World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2006

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Chapter 12

Chapters 13-24

Chapters 25-38

Chapters 39-58

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

The Zombies

The Zombies serve as a symbol of humanity’s darkest and most extreme impulses. They are referred to by many names throughout the text, including the undead; ghouls; Zack; G; and “siafu” (206), which is another name for the extremely dangerous African army ant. As nonliving humans, they serve as an inversion of organic living matter. They are humanity brought back from the dead to devour itself. They are driven solely by their most basic instincts—to hunt, kill, and eat that which is alive. They have no emotion or remorse and are “devoted to consuming all life on earth” (273), as General D’Ambrosia explains to the narrator.

Although the exact cause of the zombie outbreak is never revealed, the various political struggles around the world at its onset only serve to exacerbate the problem and render the initial responses by many countries, including the United States, to be incompetent, haphazard, and dangerous. The zombies are a product of a world in flux, where the lack of any immediate apocalyptic threat has been taken for granted. As zombies are unable to grow, evolve, or change, they demonstrate the consequences of remaining in a long period of stasis or malaise. They are a lesson to humanity to rethink its priorities, learn from its mistakes, and unite together to prepare for disaster. As sculptor Joe Muhammed tells the narrator at the end of his interview, everyone around the world now has “this powerful shared experience” (336). Muhammad hopes it will help them to change for the better.

The Redeker/Prochnow Plan

The Redeker Plan, referred to as the South African Plan and the Prochnow Plan by some in the novel, is a modern dystopian solution to the classic ethics puzzle called the trolley problem where one must choose to watch a runaway trolley kill several people (an incur the guilt of inaction) or divert the trolley to only kill one person (and bear the guilt of being an active participant in that one death). The most common solution to the problem is to sacrifice the one to save the many, and that is precisely how the Redeker Plan works out in the novel: Groups of people considered inconsequential are sacrificed to save the rest of humanity. The plan works, but the question remains of at what cost were these lives saved, and those who must enact the plan are suffering under the crushing guilt and responsibility of the lives that were sacrificed. The Redeker Plan operates as a symbol of desperation, inevitability, and unwanted responsibility.

Primitivism

Primitivism is a broad motif illustrated in both positive and negative ways in the novel. On one hand, as the zombie outbreaks became worse, people abandoned the courtesy and cooperation that are important in civilized communities and resorted to violence, theft, and even cannibalism in desperate attempts of self-preservation. On the other hand, many people were able to rediscover a comfort and safety in primitive lifestyles and weapons. In fact, some people, such as T. Sean Collins and David Allen Forbes, find primal satisfaction in wielding the tools of their ancestors, and Arthur Sinclair notes that a lot of white-collar workers found a surprising satisfaction in the blue-collar work required to rebuild civilization. The zombies themselves represent the primitivism of wild animals, and their destruction of civilization forced humanity to stop relying on the luxuries modern living provided and relearn how to be self-reliant and resourceful.