When the Smoke Clears
By: Whitney White
In Colson Whitehead's Zone One we see a world that is over-run by zombies and a small group of survivors are trying to establish a city in Manhattan, New York. The story is centered around the character Mark Spitz who is overwhelmingly average pre-apocalypse but emerges as a zombie killing machine during the collapse. This story seeks to explore the connection between race and the apocalypse and what life would look like in a post-apocalyptic world. In the book the question is posed by Katelynn, “Can we unsee the monster”, after things settle down and they re-establish society. Mark Spitz wonders if old societal norms will be re-established like racism and consumerism. In this writing, I will explore both ideas of the post-apocalyptic world.
In the book, it seems that prejudice is alive and well. One of the characters discusses his discontent for the rich and successful. Katelynn on the other hand imagines poor people who have nothing to blame but themselves for their condition when she kills zombies. It is quite clear to me that in the new world at least in this book there would still be some old hateful sentiments associated with different people. There seem to be some survivors who are already looked upon as higher-ups while the sweepers are looked at as lower-class citizens. They are already re-establishing different classes to separate each other and decide who will get the nicer quarters and who will be left with the less desirable dwelling.
If they were going to revolutionize society, they should have been collectively trying to survive making sure everyone was taken care of. Even the general who interviewed Mark Spitz to join the group of people rebuilding said he had people who he liked more than others which were mostly potheads. There were arbitrary things that people were divided on such as if they had the same zombie theories. Mark Spitz preferred people who did not talk too much. All these little things assure me that there will be some type of separation and stereotypes in the new world. They will re-establish class and capitalism surely. I do think there will be more focus on characteristics that describe someone who would better survive but stereotypes all the same. I think they will likely have “better” divisions that are not based solely on silly things like the way someone looks, but more on how well they can shoot or how physically fit they are. I think that stereotypes are a part of the fabric of who we are. This article discusses how we all have biases, and it is up to us to limit their harmful effects:
In the new world, there are sure to stereotypes as long as humans are still living because we all have biases. This can be seen in how a lot of people reading this book including myself thought that Mark Spitz was white. This is because the zombie narrative has been taken on as a predominantly white story even though it has roots in African spirituality. Here is a paper discussing the African roots of the zombie story:
I think that in the new world once the smoke clears the people will be forced to “unsee” the monsters. I think this will come as a coping mechanism more than anything. As humans, we all compartmentalize our trauma we go through things, but to move on we suppress them for a time when it is more appropriate to deal with these traumas. Some of us do not deal with trauma at all, but I think in the contexts of this novel it would be impossible to ignore the trauma they all experienced. They are going to have to spend years killing former humans and it would be naïve to think they would get over that just because there are no more zombies to kill. On the contrary, they will have to work through what they call PASD and a host of other trauma-induced mental illnesses so that they do not all go crazy or become suicidal. I do not think they will ever forget what happened to them, but they will be forced to find a way to move forward if they want to begin living anything close to a normal life.
Zonbi by Haitian artist Wilson Bigaud, 1939.