Kiedy nadchodzą żywe trupy, rodzą się tyrani. Psychospołeczne inspiracje w konstrukcji mikro-dystopii w narracjach postapokaliptycznych o zombie

Abstract

Ksenia Olkusz’s chapter The Advent of the Living Dead Produces Tyranny: Psycho-social Inspirations in Modelling Micro-dystopias in Post-apocalyptic Zombie Narra-tives focuses on the formulation of a model of shaping power in eponymous post-apocalyptic narratives about zombies. The model is predominantly despotic and car-ried out in the context of breaking the existing control structures. In the analysed nar-ratives, presentations of rules of creating new models of power are remarkably similar and show definable regularities. Following these regularities, one can observe that sur-vivors—yearning to be safe—are more likely to gather around a strong individual or a group led by one because they consider him or her to be a natural-born leader. Thus the chain of relations that has a great impact on the group’s internal relation is created. The final shape of such a leader-oriented micro-community depends on the personal-ity, aspirations, and emotional needs of its ruler. A character who has a penchant for authoritarian governance, plays a less prominent function or stays on the fringes of so-ciety—and who possibly suffers from a mental disorder or is frustrated because of his or her professional and personal situation—is presented as an individual who becomes unhinged by power, just as this power is all the more readily emphasized and enforced. The behavioural pathology relating to issues of control exercised over a group is fun-damental to the formation of micro-dystopias in works devoted to the description of a zombie apocalypse.