Theme: Isolation & Family
Family
In almost every Virus Eco-Horror text, the easiest way to create a relationship between the reader/audience and the text is to show a lost family due to the pandemic. This harkens to the destruction of everything deemed humane which creates a link to the stoic, violent personalities of the survivors. It helps show the soft side of survivors and how the pandemic shapes who they are and causes shifts in their morals. In many ways, their ethical stance throughout the show is guided by the negative or positive consequences that their family incurred during the pandemic. For many, losing families turns them into psychopathic, violent killers but for others losing a member of their family turns them into a so-called "protector" who will do anything in their power to help and aid those they deem worthy. This shift in morality illustrates familial ties as being the "last straw" of humanity that causes a paradigm shift in a character's arc in a storyline. We see these at numerous instances in the Walking Dead, with characters forming new families that allows them to get in touch with their traumatized, emotional state helping them become more lenient and caring towards other characters.You're gonna be fine. You are gonna beat this world i know you will. You are smart, you are strong, and you are so brave...and i love you. You gotta do what's right baby, you promise me you'll always do what's right.
- Lori talking to her son as she dies while giving birth
Isolation
Isolation is arguably the most prominent theme in The Walking Dead. It can be considered to be the central theme or the focus of the entire storyline. Isolation comes in the show in many forms.- Isolation of Thought - this is a common occurrence in many post-apocalyptic texts, where you have characters having extremely detailed internal monologues and feelings that are fierce oppositions to the actions of their survivor group or interpersonal relationships. Since these characters are overwhelmed with "Life and Death" situations constantly, it makes them vulnerable to become consumed by their narcissistic thoughts. They have very little time to process their emotions in a healthy manner which causes them to take drastic, violent decisions that put people's lives in jeopardy.
Every day he woke up, told himself 'rest in peace, now get up and go to war.' Then after a few years of pretending he was dead, he made it out alive. That's the trick of it, I think. Do what we need to do, and then we get to live . . . This is how we survive: we tell ourselves, 'We are the walking dead. - Rick quotes his grandfather en route to Virginia
- Isolation of Community - When we talk about community, we are specifically referring to characters revisiting their neighborhoods and localities, only to be bombarded by a cascading thought process of the traumatic evacuation process vs. their memories of their homes and community. This is followed by "Isolation of Thought" where characters find themselves lost in this fever dream that encompasses all their fear and cherished memories into one haunting daydream that is presented to the audience in a montage format. This is a very emotive experience for the viewer as it really heightens the loss characters go through and we can empathize with the potential destruction of our homes and neighborhoods.
- Isolation of Character - This could be considered to be a sub section of Isolation of Thought ,but we decided to separate it as we believe the demonstration of violent actions to protect the innocents in a zombie apocalypse and using any means necessary to survive causes a divide between the character's profile in peaceful times versus under attack from the horde. This dualism is an interesting exploration of the human psyche as we see some characters tethering on the edge allowing their violent, adrenaline fueled rage spill into their daily interactions with fellow survivors. We see these characters become wore down by the constant tension and stresses of relocating and scavenging for food which eventually "breaks" them so to speak.