Night of the Living Dead

CONSIDERING BLACKNESS IN GEORGE A. ROMERO’S NIGHT OF THE LIVING

DEAD: AN HISTORICAL EXPLORATION

A Thesis

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the

Louisiana State University and

Agricultural and Mechanical College

in the partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

In

The Department of English

by

Jennifer Whitney Dotson

B.A., Middle Tennessee State University, 2004

August 2006

ii

Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………………...……iii

Chapter

1 Introduction………………………………………………..…………..1

2 An Overview of the Twentieth Century Zombie in the West….….....12

3 Night of the Living Dead…………………………………………….39

4 Conclusion…………………………………………………...………66

Bibliography………….………………………………………………………….69

Filmography………………………….……………….……………….…………72

Vita.……………………………………………………………………..………..76

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Abstract

When George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead was released in 1968, the

independent black and white zombie film stunned American moviegoers. Having

assaulted the audience with a new level of violence-laden gore, Night of the Living Dead

received much attention from both popular and critical audiences, with the former

rushing to theaters to see the film over and over and the latter almost universally panning

the film for its poor taste and gratuitous violence. Since its release, however, Night of the

Living Dead has become one of the most written about horror films in American history,

with critics praising the film for its ingenuity and reviving the zombie genre and also for

its treatment of American sociopolitical issues, including the most critically noted issue—

the Vietnam War. Although I agree with those critics who assert that controversy over

Vietnam War is raised in Night of the Living Dead (as well as are many other

sociopolitical issues which are well worth exploring), the Vietnam imagery of the film

has been almost exclusively analyzed at the expense of exploring what I believe is

another important aspect of...