Mistrzowie drugiego planu. Motyw zombie w perspektywie literackiego sztafażu – od survival horroru przez dystopię do romansu paranormalnego

Abstract

Contemporary pop culture dynamics encourages artists to reconfigure, for instance, a plethora of character patterns. A fine example of such tendency is the trope of zombie associated by the mass imagination with a spiritless horde chasing after living survivors – and the genre meant to support such a narrative is, par excellence, a horror. The presence of zombies in horror does not, however, limit the creativity of authors who, while reinterpreting this trope, are wont to assign zombies a pivotal or tangential role in dystopian, pastiche, or paranormal narratives. The article gathers and sums up all similar tendencies in literature, placing a special emphasis on narrative experiments and recalling a multitude of examples.