing another person end up like her. Also, another example of depicting Amy as a religious entity is the idea that Amy symbolizes the second coming of Christ. Although this religious depiction of the novel is more out there than most of the others, it has a lot of evidence to back it up. In this depiction, Amy is again seen as the religious figure in the novel. One of the characters Alicia, who was a viral, is only revived and brought back from the dead when

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