I Am Legend: Extended Review

Author: Richard Matherson
Published: 1954
Target Audience: Adults 18+

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS AND DISCUSSIONS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE

In 2022, SF Masterworks began releasing a selection of their extensive science fiction novels under the title of the Best of the Masterworks collection. With striking new covers by deep sea ecologist and illustrator Autun Purser, I was instantly drawn to the bold and desolate red cityscape of 'I Am Legend', a story I had vaguely heard about in the wake of the 2007 movie adaptation starring Will Smith. I was curious to see why the book has been so enduring and influential to the science fiction genre, and if it holds up for modern audiences.

The answer is...complicated. While reading it, I found that my issues with the book extend beyond the usual format of my reviews, and demands a more thorough examination. So grab a cup of tea and strap in for an extremely detailed analysis of sci-fi classic 'I Am Legend.'

Robert Neville is the last man alive on Earth, but he is not alone. A sudden disease has swept across the globe and transformed each man, woman, and child into a vampire, and now every undead creature thirsts for Neville's blood.

By day, he is the hunter - scavenging for resources, fortifying his house, and killing each vampire he finds sleeping in dark crevices of the ruined city. By night, he is the prey - barricading himself against the hungry horde that snarls and taunts and attempts to break in.

Neville has managed to survive five months like this, but his isolation, frustration, and despair only grows. How much longer can he go on?

Excerpt:

A shuddering whine wrenched up through his chest and throat. Goddamn them, what were they waiting for? Did they think he was going to come out and hand himself over?

Maybe I am, maybe I am. He actually found himself jerking off the crossbar from the door. Coming, girls, I'm coming. Wet your lips now.

Outside, they heard the bar being lifted, and a howl of anticipation sounded in the night.

Spinning, he drove his fists one after the other into the wall until he'd cracked the plaster and broken his skin. Then he stood there trembling helplessly, his teeth chattering.

After a while it passed. He put the bar back across the door and went into the bedroom. He sank down on the bed and fell back on the pillow with a groan. His left hand beat once, feebly, on the bedspread.

Oh, God, he thought, how long, how long?

Review:

'I Am Legend' is a post-apocalyptic horror novel by American author Richard Matherson that explores the effects of grief, solitary confinement, and disconnection from normalcy through the story of one man's struggle against an insurmountable enemy. First published in 1954, 'I Am Legend' was pivotal in reinventing vampires from the lone, calculating predator of incomprehensible supernatural means - as most famously depicted in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel 'Dracula' - to an overwhelming horde born of disease and societal collapse. Through the incorporation of scientific investigation within the narrative, Matherson expanded upon the traditional vampiric lore of wooden stakes, crucifixes, aversion to sunlight, bats, and blood-drinking, and created a fresh depiction of the undead reimagined through the lens of bacterial infection, nuclear fallout, pandemics, psychosis, and more. While the concept of a scientific origin for vampires and other cryptids has become common in stories nowadays, it was largely unheard of at the time of publication. Consequently, 'I Am Legend' has been credited with directly influencing the development of modern zombie and vampire literature, as well as popularising the concept of global apocalypse due to disease.

'I Am Legend' combines its post-apocalyptic setting and unique depiction of vampires to lay the groundwork for a powerful tale of what isolation, despair, and being in constant survival mode can do to a person. Once an ordinary breadwinner and family man, Robert Neville is the lone survivor in a city overrun bloodthirsty creatures. Life has become a repetitious monotony of unending scavenging and house repair during the day, and hunkering down behind locked doors at night with the fear that the vampires might finally break in. Or worse, that he might just give up and open the door to them himself. The novel excels at showcasing the strain that months of solitude and despair has had upon Neville's emotional and mental state. He is highly depressed and dependent on alcohol to cope. He swings from morose defeat, to fits of rage and helpless frustration, to grief for his deceased wife and daughter, to bursts of vigour and productivity when he has a goal to pursue, and then back to despondency and wondering if there is any point to him continuing. 'I Am Legend' does not romanticise Neville as a heroic survivor, instead portraying his strengths, flaws, successes, and foibles with bold honesty. All this should converge to create a realistic, sympathetic character with which readers can identify.

Unfortunately, any relatability or sympathy generated by Neville's isolated, confined existence is undermined by the character's rampant misogyny. Before fully revealing what has happened to the world or that he is besieged nightly by ravenous creatures, Neville proclaims that the most difficult aspect of his situation is women. The vampires try different tactics each night to access Neville - throwing stones to break windows, wrenching timber boards off the house, stalking the perimeter, calling him by name, and so forth. One method employed by the female vampires is to act in a provocative manner, in an attempt to lure Neville out of his fortified dwelling. Witnessing the seductive posing of the female vampires ignites such bitterness and sexual frustration in Neville that it has become a regular part of his evening routine to obsessively think about women and his carnal cravings. He bemoans "the women who made it so difficult...posing like lewd puppets on the possibility he might see them", and that being unable to "end the wordless, mindless craving of his flesh" was "an insult to a man", eventuating in him despairing that "they'd forced celibacy on him; he'd have to live with it."

Neville's disparaging attitude continues in the daylight hours as well, and even in situations where he has the upper hand. For example, one morning he comes across the dead bodies of two women, and his primary reaction to assert that there is nothing attractive about them. While investigating the scientific causes of the vampire plague, he reveals a predilection for experimenting on infected women, often deliberately passing over nearby male vampires in choosing his target. In one such instance, Neville does exhibit an awareness of his prejudices, and questions the reasoning behind his selection habits. He does not want to acknowledge the bias in his choices, and attempts to justify himself by denouncing morality as a hinderance that fell with society, but finally recognises that he is inventing excuses. He tries to tell himself that there are still lines he wouldn't cross, that he wouldn't rape the comatose vampire woman before him, only to immediately doubt the veracity of his statement. His worldview is emphatically singular, and conveys to readers that Neville has projected his anger regarding his situation onto women, vilifying the salacious actions of the female vampires as the bane of his existence, and ultimately manifesting as a generalised hatred of women that persists throughout the entirety of 'I Am Legend.'

Neville's misogyny is also not just limited to vampire women or dead bodies, but also projected onto other survivors. This is exhibited in his actions towards Ruth, a woman Neville spots one day who is able to walk around unharmed in sunlight, like him. Their meeting is less than stellar, as Ruth flees at the sight of him, and Neville reacts by chasing her down and hitting her when she tries to fight him off. Then, after brutalising, kidnapping, and imprisoning Ruth in his house, he is disappointed that she is not curvy or acting in a romantic way towards him. He mentally critiques her physique, looking at "the slight swelling of her breast" and noting that her figure was "very slim, almost curveless. Not at all like the women he used to envision", but consoles himself as "there was no certainty that Ruth was the companion he had waited for."

Neville's tunnel vision on his own desires is overtly displayed here, with his inner monologue illustrating his arrogance and egocentricity in assuming that he will be provided a companion to satisfy him. It is indicated that Neville's self-centered mindset and objectification of Ruth is intended to demonstrate how his humanity and sanity have degraded over years of isolation and mental strain. However, this is not substantiated by a noticeable difference from his early-book attitude towards female vampires or corpses. Instead, Neville's treatment of Ruth reads as a natural extension of his consistent characterisation as a sullen, sexually-frustrated misogynist. Worse, his acknowledgement that he would readily rape Ruth if he felt like it, coupled with his infantilising perspective of her being "like a young girl, she was so slender...she had a body like a young girl's. She certainly didn't look like the mother of two" only adds paedophilic undertones to a character many readers will already find abhorrent and intolerable.

Neville's loathing of women could be argued to be coping mechanism on his part, a scapegoat to focus on to avoid being overwhelmed by the sheer hopelessness and unsustainability of his situation. However, this argument is weakened by the inclusion of Ben Cortman. Once Neville's next-door neighbour and now a vampire, Cortman regularly spearheads the evening assaults on the fortified house, calling for Neville, by name, to come out. As a relic of Neville's past normalcy, and the only familiar face he identifies among the undead horde, Cortman's presence in Neville's new, post-apocalyptic existence is representative of the irreversible changes that have occurred. Neville even reflects that although Cortman does not appear significantly different since becoming a vampire, he is "completely alien to [Neville] now," and determines not to dwell on how things used to be, as "the past was a dead as Cortman." Such statements reveals how Neville conceptualises Cortman as a manifestation of his present persecution. In multiple instances throughout the novel, Neville fixates on how Cortman specifically haunts and aggravates him, viewing him as an adversary to be endured, out-witted, and defeated. In doing so, Neville treats Cortman as an opponent of equal standing, a named individual with personalising traits and shared history that is worthy of respect. This is a sharp contrast to Neville's blanket loathing of women, and contextualises his sexism within the narrative of 'I Am Legend' as an inherent, noncontroversial worldview, as opposed to an unhealthy symptom of his declining mental and emotional state.

This severely impacts Neville's likability as the protagonist, inhibits audience attachment and receptibility to narrative themes, and may posit modern readers to dismiss Neville as an incel or embodiment of toxic masculinity. It is important to note that there are moments throughout the book that do successfully align readers with Neville's emotional state - particularly in his grief for his wife and young daughter, his anguish in killing vampiric children, and his determination and resourcefulness when searching for answers. However, no sooner than the audience begins to sympathise with Neville, than he returns to his uncaring, dehumanising actions towards women. Thus, rather than wanting to identify with Neville, his characterisation may alienate audiences and make for an unpleasant reading experience.

However, the final chapters of 'I Am Legend' do function as a deliberate offset to this portrayal, enacting an unexpected reversal that forces Neville to see himself from an outsider's perspective. Neville realises he has become a frightening figure to the vampires, a monstrous remnant of the old world, and this twist adds a fascinating layer of complexity to an otherwise straightforward story of survival. Unfortunately, while this revelation does reframe Neville's behaviour as reprehensible in hindsight, the story only condemns his actions taken against the vampires in pursuit of scientific understanding, not his incessant misogyny. Instead, the narrative rewards Neville with sex, romantic connection, and a compassionate ending. For the readers who find Neville to be a repulsive, unsympathetic character, such a conclusion to be viewed as unsatisfying and undeserved.

Overall, Richard Matherson's 'I Am Legend' is a groundbreaking novel that utilises a unique portrayal of the undead to explore concepts of grief, isolation, and disconnection from humanity in the face of societal collapse. However, the effectiveness of the novel is hindered by the protagonist's unchecked misogyny, which may limit an audience's ability to empathise with Neville's struggles, resulting in an unsatisfying resolution. 'I Am Legend' remains an influential piece of post-apocalyptic and horror literature, but its protagonist's unlikable and dated character traits mar its potential to resonate with modern readers. I do not recommend this book.