City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Student Theses Baruch College 1-1-2013 Fixed gazes on grotesque gorging : deconstructing humanist tropes in cannibalistic comics Whitney Porter Baruch College How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/bb_etds/49 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact:
[email protected] City University of New York: Baruch College Fixed Gazes on Grotesque Gorging: Deconstructing Humanist Tropes in Cannibalistic Comics Whitney Porter Undergraduate Honors Thesis Faculty Advisor: Donald Mengay April 29, 2013 Fixed Gazes on Grotesque Gorging Porter 2 Abstract The theme of cannibalism is taboo but pervasive, abhorrent yet enticing. The Western appetite for consumptive narratives seems even more insatiable in today’s zombie-infested popular culture. In some sense they are out-and-out cannibal narratives, and they are emerging with growing frequency in the world of comics. The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman1, challenges the tropes established in canonical narratives by authors like Ovid and Shakespeare, and disrupts the humanist modes of thought within them. Many cannibal narratives of the postmodern period deconstruct the categories “Man” and “Animal” that traditional literature relies upon to glorify humans. In my reading of the popular comic series The Walking Dead, which is supplemented by the theoretical framework of philosophers Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler, and Jonathan Dollimore, I investigate the border between the figures Man and Animal to demonstrate how postmodern thought influences and complicates representations of humanity.