Almost Like the Dodo: Terminus in Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend

Abstract

This article considers Richard Matheson’s short novel I Am Legend. Central to the discussion is the topic of contagion and an exploration of vampirism in literature. The article shows the lineage from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”, to Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, as sources and influences in Matheson’s novel. Prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic, the article explores literary expressions of plague and contagion, as well as the theme of vampirism. Theorists whose work informs the argument include Rosemary Jackson, whose work on fantasy provides insights into subversive elements of speculative literature; Marie Mulvey-Roberts, who addresses the Gothic genre; and J. J. Cohen, who addresses monster theory in detail. The article addresses the subversion of the conventional social order through the vampire narrative, and includes the reconfiguration of human identity in the context of social change.