Analysis of I Am Legend

The way the world is seen varies with each passing person. What is observed as good from one may be the damning pathway to hell for another. Many times these beliefs are instilled upon us at a very early age which can result with a twisted outlook on life that we had little to no control over. As we grow older we are than further influenced through our religion (or lack of), culture, and passed experiences. With that in mind, it is easy to see that reality can be just as interchangeable and further raises the difficult question of what is real? Robert Neville, a man who on a daily basis struggles with the reality of being the last man on earth often only manages to keep going by holding on to the intangibles of hope, denial, and fear.

Robert Neville is a tough man. He has many facets to his character that range from war veteran to husband and father. All of these sides shine through as you learn the story of how he watched his family and friends die from a mysterious disease and then one by one watched them return from their graves with the need and obsessive thirst for blood; eventually only his blood. So this bizarre reality that he faces could hardly seem real, especially for a blue-collared, straight forward man like Robert Neville. He ultimately is the last person living (that he knows of) and now has to tackle the major problem of staying alive when hundreds of vampires are solely after his blood. He essentially makes his house a fortress that no vampire can infiltrate. Although they can’t get to him they still come every night torturing him with cat-calls and yells that truly drive him mad. By far he is tormented most from his once good friend Ben Cortman who comes every night calling his name. Every night they destroy something and every day Neville has to fix it. As time passes he gets better with keeping up his home and learns more about the vampires, what caused them, how he can really kill them, and why he was not afflicted by the disease.

The reality of his situation is constant, emotionally draining, and exceptionally lonely. When everyone around you is essentially dead what incentive is there to live? All Neville has is himself. If he wants to keep living he has to work hard to keep his home up. He struggles with the motivation but yet he still perseveres. His will to live is often almost non-existent but nonetheless he gets up early and does his daily maintenance routine. He knows that it would be so easy to just give up but he doesn’t and the question is why?

Despite the hardships, Neville was still able to hold on to a thread of hope. He was by no means optimistic since it was apparent at times that he was not aware he held on to anything at all. Nonetheless, somewhere deep within Neville he had his hopes. He hoped that there might be someone else like him who survived. He hoped that he can find out what caused this. He even created new “hopes” for himself that were as trivial hoping to one day find where Ben Cortman slept so that he finally kill him. Whether the hope was insignificant or not, it did not matter. Just having the feeling of hope could have been a huge driving force for Neville making it easier to want to live. It was the times that Neville questioned or gave up on his hopes that were his lowest points. Although this happened often he still managed to pull through, but it was the extreme highs and lows that he experienced that really brought him down.

Neville lives in a world turned upside down which makes it all the more easier to live in denial. Denial is a coping mechanism that Neville as mastered along with drinking a bottle of whiskey in one sitting. He wonderfully rationalizes all aspects of his life. He would be aware of his actions,