shprs_currents_issue_2

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SHPRS CURRENTSSHPRS CURRENTS
Undergraduate Research Journal in History, Philosophy and Religious Studies
Issue 2

This second edition of SHPRS Currents: Undergraduate Research Journal in
History, Philosophy and Religious Studies was published online in spring 2011.
The journal is devoted to honoring and sharing excellent undergraduate work
by students. Essays were recommended by faculty and graduate students for
inclusion, and judged to demonstrate the creativity, logic, and research our
disciplines foster.
This year’s edition includes works by:
Nick Carroll – Religious Studies, “The Vulnerability of Samson: Samson as the
Tragic Victim in the Hebrew Bible and Pictorial Representations”........................4
Mary Beth Hutchinson – Religious Studies, “Life After the End of the World:
Common Themes in Secular English-Language Post-Apocalyptic Narratives, 2000-
2010”...............................................................................................................19
Paul Ki – History, “Postwar Europe: History and Film” ....................................41
Roxanne Stehlik – History, “My Nation, My People: The National Identity of
Refugee Children from Soviet Ukraine before World War II” .............................65
Noah Zarr – Philosophy, (winner of the 2011 Philosophy essay contest),
“Mysterianism, Emergentism, and Panpsychism ...............................................92
Nina Michelle Plachecki – History, “Notions of Purgatory and Hell and their
Impact on the Structure and Sentiment of Medieval Prisons” ..........................109
Joseph Shin – Philosophy, “The Presumption of Materialism in the Philosophy
of Mind”
Gabrielle Johnson – Religious Studies, “Secular Mechanics and Religious
Tolerance during the Twelfth to Thirteenth Centuries along the Silk Road: The
Qara Khitai and the Mongols”........................................................................135
Adam Brodie – Philosophy, “Motivating a Neuroinformational Worldview:
Considerations on Negative Information in the Pursuit of a Naturalized
Epistemology”................................................................................................146


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The Vulnerability of Samson:
Samson as the Tragic Victim in the Hebrew
Bible and Pictorial Representations
NICK CARROLL
For centuries, the Biblical story of Samson (Judges 13-16) has been sub-
ject to intellectual, theological, and even artistic debate. These debates
have spanned across both borders and cultures, coming over time to
include an almost infinitely diverse collection of voices and ideologies.
Indeed, the story itself is written in such a way as to leave much room
for individual interpretation, both in terms of how the events recorded
within the story supposedly took place, as well as in terms of the mo-
tivations and meanings underlying the actions of the work’s primary
characters (especially Samson himself). Not surprisingly then, the
relative ambiguity that encompasses the Samson story as it is recorded
within the Book of Judges, has left the door open for artists across the
ages to pictorially represent images from the Samson story according
to their own unique individual interpretations. Close exploration of
such imagery, taken from a wide range of historic periods and artistic
backgrounds, reveals that the character of Samson has most often been
artistically portrayed as a culture hero and symbol of civic pride. How-
ever, a somewhat smaller subset of artists has portrayed Samson in a far
different way, representing him instead as a vulnerable victim subject to
a remarkably complex network of human emotions and motivations. In
this paper, I will suggest a reading of the Samson story that could per-
haps account for this latter subset of artistic representations of Samson
as the tragic victim, offering interpretations of key events from the life of
Samson that might help us to better understand such imagery.
Before examining the artistic representations of Samson as a tragic
figure, it is imperative that we first establish the literary foundations on
which such imagery is necessarily built. To truly understand Samson as
the “vulnerable victim,” we must begin by exploring the account of his
birth. When the angel of the Lord comes down to tell Samson’s mother
that she is to conceive of a son, he explains to her, “As for the son you
will conceive and bear, no razor shall touch his head, for this boy is to be
consecrated to God from the womb. It is he who will begin the deliver-
ance of Israel from the power of the Philistines” (Judges 13:5). When
Samson’s mother later relays the words of the Angel to her husband,
Manoah, she alters the message slightly at the end. She says, “For the boy
shall be consecrated to God from the womb, until the day of his death”
(Judges 13:7). In the version told by Samson’s mother, the emphasis is
placed on the death of Samson, rather than his life. As Netta Shoenfield
and Rael Strous have suggested, “Perhaps Samson’s mother distances
herself because she feels that the child growing inside her is a stranger,
more a child of God. She replaces unknown feelings of fear, disap-
pointment and sorrow with distancing herself from her unborn child,”
(Shoenfield and Strous 2008, 197). Thus, in a way, Samson’s mother has
already “eulogized” him even before he is born.
This idea of estrangement between parent and child doesn’t just stop at
Samson’s mother either. There are only two occasions on which we hear
directly from Samson’s father, Manoah, and both are presented early in
Chapter 13. Manoah responds to his wife saying, “may the man of God
whom you sent, return to us to teach us what to do for the boy who will
be born” (13:8, my emphasis). Given the extreme importance placed on
familial lineage by the ancient Hebrews, it seems particularly signifi-
cant that Manoah doesn’t reference Samson as “my son” or “our son”,
but rather “as the boy who is to be born”. There is a similar such scene
later on at 13:12, when Manoah asks, “what are we expected to do for
the boy?” Just as we saw in the words of Samson’s mother, there seems
to be a kind of emotional distance placed between parent and child. In
some sense, the attitude of Samson’s parents towards their son represents
a kind of emotional estrangement that defies the relative intimacy we
would traditionally associate with the parent/child relationship.
This estrangement, as we will see, has grave consequences for how Sam-
son interacts with others (and particularly, women) later in his adult life.
As Shoenfield and Strous point out, “Whenever a child feels abandon-
ment from one or both parents he or she internalizes the hurt, resulting
in a feeling of not being worthy of love. It is a feeling of shame” (Shoen-
field and Strous 2008, 197). This process of internalization leads us into
the question of how such feelings and emotions of shame and hurt are
ultimately manifested outwardly. However, in order to begin to answer
this question, we need to first explore the topic of cognitive appraisal.
In his work, The Science of Emotion, Randolph Cornelius explains that,

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“At the heart of every emotion, then, is this special kind of judgment
that Arnold calls appraisal. . . . To arouse an emotion, the object must
be appraised as affecting me in some way, affecting me personally as an
individual with my particular experience and my particular aims” (116).
Relating this back to the character of Samson, it becomes clear that Sam-
son’s appraisals, and thus his emotions, are going to be influenced by his
personal experiences with estrangement and his personal aims of being
loved. It is important to note also, though, that “Appraisals are judg-
ments about the meaning of events, but they are not intellectual judg-
ments” (Cornelius 1996, 117). That is to say, that such considerations are
not happening at a surface level; rather, Samson’s actions and emotions
are arising from subconscious appraisals influenced by his past experi-
ences and upbringing.
What, then, are Samson’s aims and concerns? Contrary to the popu-
lar depiction of Samson as the “national hero”, the textual descriptions
of Samson’s actions actually seem to suggest a man who is completely
disinterested in his “nation,” as it were, and who is almost entirely
wrapped up in his own personal needs and desires. Take, for example,
the incident involving the woman from Timnah. Knowing full well that
the woman is a Philistine and not an Israelite like himself—and thus that
any relationship with her would go against national (Israelite) senti-
ment—Samson demands that his father “get her for me” (Judges 14:3).
One explanation for Samson’s insistence to be wed to a Philistine can be
found by once again recalling Samson’s lack of a deep emotional connec-
tion to his parents. As therapist Jef Gazely explains, “when a child feels
abandoned by one or both parents, he understands that he is unworthy
of love. On reaching maturity, he searches for people to love who are in-
capable of loving him back” (Gazely 1997, 1). Samson’s relationship with
the Timnah woman is one that is potentially doomed from the start,
which, ironically, is what makes it attractive to him in the first place.
One could argue that she “pleases” him precisely because their relation-
ship is destined to fail.
Furthermore, this reading of the Timnah story also paves the way for
some interesting interpretations of the well-known lion and honey
riddle found in Judges 14:14. Samson’s riddle, as he poses it to Tim-
nah’s kinsmen, states: “Out of the eater came forth food, and out of the
strong came forth sweetness.” In truth, the answer to the riddle could
not possibly be known to anyone but Samson himself, who slew the lion
and found the honey in its carcass. To solve this impossible riddle, the
kinsmen must elicit the answer directly from Samson himself. And who
better to elicit this information than the one closest to Samson, his own
wife? Thus, it is as if Samson, in positing the impossible riddle in the first
place, is simply setting himself up to be betrayed by the Timnah woman
(albeit, at the behest of her kinsmen).
In addition, even the symbolism contained within the riddle itself can be
interpreted along these same lines. Samson’s inclination towards abusive,
doomed relationships is, in a sense, like searching for “sweetness” amidst
ruin (or, symbolically speaking, a carcass). The death of the lion recalls
considerations of Samson’s own death that are related during his concep-
tion. Any subsequent sweetness that is to be taken in either case is going
to be tainted by the lingering, impure presence of death.
Of course, Samson’s relationship with the Timnah woman is only one of
several that are ultimately destined to fail from the start. Shoenfield and
Strous suggest that Samson, throughout the course of the narrative, is
engaged in what is termed “repetition compulsion.” As they explain it,
“Repetition compulsion is the compulsive need to repeat a destructive
interpersonal action, but without the ability to learn from the pain or
the damage deriving from the action” (Shoenfield and Strous 2008, 197).
Immediately following the disastrous Timnah episode, which ultimately
results in the death of over a thousand men at Samson’s hands, Samson
goes “to Gaza, where he saw a harlot and visited her” (Judges 16:1).
Because the woman is a harlot, by definition the relationship is set up
to dissolve almost as soon as it begins. Thus, Samson moves from one
impossible relationship to another without seeming to have learned
anything from the first episode. And, just as we saw in Timnah, Samson’s
time at Gaza ends with a violent, physical outburst—this time ripping
the gates from the city rather than slaying a thousand men.
Of course the definitive example of a failed relationship in the life of
Samson is found in the Delilah episode. Delilah is the only woman in
the entire narrative Samson is said to “love” (14:4), and it is interesting
to note that he focuses this love on a woman who clearly does not recip-
rocate his feelings. In fact, she willingly sells him out to the Philistines
for “eleven hundred shekels of silver” (14:4). This episode of betrayal,

8 9
which is nearly identical to those that came before it, ends with the nar-
rative’s ultimate act of violence: Samson’s destruction of the temple and
himself. What, then, are we to make of these dramatic scenes of violence
that directly follow each of Samson’s failed relationships?
To begin to explore this theme of violence that runs throughout the
narrative requires that we first further examine the emotional character
of Samson. As we have previously suggested, Samson is defined by his
longing for love and acceptance, and also by his ultimate inability to
seek out positive, healthy relationships. The tension between these two
elements of his internal character creates an emotional instability that
manifests itself externally through acts of both submission and violence.
Take, for instance, Samson’s responses to the Timnah woman. He starts
out by outwardly submitting to the woman and her requests to have
Samson reveal to her the answer to his riddle: “On the seventh day, since
she importuned him, he told her the answer,” (Judges 14:17). On some
level, his revelation is a self-sabotage in which he sets himself up to be
betrayed. On another level, however, it is also a sign of his affection to-
wards the woman and a symbol of their new status as man and wife.
Conversely, after he finds out about the woman’s betrayal, Samson re-
sponds by immediately killing thirty innocent men in order to pay his
debt to the Timnah woman’s kinsmen. And again, later, when the wom-
an’s father informs Samson that she has been given away to his best man,
Samson responds by torching the fields and vineyards of the Philistines.
In both cases, Samson is confronted with situations that could poten-
tially produce tremendous emotional angst (betrayal, loss, etc.) and
responds with a violent physical outburst.
Samson follows this exact same pattern in the Delilah episode as well. It
once again begins with his submission to his wife (when Samson reveals
the secret of his strength to Delilah) and ends with violent destruction.
What is particularly interesting in this case is that Samson’s self-sabotage
is even more blatantly clear here. In fact, Delilah unsuccessfully attempts
to betray Samson three times before he eventually gives her the informa-
tion she needs to finally subdue him. In each of the three attempts she
shouts out, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” (Judges 14:9-20),
thereby implicating her direct role in the ambush. Thus, Samson must be
aware of her hostile intentions, and yet he submits to her anyway. Once
the betrayal is officially complete, Samson responds with his typical vio-
lent outburst, resulting in his death and the death of those who sought to
destroy him.
Catherine A. Lutz has suggested that, “The person who has [emotion-
ally] ‘fallen apart,’ needless to say, is unable to function effectively or
forcefully. On the other hand, emotions are literally physical forces that
push us into vigorous action” (Lutz 1990, 70). In Samson’s case, we can
certainly see both of these emotional manifestations. His desire to enter
into a loving relationship, coupled with his conflation of positive and
negative elements of love that stems from his estranged parent/child
relationships from his youth, leave Samson unable to “function effec-
tively” in response to the women who importune him. He willingly and
passively submits to their requests and their betrayals. However, his
subsequent emotional responses to these betrayals, marked by injured
pride, anger, abandonment, and hurt, lead him into “vigorous action” in
which he seeks to bring about the destruction of others, and eventually,
even himself.
Furthermore, we cannot overlook the important role that gender plays
in the development of these scenes. Lutz concludes her quote (cited
above) by noting, “women are construed in a similar contradictory
fashion as both strong and weak,” (Lutz 1990, 70). In a sense, both the
Timnah woman and Delilah serve as mirrors for Samson’s emotional
instability. Consider, for example, how each woman exerts power in a
similar way. They both prey upon Samson’s affections towards them in
order to get him to divulge secret information which, if leaked, could be
potentially threatening to him. And, even after Samson learns of their
betrayals, he still returns to the women (after murdering the 30 inno-
cents, he returns to Timnah only to find out that his wife has been given
away, and he stays with Delilah after each of the first three times she
openly betrays him). Clearly, within the confines of their relationships
with Samson, the two women are in positions of power, while Samson is
in the position of submission.
However, the two women must ultimately engage in the act of submis-
sion as well. It should be noted that each of the women only betrays
Samson after they are approached by men more powerful than they are.
In the case of the Timnah woman, she submits to the demands of her
male kinsmen to find out the answer to Samson’s riddle. Delilah, mean-

10 11
while, submits to the requests of “the lords of the Philistines,” to “Beguile
him, and find out the secret of his great strength, and how we may over-
come and bind him” (Judges 16:5). Thus, we see that Samson submits
to the women, who in turn, submit to more powerful male figures. The
women, as both passive and active figures, serve to remind us of both
the passive and active elements of Samson’s emotional manifestations.
Lastly, before we delve into the discussion of how these considerations
play into pictorial representations of the narrative, let us briefly examine
Samson’s final defining act: his destruction of the temple. For ultimately,
it is here where we find our final suggestion that Samson is perhaps not
a “champion of his nation,” but simply a vulnerable, and emotionally
devastated man. While many have argued that Samson’s destruction
of the Philistine temple represents an act of self-sacrifice in which he
allows himself to be killed order to kill the enemies of his people, there
are several clues to suggest that this is not necessarily the case. Turning
back to our discussion of appraisal, it seems clear that Samson’s actions
throughout the narrative have been guided by considerations of how ob-
jects and circumstances affect him, not the Israelites as a whole. Thus, for
example, he defies his people and attempts to marry a Philistine woman.
Even more importantly, however, is what he says as he is bringing down
the pillars of the temple. He cries out to God, “Strengthen me, O God,
this last time that for my two eyes I may avenge myself once and for all
on the Philistines” (Judges 16:28). His concern, as he expresses it, is not
on avenging his people, but on avenging himself, on avenging the loss of
his eyes at the hands of the Philistines. It is, as we have seen throughout
the narrative, yet another example of a violent response to an emotional
stimulus. Emotionally unstable from the very beginning, Samson’s story
culminates with the ultimate self-sabotage: suicide.
To begin our discussion of the imagery, it is necessary that we first
address the issue of embodied emotions. Paul Kruger suggests, “It is a
universal psychological phenomenon that emotions are imagined to be
localized in the human body” (Kruger 2005, 651). As we have seen in
our exploration of the text thus far, the reader is given clues as to Sam-
son’s emotional states through his outwards acts of either submission
or violence, but in truth, Samson’s emotions are rarely, if ever, directly
referenced. While Kruger goes on to note that, “There are characteristic
facial expression which are observed to accompany anger, fear, erotic
excitement, and all the passions” (651), the reader is never given any
concrete indication from the author as to what facial expressions Sam-
son is exhibiting at any given moment. Because the traditional modes of
emotional expression via the face (manipulating the eyes, mouth, nos-
trils, tongue etc.) are never referenced within the text itself, any pictorial
representations of scenes from the narrative must necessarily rely upon
the individual interpretation of the artist.
As we have already noted, the most common pictorial representations
show Samson as a virtuous warrior and champion of his people. The
scenes most commonly reproduced are those in which Samson’s strength
and physical domination are on full display (for instance, his destruc-
tion of the temple). However, artists such as Rembrandt have followed
an interpretation more closely resembling the one outlined in this paper,
wherein Samson is a vulnerable, tragic figure. As Madlyn Kahr explains,
“Rembrandt shows Samson not as the hero fighting the oppressors of his
people, but as the victim” (Kahr 1973, 252). Let’s consider an example.
In Samson Accusing His Father-in-Law (http://www.biblical-art.com/
artwork.asp?id_artwork=394&showmode=Full), Rembrandt seeks to
paint the moment of confrontation that occurs when the father of the
Timnah woman tells Samson that he has given his (Samson’s) wife to his
best man. This is an event from the narrative that is actually very rarely
depicted artistically, as it contains virtually none of the heroic elements
typically associated with many prominent depictions of Samson. Indeed,
this is not a scene in which valiant demonstrations of strength and cour-
age are boldly on display, but is instead a moment of great emotional
tension and anxiety. In the painting, Samson has presumably just been
given the bad news by his father-in-law, and he responds by angrily
shaking his fist in the air. And yet, in closely examining the facial fea-
tures of Samson, it seems that Rembrandt has imparted the title charac-
ter with emotions that extend far beyond mere anger. In fact, there is a
kind of hurt and sadness emanating from Samson’s eyes, suggesting the
overarching emotional complexity of the scene. Samson is not simply a
vengeful, angry warrior of God, but is instead a vulnerable, emotionally
fragile human being. His attempts to overcome his feelings of emotional
estrangement by entering into a relationship with another woman have
ended in failure and rejection. That rejection has, at the very moment
depicted within the painting, sparked an emotional response within
Samson that will subsequently lead to violent outward action and the

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destruction of both people and property.
Other artists, portraying more commonly depicted scenes from the
narrative, attempt to impart this sense of vulnerability into the figure of
Samson by downplaying his acts of triumph. Take for example, the piece
Samson Carries the Gates of Gaza by Henri Paul Motte (http://www.
biblical-art.com/artwork.asp?id_artwork=30726&showmode=Full).
Here we are presented with the scene in which Samson rips the gates
from the city of Gaza after he has spent the night with the harlot.
Motte depicts the gate as being significantly larger than Samson, and
thus requiring a seemingly super-human level of strength in order to
carry it. Samson is, therefore, made out to be the consummate figure of
valiant strength. Conversely, Hesdin’s illumination Samson Carrying
the City Gates of Gaza (http://www.biblical-art.com/artwork.asp?id_
artwork=16383&showmode=Full) depicts a much different interpreta-
tion of the scene. Here, Samson carries two small doors that easily fit
under each arm. The illumination seems to suggest not a mighty warrior,
but a petty and spiteful man. The diminutive size of the gates makes
Samson’s act of taking them at all seem almost ridiculous and comical,
for clearly, this is a man whose emotions simply got the better of him.
Samson’s taking of the gates, in this case, proves little, aside from the fact
that he is prone to rash action when confronted with emotional stimu-
lus.
Lastly, let us consider a pictorial example of the relationship outlined
earlier in the paper between gender and emotion. In Jacob Matham’s
engraving, Samson and Delilah, the artist depicts the moment in which
Delilah’s powerful triumph over Samson is finally realized. Samson
lies unconscious across her lap in a position of complete submission,
while Delilah looks down on him from above. It is interesting to note,
however, that there is no sign of joy or delight on Delilah’s face; instead,
she appears defeated and perhaps even more downtrodden than even
Samson himself. The presence of the man with the scissors as well as
the soldiers at the door serve as a reminder that whatever strength and
power Delilah might hold at a particular moment, it will nevertheless be
forever tempered by her position of relative weakness as a woman. Thus,
Delilah here mirrors the emotional struggles of Samson, who is ren-
dered alternately weak and powerful by his emotional impulses. Even,
here we see Samson’s emotional longing for love and acceptance on full
display through his act of full submission to Delilah. And yet, just as the
soldiers serve as a reminder of Delilah’s relative weakness in the face of
her display of power, they also serve as a suggestion of Samson’s relative
strength in the face of his display of weakness by foreshadowing what is
to happen in the temple.
Though the above samples represent but a few of the pictorial examples
of Samson as the vulnerable victim, it is my hope that it has become
increasingly clear just how important the act of interpretation is in form-
ing and developing artistic representations of scenes from the Samson
story. While the predominant depiction of Samson across the ages has,
admittedly, been of Samson as the model of supernatural strength and
cultural pride, there is indeed much within the text itself to suggest an
interpretation that grounds Samson as a much more vulnerable, perhaps
much more human figure. And though it is true that the acts of violence
and brute physical strength ascribed to Samson in Judges 13-16 do often
come across as being somehow superhuman or otherworldly, the un-
derlying motivations and the emotional impetus towards such action
suggests an internal fragility and psychological complexity that makes
Samson a figure of almost limitless intrigue. Thus, in the end, it seems
clear that we must ultimately look well below the surface of the text if we
are to truly begin to understand the figure of Samson and the emotions
that shape and accompany his, and perhaps all human experience.

14 15
References
Cornelius, Randolph R. 1996. The science of emotion: Research and tra-
dition in the psychology of emotions. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Gazely, Jef. 2007. Post-traumatic stress disorder: Symptoms and treat-
ment. http://www.asktheinternettherapist.com/counselingarchive_
PTSD.asp. Last accessed 13 April 2011.
Kahr, Madlyn. 1973. Rembrandt and Delilah. The Art Bulletin. College
Art Association. (June): 240-259.
Kruger, Paul A. 2005. “The face and emotions in the Hebrew Bible.” Old
Testament Essays: Journal of the Old Testament Society of South Africa.
18, no. 3. 651-663.
Lutz, Catherine A. 1990. Language and the politics of emotion. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shoenfield, Netta and Rael D. Strous. ��2008. Samson’s suicide: Psychopa-
thology vs. heroism. The Israeli Medical Association Journal : IMAJ 10,
no. 3 (April): 196-201.
Samson Accusing His Father-in-Law
Rembrandt, 1635
Oil on canvas
Source: http://www.biblical-art.com/artwork.asp?id_artwork=394&showmode=Full

16 17
Samson Carries the Gates of Gaza
Henri Paul Motte
Samson Carrying the City Gates of Gaza
Hesdin of Amiens, 1450-55
Illumination

18 19
Samson and Delilah
Jacob Matham, 1613
Copper Engraving
LIFE AFTER THE END OF THE
WORLD: COMMON THEMES IN SECULAR
ENGLISH-LANGUAGE POST-APOCALYPTIC
NARRATIVES, 2000-2010
MARY BETH HUTCHINSON
Introduction
One can hardly turn around in a book, video game, or comic book store without
seeing advertisements trumpeting the coming end of the world. Narratives about
the end of days have moved out of the realm of B-movies and pulp comic books
to be the stuff of mainstream entertainment. Post-apocalyptic works, defined
here as media that deals with the aftermath of a worldwide cataclysm that
threatens the extinction of humanity, tell big stories about the end of the world,
but they are, also attracting big audiences that are willing to pay to experience
them. Not only has there been a rise in the quantity of the apocalyptic narratives
but there has also been an increase in quality. In recent years apocalyptic
narratives have been the recipients of the Pulitzer Prize, the Peabody Award,
the Eisener award and other recognition in their respective fields. The question
then becomes what is driving this increase in fascination with the end of the
world and do these narratives share common themes that can be analyzed. My
contention is that these common themes do exist in these narratives and that
analyzing them can help to bring a fuller understanding of what the English-
speaking world both fears can destroy and believes can redeem humanity.
Scholarly Background
The academic conversation on this topic has been muted. The sources being
analyzed are from the past decade and thus have not had the time to accumulate

20 21
a body of literature around them. Only a few published articles such as Kyle
Bishop’s “Dead Man Still Walking: Explaining the Zombie Renaissance” directly
address the material examined here. A small number of monographs such as
Media and the Apocalypse as well as Apocalyptic Dread: American Film at the
Turn of the Millennium discuss the role of the apocalypse in at least some of the
media to be analyzed here. On the whole, however, an overall examination of
modern, secular post-apocalyptic narratives does not exist.
There are, however, robust conversations being held around other
related topics. Since most of the works to be examined were produced in the
United States, discussions around the topic of the apocalypse in American media
can be helpful. Both Douglas Robinson in his work American Apocalypses and
Zbigniew Lewicki in his work The Bang and the Whimper see the apocalypse
as a constant component of American literature. Others trace the upsurge in
apocalyptic literature to recent historical events, in particular WWII. In his book
In a Dark Time, Joseph Dewey contends that the dropping of the atomic bomb
forced Americans to confront the apocalypse as a more immediate possibility.
Teresa Heffernan in her work Post-Apocalyptic Culture notes that the events of
WWII such as concentration camps and the dropping of the atomic bomb made
for a modern break with reason as a perfecting force. In his work Apocalyptic
Patterns in Twentieth Century Fiction David J Leigh notes, “such a century has
brought about what some have called the ‘end of history’ but what others have
called a conflict between traditional and modern societies. Given this historical
and cultural crisis for over a hundred years; it should not be surprising to find a
number of major literary texts that are truly apocalyptic.”1
Perhaps mainstream
popular culture is simply catching up with the larger literary trend in American
fiction.
1 David J Leigh, Apocalyptic Patterns in Twentieth Century Fiction, (Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008, xi
This tendency to see the apocalyptic as a natural (even reasonable)
response to the modern world and all its tribulations is a common theme
throughout discussions of the apocalypse in modern times. While Norman Cohn
famously characterized apocalyptic movements as fringe and marginalized,
apocalypse has had a place in American mainstream discourse for decades if
not centuries.2
Stephen O’Leary directly challenges Cohn’s characterization of
the apocalyptic movements, showing through his word how apocalypticism can
often be a mainstream phenomenon. O’Leary’s idea that apocalyptic thought has
been a constant feature of American religious thought and that such thought
often moves from the fringe to the wider population comfortably mirrors what
can be seen in the movement of secular apocalyptic narratives (especially that of
a zombie infestation) from a cult phenomenon to a blockbuster trend. Two of
O’Leary’s three “principal topoi of apocalyptic argument” (authority and evil) can
be seen as common themes in modern post-apocalyptic media examined here.3
2 Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millenium, (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1961)
3 Stephen D. O’Leary, Arguing the Apocalypse: A Theory of Millenial Rhetoric.”
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 16

22 23
Sources
Given the sheer quantity of English-language works that have been produced
in the past decade that deal with the post-apocalypse, selecting specific works
to analyze can be daunting. There exists a mountain of examples available in
movies (Land of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, 28 Days series,
Matrix series, The Book of Eli), television (Jericho, reality show The Colony, Dark
Angel, upcoming Falling Skies), video games (Left 4 Dead series, Fallout series,
Half-Life series, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare, Gears of War series),
comic books (Crossed, The Walking Dead, Y: The Last Man, Marvel Zombies)
and books (The Road, World War Z, Zombie Survival Guide, Books of Ember,
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies). These are only the blockbuster titles. Dozens,
if not hundreds, of independent or smaller titles could be added as well. This
listing also doesn’t include revivals (Terminator series, Battlestar Galactica, I Am
Legend, Dawn of the Dead, Planet of the Apes) and creations that have crossed
media (The Road became a movie, for example, while The Walking Dead became
a television show). This study could easily focus on dozens of films, novels and
other works and still just scratch the surface of what is available.
To simplify the study (as well as reasonably limit the number of narratives
that a reader should become familiar with) I have selected a source representing
each of the media that will be analyzed: Battlestar Galactica for television series,
Fallout 3 for videogames, The Walking Dead for comic books, The Road for
novels, and 28 Days Later for movies. These sources were selected not only
for their critical and commercial successes but also their wide availability. Wide
broadcast, releases and circulations assure that these works are not simply
examples of niche products, but rather represent mainstream examples of the
genre. Other sources will be briefly commented on in order to provide support
for conclusions, but these five works will serve as the backbone of this study.
Additional commentary on the works, most often provided by the creators
themselves in interviews available to the public will also be used to give insight
into the works and what inspired their creation. As all of these works have been
selected from differing media (in fact, that was part of the logic in their selection)
some considerations must be made concerning how the media has affected the
message of the work. These works are serialized or self-contained, interactive or
passive, printed or filmed. Yet despite their differences in presentation and story,
these works show remarkable similarity in the themes they examine.
Methods
Despite the diversity of sources being analyzed, the methods used to analyze
them will be similar. All will be analyzed using standard literary analysis to tease
out their respective messages. Where is the setting? Who are the characters?
What are their motivations? While some media have their own specialized
questions that can be asked of the material (Why is the shot framed this way?
Why does the style of illustration differ in this panel?), these more standard
questions cut across media and into the heart of the message being conveyed
by their creators. The explanation of the creators themselves will also assist. Here
the relative newness of the materials being analyzed is a boon to the researcher.
Interviews and commentaries from the creators themselves assist in analyzing
exactly what the message was intended to be.
Man’s Culpability
Similarities between works can be seen early on in the event that starts off
many of these stories: the apocalypse. That is not to say that all of the narratives
begin with the same cataclysmic event. In Fallout 3 the player adventures across
a nuclear wasteland. An outbreak of the Rage Virus turns Great Britain into a
hellscape filled with zombies in 28 Days Later. The fleet of survivors in Battlestar
Galactica flees a race of human made robots bent on revenging themselves on

24 25
their makers. A number of narratives provide little explanation for what has
happened to the world. The Walking Dead, perhaps following in the footsteps
of legendary zombie movie director George A Romero, gives no concrete
reason for why the dead will not stay dead anymore. In The Road, Characters’
remembrances of the cataclysm that blocks out the sun give only a patchwork of
clues as to what could have caused the destruction.
When there is a concrete explanation for how the world came to an
end, creators make humanity at least partly culpable for their own destruction.
Take, for example, the case of the humans in Battlestar Galactica. The Cylons
were a race of synthetic beings created to make life easier on the colonies (a
group of 12 planets united by a single government). The Cylons, however, turn
on their masters and the two races fight to a bloody standstill. The viewer joins
the story with that conflict forty years in the past and the human race ready to
leave the war and Cylons to the history books. Of those unwilling to let humanity
forget is Captain William Adama. At the ceremony decommissioning the warship
Galactica, Captain Adama goes off script and delivers a speech:
“When we fought the Cylons, we did it to save
ourselves from extinction, but we never answered the question
why. Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit
murder because of greed, spite, jealousy, and we still visit
all or our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the
responsibility for anything that we have done. Like we did with
the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. When that life
turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge
that it really wasn’t our fault, not really. You cannot play God
and then wash your hands of what you have created. Sooner or
later, the day comes when you can’t hide from the things that
you’ve done anymore”4
The speed at which that day of reckoning comes surprises even Captain
Adama. Within a few days, all of their home planets will have been scorched
4 Battlestar Galactica, “Battlestar Galactica: Miniseries,” 2005
barren by Cylon nuclear attacks. While Adama is initially resolved to fight back,
he is convinced by new president of the Colonies Laura Roslyn to take the last
remaining survivors and flee into uncharted space. The rest of the series follows
the fleet’s efforts to elude the Cylons while trying to find a new home, perhaps
even the Earth mentioned in their sacred texts.
The speech itself excellently encapsulates a number of characteristics
found throughout the genre. The source of humankind’s destruction is often
human made and it almost always comes as a result of human beings trying
to “play God.” In the case of Battlestar Galactica humanity did more than
simply tinker with the materials of the world, they created life. That life was not
intended to have any independence of its own any more than a ratchet or a
hammer would. Its only purpose was to ease humanity’s burdens, to make life
easier. What humanity did not seem to realize is that they were more creating
a child than a tool. Before the second war begins, a Cylon agent warns Gaius
Baltar, a brilliant scientist who unknowingly allowed the Cylons to infiltrate the
colonies’ defense system, that “humanity’s children are returning home today.”5
The human’s scientific reach exceeded their moral grasp and when the Cylons
eventually tired of being a means to an end, they turned on their makers.
The Cylons’ use of nuclear weapons in destroying their human creators
is also significant. Since the inception of the atom bomb, science fiction writers
have seen nuclear weapons as a serious threat to the continuation of humanity.
Their enormous initial destructive power coupled with their lasting radiological
side effects make them prime candidates for bringing an end to the human race.
In both Battlestar Galactica and Fallout 3 the main source of human destruction
is nuclear weapons. The vague descriptions of the cataclysm as “a long sheer of
light and then a series of low concussions…a dull rose glow in the windowglass”
coupled with the ash that coats the earth also seem to imply that some sort

26 27
of nuclear destruction created the grey world of The Road.6
Had humanity
not developed these weapons, the apocalypse may never have happened. It is
humankind’s avarice for god-like destructive power that causes it to create the
source of its own destruction.
The biological sciences also provide opportunity for humanity to play
God and sow the seeds for its own destruction. Humanity’s manipulation of the
very basic elements of life often leads to the release of a destructive pathogen
into the world. The current trend in zombie literature is to link the rise of the
undead to a virus or pathogen transmitted to victims by blood or bite. Sometimes
the virus naturally arises. Often, however, it is human made. The Rage Virus that
creates the zombies in 28 Days Later is released from a lab by a group of well
meaning animal rights activists. In the series Resident Evil, a shadowy corporation
created the virus that creates the zombies. A brilliant scientist in the comic book
series Y: The Last Man is the source of a “plague” that kills all animals with a Y
chromosome except a single man and his pet capuchin monkey. In all of these
works the ability for humankind to manipulate that life at the microscopic level
leads to mass death.
Whether it is by robotics, nuclear weapons, or bioengineering, new
sciences have given people an exponentially more powerful ability to create and
destroy life. That so many of these narratives place the blame for humankind’s
destruction at the feet of science and human beings’ abuse of it speaks volumes
about the power of the science of the modern age and our own distrust of our
ability to control that power. The blame for these abuses that inevitably lead to
the destruction of the human race is communal rather than individual. Typically
the protagonists of the stories had little to do with the development or abuse
of the technology that lead to the disaster. Characters are generally likeable
people with families and jobs who knew nothing of the coming disaster. That
these characters have to suffer the consequences for someone else’s mistake is
6 Cormac McCarthy, The Road (New York: Alfred E Knopf, 2006), 45
often shown as unfair. The blame for the apocalypse falls on the community as a
whole.
Failure of Authority
In most of the post-apocalyptic works of this era, there is a spectacular failure of
authority to either protect humanity from the apocalypse or to provide comfort
after.
Government is often portrayed as useless in the face of disaster. As
discussed in the previous section, government failed to protect its citizenry from
the power of its own technology. Failure of regulation allows science to get out
of hand and become a danger to humankind. Once the cataclysm is in full swing,
government is portrayed as bumbling or a danger to its own people. In zombie
movies, it is common to have government officials advise citizens to congregate
in cities or safe havens so that the government can better protect them. This, of
course, only puts all of the tasty humans together in one spot, and the zombies
predictably overrun the safe havens, killing everyone. Those most likely to
survive in these scenarios are those individuals unable or unwilling to take the
government’s advice. Acting independent of the government’s advice will usually
save your life.
Governments rarely survive long after the apocalypse (notable
exceptions being those of Y: The Last Man and Battlestar Galactica). While the
large institutions of government are usually destroyed, some remnant of that
authority usually does persist. There is a preponderance of soldiers and police
officers among the characters of post-apocalyptic fiction. By virtue of their past
professions and their authoritative personalities, soldiers and cops often become
leaders of whatever group of survivors they belong to. Whenever a remnant of a
government is able to maintain itself, the pressures of the situation often warp it.
Major Henry West, the commanding officer of a small group of soldiers living in

28 29
a fortified mansion in 28 Days Later, is only able to maintain discipline and moral
by promising to find women for the men. In Fallout 3 the Enclave, a remnant
of the pre-war government threatens to poison the water supply and is one of
the player’s main adversaries. The destruction of governmental authority may be
seen as a narrative necessity. After all, an apocalypse just isn’t an apocalypse with
out the destruction of the government. Things cannot get truly bad unless the
government safety net burns up with the rest of the word
Religious authority is often as doomed as governmental authority in the
post-apocalypse. It is worth mentioning that since these works address the end of
the world through a secular perspective, references to the religious aspects of the
end of the world are rare and often tangential. Despite the chestnut that “there
are no atheists in foxholes” there are also no theologians in a zombie attack.
Religious musings are often limited to expressions of anger towards God, disgust
at those who imply the end is part of God’s divine plan, or apathy. Characters
that do ask what it all means or whether or not this is the end prophesied in Holy
Scripture are usually portrayed as unhinged or a nuisance, not the least because
the apocalypse being a divine act would imply that loved ones and humanity had
to die for its fulfillment.7
When religious references are made, organized religion
comes out looking as ineffective as government.
In 28 Days Later one of the first places main character Jim investigates
after waking from a coma is a church. Graffiti on the wall reads “the end is
extremely f---ing nigh,” a play on the stereotypical homeless zealot standing on
a street corner with a cardboard sign warning of the impending end of days.
From the balcony of the church, Jim sees the pews stacked with dead bodies
and zombies. The first zombie to attack Jim is the church’s priest. Religion clearly
7 Those looking for an in-depth discussion of religion would be well advised to
seek out the serialized works of the genre. Both The Walking Dead, Y: The Last Man,
and Battlestar Galactica (the serialized works examined here) offer the most nuanced
discussion of religion. The space afforded by dozens of episodes or issues allows for
creators to touch on religion more often.
could not protect this congregation from the apocalypse.
After the apocalypse, any serious discussion of religion and what the
cataclysm could mean from a religious perspective usually only occurs during
times and places of sanctuary. Once characters are safe from immediate threat
and feel safe enough to return to religion once more, that religion can become
just as twisted as any remnant of government. An unexploded atomic bomb in
the center of a city, for example, becomes the object of worship in Fallout 3. The
remaining women of the Catholic Church in Y: The Last Man are reduced to criss-
crossing the globe searching for the virgin birth of a male who could become
pope in order that that new pontiff will issue a decree permitting women to take
over leadership of the Church.8
Positive depictions Herschel, a farmer and survivor in The Walking Dead,
is a rare character that keeps his faith despite the destruction. Arguing with his
daughter who contends that the zombie apocalypse negates the Bible, Herschel
responds, “This could be the resurrected dead during the rapture. We could be in
the seven years of tribulation…Being tested and strengthened […] It’s all about
faith, honey. My faith ain’t never been stronger.”9
Herschel’s commitment to
his faith and finding comfort in it in the face of destruction is rare, however. An
unspecified spirituality can often survive the cataclysm but, for most characters,
the apocalypse is not a reason to start believing in organized religion, but a
reason to stop.
The message of the post-apocalyptic genre is clear: don’t trust the man.
In the end, when the world is on the line, government will teeter and fall while
religion remains silent and without answers. You must be prepared to protect
and provide for yourself. Anti-establishment tendencies run deep throughout the
post-apocalyptic genre.
8 Brian K. Vaughan, Y: The Last Man, #40
9 Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead, #41

30 31
Humanity and Evil
What happens when humanity is left on its own with out the guidance of the
major sources of authority? This is one of the primary questions posed by the
post-apocalyptic genre. As we have seen in the previous section, the world after
the apocalypse lacks almost all of the basic structures that society relies on to
maintain order and good behavior. In a world with out police forces, prisons,
legal systems and the dozens of other systems that keep citizens insulated from
the hard realities of self-defense and survival. Accordingly in efforts to protect
themselves and their group, characters often walk a fine line between doing
what needs to be done and becoming evil.
Many (some might even say most) of the people living in the post-
apocalypse fail to walk that line. These worlds are filled with individuals who
have stepped over the line to become forces of mayhem and destruction. Many
of the player’s main opponents in Fallout 3 are mutants, slavers and raiders who
would beat you to death as soon as look at you (maybe not the slavers. They
would rather sell you into some horrific bondage). The Road and is populated
by just as many horrors. While the need to find food, water, and shelter are
pressing, father and son expend just as much energy hiding from fellow humans.
Even father and son find it difficult to maintain their morality. Although the
father tells stories that reinforce the idea that the two of them are “the good
guys,” the son challenges “Yes. But in the stories we’re always helping people
and we don’t help people.”10
The savage forces unleashed by the cataclysm often
kill those without the stomach for violence and brutal justice, leaving only the evil
and the those who struggle with the task of staying alive while maintaining their
humanity.
One excellent example of this struggle is the character of Rick in The
Walking Dead. Before zombies overran the world, Rick was a small town
cop. After finding his wife and son among a group of survivors camped out
near Atlanta, Rick joins group and almost immediately assumes a position
of leadership within it. After leading the group to sanctuary in the form of a
fortified prison, he tries to institute some of society’s rules. “You kill, you die,” he
announces to the group.11
Almost immediately he breaks his own rule by putting
a bullet in the brain of a survivor who threatened to toss everyone else out of the
prison sanctuary.12
When the murder is uncovered, Rick doesn’t deny it, calling
his own rule naïve and unenforceable.13
As the series progresses, it becomes clear
that Rick will do just about anything to protect those around him, especially his
family. After killing a man who threatened to disclose the location of the prison
to a dangerous enclave of other survivors, Rick discusses the death with his wife.
Rick admits
“I’d kill every single one of the people here if I thought it’s keep
you safe. I know these people—I care for these people—but I
know I’m capable of making that sacrifice. I find myself ranking
them. Sometimes—looking at them and thinking—who do I
like the most—who do I need the most—just in case something
happened and I had to choose. I’ve seen so many die already—I
have almost no attachment to these people at all anymore…
and I could kill any one of them at any moment for the right
reasons”
Rick turns to his wife and asks “Does that make me evil? I mean—isn’t that
evil?”14
Both disturbed, they admit that they don’t know. This willingness to
do anything in the name of self-defense passes to Rick’s son. Later in the series
the group is faced with a particularly difficult situation. A young boy has killed
his twin brother and shows other signs of being deeply mentally ill. Without
therapists, mental institutions or prisons, what should they do with the boy?
Imitating his father’s actions, Rick’s son (of about the same age as the murderous

32 33
little boy) does what most of the adults are unwilling to do and shoots the boy.15
Rick’s story shows how blurred the lines can become between good
and evil when survivors try to build a society from scratch. What rules of society
can be maintained (and must be maintained) if survivors wish to keep their
humanity? Different authors and creators may draw the line at different places
but all make this question a central theme of their work.
Family
If we have doubts about science, government, military, religion and human
beings’ moral compasses, what forces for hope can be found in post-apocalyptic
narratives. Invariably family offers the answer.
In nearly every instance, family (its preservation and its creation) serves
as the main motivation for characters. In Fallout 3, the player’s first major quest
revolves around finding the main character’s lost father. The reuniting of the
fractured Adama family of father William Adama, son Lee Adama, and pseudo-
daughter Kara Thrace is a major plot point that carries throughout the entire
Battlestar Galactica series. In The Walking Dead, Rick’s primary motivation once
he awakens from his coma and finds the world infested with the undead is to
find his family. Survival and survival of the family unit become the driving forces
behind the narratives in the post-apocalyptic genre.
The relationship between the father and son in The Road provides
perhaps the clearest example of this theme. The book centers almost exclusively
on the characters of the father and son. Other people will occasionally drift into
the story, but they are passing figures usually used only to put the duo in danger
or to explore their relationship. From very early on, it becomes clear that the boy
is the only thing that stops the man from putting a bullet in his brain. Before
his wife (the boy’s mother) kills herself she counsels her husband “One thing I
can tell you is that you won’t survive for yourself. I know because I would never
15 Robert Kirkman The Walking Dead, #61
have come this far. A person who has no one would be well advised to cobble
together some passable ghost.”16
The man clearly takes this advice to heart and
does everything he can to keep his little family together despite the dangers and
his own desire to die. Thinking to himself as he washes the gore of a man killed
by the father to defend his son, the father intones, “This is my child. I wash a
dead man’ brains out of his hair. That is my job.”17
If, unlike the father and son in The Road, characters have no surviving
family, they will often build a new family through sexual relationships. Unlike
many of the older apocalyptic literature, modern post-apocalyptic literature has a
liberated sexual ethic. Sex is one of the few pleasures left to survivors, and they
have a lot of it. Overwhelmingly, the couplings are heterosexual. Of the works
examined here only Y: The Last Man with its near extermination of the male
gender has any significant representation of homosexuality. Regardless, most
often these encounters merrily progress outside of the bounds of traditional
marriage (religious officials, justices of the peace, and caring whether or not
your relationship is officially sanctioned being hard to come by). That is not to
say that sex does not have consequences in these narratives. Feelings of betrayal
and jealousy can be just as easily aroused after the apocalypse as they could
be before. Moreover, pregnancy can be a particular danger given the extra
burden it will place on the parents and the lack of medical assistance available
for mother and child. In The Walking Dead, for example, the group of survivors
sits in stunned silence after Rick grimly informs them that Lori, Rick’s wife, is
pregnant. When a member of the group admits that he doesn’t know what to
say Rick remarks tersely, “‘Congratulations’ has worked for years”18
. While Rick
might assure the group that this is good news, a dark shadow is cast over any
pregnancy in the post-apocalyptic world, traditional marriage or

34 35
no. Overwhelmingly, however the result of these sexual relationships is positive.
Couples that meet after the apocalypse are quick to form new families. A
surprising number of these couples will quickly expand their family by adopting
orphaned or lost children. These non-traditional families become as strong a
motivating force as their traditional counterparts. Much as in the case of more
traditional families reunited after the apocalypse, family make characters turn
back when they should leave someone for dead and press on when they should
give up hope.
Here might be an opportune place to discuss gender. The subject of
gender in post-apocalyptic media is a discussion worthy of a paper in and of
itself. Unfortunately, space is only available for a passing glace at the topic.
A woman is rarely the principal character in a post-apocalyptic work (notable
exceptions being the Resident Evil franchise and the Dawn of the Dead reboot)
and overwhelmingly the creators of post-apocalyptic works are men. The topic
itself is further complicated by the sheer diversity of media examined here. Two
post-apocalyptic works can have vastly different treatments of gender. The
Walking Dead, for example, has a large, diverse cast of characters and many
of the women are certainly skilled. Andrea is unquestionably the best shot in
the group. Alice is invaluable as a self-taught medic. Largely, however, women
are defined as wives, mothers, girlfriends, or insane, rarely assume roles of
leadership, and often do not get storylines of their own. Kirkman does seem
aware of the disparity. When Rick is informed by fellow survivor Dale that a new
committee made up of four men will be making decisions for the group, Rick
twice puts Dale on the spot: “No women?” Dale smiles, “I know. If Donna [Dale’s
late wife] were here…It wouldn’t be pretty, that’s for sure.” He tries to reassure
Rick that the decision was democratic “That’s how they wanted it…I think they
just want to be protected.”1920
It is a long, wordy scene, and Kirkman appears
19 Readers will forgive this researcher’s skeptical scoff
to take great pains to assure his readers that there is no implied misogyny
intended. When compared to other works, however, The Walking Dead suffers
by comparison. Women in the world of Battlestar Galactica are fighter pilots,
mothers, mechanics, wives, religious leaders, and Cylons. President Roslyn is
President Laura Roslyn. Compared to the rounded characterization of Battlestar
Galactica, the women of practically flat.
The women who are most likely to survive the post-apocalypse do
take on some traditionally “male” characteristics. The most long-lived female
protagonists often occupy positions usually associated with men: secret agent
and geneticist (Y: The Last Man), president and soldier (Battlestar Galactica),
markswoman and swordswoman (The Walking Dead). Additional traditionally
“female” values such as sentimentality and mercy are often the first to be
abandoned in the new, more brutal reality. In zombie fiction, the inability to
bashing the skull of a zombified loved one is a huge liability. Survival can often
dictate swift, brutal justice. Sharp-eyed observers during the 2008 presidential
election might have spotted campaign material for “Roslyn/Airlock ’08: Sensible
solutions for desperate times” a reference to President Laura Rosyln and her
tendency to deal with dangerous people by shoving them out of the Galactica’s
airlock.21
In the post-apocalypse there is no room for dead weight. Characters
without a skill with which to protect him or herself or to use as leverage within
a group do not last long in the end of the world. A woman must be able to take
care of herself since there are few men willing, able or kind enough to take care
of her.
What women can represent most potently in these works (to bring the
discussion back to the topic of family) fertility and the possibility for a future.
Along with children, women are the living representation not necessarily of a
better tomorrow, but of any tomorrow. Watching a young couple coyly flirt
21 The t-shirt was once available through Glarkware.com and has sadly been
discontinued

36 37
Captain Adama repeats the sentiment expressed to him by President Roslyn
(“They need to start having babies”) and decides to give up the hopeless war
against the Cylons in favor of fleeing and giving the human race a chance to
survive22
. The absence of women and children can warp the men left behind.
After finding one of his soldiers ready to kill himself, Major Henry West of 28
Days Later promises to give his men hope for the future (i.e. find them women).
When the protagonists stumble upon the military enclave, the women (including
a teenage girl) are held hostage while their male companion is taken out into the
forest to be executed. Only a daring rescue by that same man saves them from
being gang raped. The situation is seen as even darker when humanity perverts
the fertility of women and abandons the future promised by children. In one of
the most horrifyingly memorable scenes in The Road, father and son examine
the campsite of group that passed on the road. Suddenly, the little boy clutches
his father. “What is it? He said. What is it? The boy shook his head. Oh Papa, he
said. He turned and looked again. What the boy had seen was a charred human
infant headless and gutted and blackening on the spit.”23 24
After long days of
staying silent, the boy finally asks his father where the people got the infant. The
father does not answer but the reader will remember that when the group first
passed it included a pregnant woman.
The perversion of the family, however, is relatively rare. Overall, the drive
to maintain or create a family is a motivation for good, giving characters a reason
to keep putting one foot in front of another in a hostile world.
23 McCarthy intentionally keeps punctuation to a minimum in The Road. The
effect can be as spare and eerie as the dying world he creates.
Conclusion
What can be drawn from the common themes found in the post-apocalyptic
works of the past decade? In examining the causes of the apocalyptic scenarios
readers and viewers can see a deep distrust of new science. The creators of
these works view sciences that have arisen in the past half-century with distrust.
Robotics, genetics, and nuclear technologies are all viewed as the possible source
of the destruction of the human race. Humankind does not have the ability to
control the power that these new technologies give and thus is destroyed by it.
Once this cataclysm does arise, the traditional sources of protection and comfort
(the government, military, and organized religion) will fall away. What is left
of humanity will be left to find its own way, doing what it needs to survive or
reveling in the destruction. One of the few rays of hope that exist in the world
is family and all of the hope for the future that it brings. The family is one of the
few traditional institutions seen as strong enough to persist through the end of
the world. Its strength, however, often comes from its flexibility. Non-married
couples caring for non-biological children are the norm as opposed to traditional
nuclear families. This theme of flexibility and independence is consistent
throughout the post-apocalyptic genre. Independent thinkers who disregard
government instructions are most likely to survive. Without the ability to adapt
their morality, survivors would fall victim to the brutal new realities of their
worlds. There is a tension, however, that exists between bending and breaking.
When characters become too flexible in their thinking they risk becoming evil. A
family can help root a character to their humanity. Individuals must be willing to
do what is necessary to survive, but they must also be able to look their families
in the eye. That pull between individual and community, between personal
survival and public responsibility rings throughout the post-apocalyptic genre of
the last decade.

38 39
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Company, Inc, 2007.
Enemies and Friends: Depictions of Germans
in British Postwar Films
PAUL KI
One of the most popular and financially successful post-World War II
British films was The One That Got Away (1957). It was about a daring
prisoner-of-war military pilot who, through his keen intellect and sheer
determination, manages to escape from his captors. The tense war film
attracted record numbers of movie-going audiences throughout Europe,
and a previously little-known actor named Hardy Kruger, who por-
trayed the charismatic hero, became an instant celebrity. These details
might sound similar to other familiar entertainment industry legends, in
which a popular film launches the career of its leading actor as he man-
ages to rise from meager beginnings and achieves fame. However, some
compelling additional information about Kruger and The One That Got
Away merits attention: Kruger was a German actor and a former mem-
ber of the Hitler youth, and in this British postwar film he portrayed
Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, a Luftwaffe pilot who was the only Nazi
that managed to escape from the British forces and return to his home-
land.1
British film studios still made and distributed standard-themed national
patriotic war films in which their brave military members fought and
defeated typical evil Nazi enemies. But The One That Got Away was
not an aberration; indeed, it was one of several British war films made
during the 15-year postwar cinematic period that presented positive,
and oftentimes sympathetic, portrayals of their hated former enemy—a
fact that adds to this historical conundrum. This point naturally raises
a few questions. Why did the British produce some postwar films that
favorably presented Germans and Nazis? What common qualities did
these German characters share? And did both the British and Germans
approve of these representations? This paper will present evidence
1 Melanie Williams, “The Most Explosive Object to Hit Britain since the V2!:
The British Films of Hardy Kruger and Anglo-German Relations During the 1950s.” In
Cinema Journal 46 (Autumn, 2006), 88-89.

42 43
applicable to these questions and show that British postwar social,
political and economic challenges that required improved relations with
Germany influenced their film studios to present depictions of favorably
defeated, nonthreatening and nonviolent Germans which the majority of
their audiences accepted.
The organization of this paper will begin with an examination of several
issues: Britain’s national sentiment towards Germans and Germany;
Britain’s postwar economic concerns; and the factors affecting their
film industry. Next, I will introduce and scrutinize three British post-
war films, including The One That Got Away, which reflect the influ-
ences the changing social times and economy had on war-themed films
and therefore show some Germans in positive and acceptable ways.
The purpose of this paper is to determine what prompted these artistic
choices, not to judge the decision makers or their decisions. So, the best
way of accomplishing this goal is by using fair and objective evidence
to support the argument.
The war devastated most European countries, including Britain. And
while they faced a long and difficult reconstruction effort, the majority
of the British people approached the undertaking together optimistically
in a time of peace with a sense of community solidarity and as victors
of the war. The British consciously decided to preoccupy themselves
with future rebuilding concerns and did not look back bitterly and pro-
test their involvement in the war because they viewed it as a necessary
undertaking.2
And why did the British people justify their inclusion in
the war? Because they believed they had to fight in order to defeat the
perceived inherently militaristic Germans. Not coincidentally, this at-
titude about the Germans reinforced their morally elite self perception,
as well. These convictions also explain why many British felt extreme
hatred for the Germans—because they believed the Germans forced the
British to sink to their sadistic level in order to defeat them, as Univer-
sity of Leeds historian Nicholas Pronay states in his survey of British
postwar films: “The central reason for the unforgiving, cold, hatred for
the Germans felt during and after the war was that they had forced ordi-
nary, sane, Englishmen to assimilate themselves to the world and ethos
2 Nicholas Pronay, “The British Post-Bellum Cinema: A Survey of the Films
Relating to World War II Made in Britain Between 1945 and 1960.” In Historical
Journal of Film, Radio and Television 8 (1988), 41.
of the soldiery.”3
This near-universal condemnation did not arise during
the 20th
century; it had existed well before the First World War.
During World War II this British race-directed hatred towards the
Germans found a distinctive label—Vansittartism, named after Sir
Robert Vansittart, the British Government’s Chief Diplomatic Advisor.
Its origin traces back to Vansittart’s 1940 BBC Overseas Service broad-
casts known as The Black Record, in which he espoused his viewpoint of
Germans as naturally aggressive and cruel. Vansittartism’s acceptance by
a significant portion of the British population contributed to a prevailing
notion of German collective guilt, which affected postwar debates over
whether or not all Germans shared responsibility for wartime atroci-
ties, and also whether a defeated Germany could successfully become
a part of the national European community.4
Vansittartism was espe-
cially prominent during the early years of the postwar period, but then it
gradually became less of a social and political factor with the emergence
of the Cold War and defeated Germany’s switching of alliances and a
new enemy in Russia.
The economy was an especially significant challenge for Britain during
the postwar era. The new Labour government had replaced the prewar
Conservative government and it nationalized industries and imple-
mented many social programs, but it ultimately did not succeed, leav-
ing Britain in major debt. Their national financial troubles impacted
their film industry, especially in 1947 when Britain’s attempt to increase
income by heavily taxing profits made by foreign films released in their
country, backfired after the United States retaliated by boycotting the
British market.5
Although the boycott lasted for only eight months, the
British film industry learned a lesson from this experience and decided
instead to try to tap the potential overseas film-going audience market
which now included a defeated Germany.6
3 Ibid., 48.
4 Terry Lovell, “’Frieda’” In National Fictions: World War Two in British Films
and Television, Geoff Hurd (London: BFI Publishing, 1984), 31.
5 John W. Williams, “Features of Post-War British Cinema.”Principia College.
http://www.principia.edu/users/els/departments/poli_sci/film_politics/brit1950.htm,
1.
6 Patrick Major, “’Our Friend Rommel’: The Wehrmacht as ‘Worthy Enemy’ in
Postwar British Popular Culture.” In German History 26 (2008), 531.

44 45
From 1945 to 1960, British studios made 85 war-themed films.7
Films
were “the principal medium of communication and attitude formation in
Britain,”8
meaning that filmmakers could potentially influence and profit
from tens of millions of people. They apparently managed to accom-
plish both, to some extent, as evidenced by the subject matter of some
of their war films and their box office returns, which “were the first or
second top-grossing British films in almost every year between 1955
and 1960.”9
The following three films, Frieda (1947), The One That
Got Away (1957), and Ice Cold in Alex, (1958), show the evolving Brit-
ish postwar perception of defeated Germans from being essentially sav-
age to having possibly the potential to become dependable allies against
a common enemy (Russia) in a new conflict (the Cold War)—a charac-
teristic that could also appeal to millions of paying German filmgoers.
The promotional poster for Frieda shows a picture of the film’s pro-
tagonist alongside the printed text of a question directed at the British
audience: “Would You Take Frieda Into Your Home?”10
Directed by
Basil Dearden for Ealing Studios, Frieda was a typical Ealing film in
that it promoted community values and public service, traits associated
with the studio at the time.11
The filmmakers thus used the national is-
sue of how to deal with a recently defeated Germany to present a similar
dilemma on a more intimate and personal level. Frieda Mansfeld is a
German nurse who helps Robert Dawson, a British RAF officer, escape
from a POW camp during the last year of the war. Out of gratitude
Robert marries Frieda so she can obtain a British passport and leave
Germany with him for his hometown. Initially Frieda has to deal with
animosity and prejudice directed at her from Robert’s family and the
other townspeople, all of whom cannot understand why Robert actually
decided to marry a German. One of Robert’s relatives, his aunt Nell, is
especially intolerant of Frieda, believing that all Germans are alike and
their supposed innate qualities caused both world wars.
7 Pronay, “The British Post-Bellum Cinema,” 39.
8 Idem.
9 John Ramsden, “Refocusing the People’s War: British Films of the 1950’s.” In
Journal of Contemporary History 33 (January, 1998), 42.
10 Alan Burton, Tim O’Sullivan and Paul Wells, eds., Liberal Directions: Basil
Dearden and Postwar British Film Culture (Wiltshire, UK: Flicks Books, 1997).
11 Ibid., 17.
After a few months, and after the end of the war and Nazi Germany’s
defeat, most everyone eventually accepts Frieda’s presence and welcomes
her into their community. Robert also seems to have genuinely fallen in
love with Frieda, so her future in Britain appears bright, until her broth-
er Richard unexpectedly arrives. Richard is now a member of the Polish
army, but he turns out to be a devout Nazi and a former concentration
camp guard who tortured prisoners. After he expresses his true nature
(and also falsely implicates Frieda), Robert physically confronts and
overpowers him. Although Robert had previously believed Frieda to
be free of culpability, he no longer thinks this to be true and denounces
her. Robert’s accusation drives Frieda to attempt suicide, which then
leads Robert to have another change of heart and he rescues Frieda and
accepts her once again.
Dearden uses several techniques in this film to emphasize the point that
British society is nonviolent and civilized. Frieda takes place during the
final year of the war, but the mise en scene mostly is in domestic, civilian
settings (e.g., Robert’s house, the town hall and the local pub) in fictional
Denfield, England, far away from wartime violence and destruction.
Dearden never portrays any British engaged in military combat. In fact,
there are only two scenes showing images of warfare or its consequences;
one takes place during the first scene in Krakow, Poland where Robert
and Frieda are exchanging wedding vows in a rushed evening marriage
ceremony in a dark, bombed-out church while nearby explosions dam-
age adjacent buildings; and the other scene occurs when Robert and
Frieda go to see a movie at the local theater and they along with the
rest of the audience observe actual newsreel footage of victims of Nazi
concentration camps. This stark contrast establishes Britain as a place of
refuge, and it also reinforces the notion that the British people are intrin-
sically civilized and peaceful.
The clothing worn by the actors also reflects a nonviolent/violent trait
dissimilarity. For example, once Robert returns home, he leaves his
military career, returns to civilian life as a schoolteacher and thus no
longer wears his military uniform. Richard, on the other hand, always
chooses to don his soldier’s attire. Even the earlier scenes with Frieda
show her wearing a plain black leather coat or dark dress, suggesting a
Nazi uniform. But later, when the townspeople gradually come to accept
her, she begins wearing light-colored clothing. The filmmakers’ choice

46 47
to distance the British characters from combat uniform imagery and
portray it instead onto the Germans, reflects a prevailing negative at-
titude towards combatants and battle: “The view that war is hell…that it
takes insanity to want a war, but also that it takes a kind of insanity to be
a soldier.”12
This distinction is significant because it illustrates the early
postwar conviction that the Germans are the naturally militaristic people
and are therefore the antithesis of the civilized British.
Frieda was a unique film of the postwar era because it presented both
condemnatory and approving depictions of Germans. Richard epito-
mizes the typical ‘bad’ German that the British faced and defeated in
reality as well as in numerous fictional films. In addition to Richard’s
choice of clothing, his ideology also defines him in this manner. Rich-
ard at first acts friendly and well mannered, but his façade eventually
gives way to his true nature, beginning with his disturbing gesture of
presenting a swastika necklace to Frieda for a wedding present. Then
later, in one scene with Frieda at Robert’s home, Richard admits openly
his desire to engage again in war: “War is my life. Music, books, they
are peace. What do I know of peace? What use is peace to me?”
Afterwards, Robert confronts Richard at the local pub when a for-
mer British POW soldier identifies Richard as one of his torturers at a
concentration camp where he had been held. Richard later admits this
privately to Robert, and then sadistically provokes him into a physi-
cal clash by incriminating Frieda: “What you see in me, you will find
in her…and in her children—in your children.” After Robert brutally
beats Richard, he returns to his home where he openly expresses in
front of his aunt and Frieda his desire for her to be dead. Robert’s
individual actions parallel the British national wartime exploits, where
they believed they had no choice but to resort to violence (and perhaps
even cruelty) in order to defeat a barbaric, militaristic enemy. Richard,
consequently, will not (or cannot) change his convictions and therefore
Robert (and the British) can never welcome him as an ally or a friend.
While Richard is a ‘bad’ German has no future in Britain, Frieda has
the characteristics of a ‘good’ German that allow her the opportunity to
secure an ideal life with Robert in Britain. Physically, she is not only
young and attractive; she is also nonthreatening.13
In fact, Frieda is the
12 Pronay, “The British Post-Bellum Cinema,” 48.
13 Burton, Liberal Directions, 131.
smallest adult in the film. In one scene, Robert’s adolescent stepbrother
Tony returns home one day after fighting with some of his classmates
over Frieda’s presence in Denfield, and Frieda tends to his wounds. She
performs this benevolent act, though, kneeling on the floor beneath the
boy. Frieda assumes her domestic role willingly by always helping
Robert’s other family members as well, and openly expresses her desire
to become a good wife for Robert. Frieda’s subordinate state presents
her as an appealing potential British society member because she solidi-
fies their perceived higher status, one which they believed they obtained
rightfully as the war’s successors over a barbaric people. Frieda’s
ideology also contributes to her ‘good’ German characterization. When
Richard professes his Nazi convictions to Frieda in Robert’s home, she
defies and denounces him: “I am one German; you are another.” She
then returns the swastika necklace to him and exclaims “This is your
Germany, it is not mine.”
Frieda’s possible culpability, however, remains an issue during most of
the film, and Dearden uses another technique to create a somber mood
whenever this point arises; he shows scenes in dark settings. For ex-
ample, when Frieda and Richard confront each other in Robert’s home,
they do so in Frieda’s room, which is barely illuminated by a candle and
as a result casts ominous shadows. And when Frieda and Robert watch
the newsreel footage of the concentration camps in the dimly lit theater,
they exit out to a dark, nighttime exterior where Frieda solemnly admits
to knowing about these atrocities. In his analysis of the film, Scholar
Terry Lovell likens this scene’s particular visual style to that of a hor-
ror movie.14
These techniques serve to raise suspicions over Frieda’s
involvement in and responsibility for Nazi war crimes. The filmmakers,
however, manage to absolve her through an act of self sacrifice at the end
of the film when she tries to kill herself by falling over a bridge into a
river only to be rescued by Richard.
When Ealing Studios released Frieda, British Prime Minister Winston
Churchill had already publicly urged for European countries to unite,
and the Treaty of Paris—which encouraged European, rather than indi-
vidual, national identities—would be signed just four years later.15
14 Lovell, “’Frieda’,” 32.
15 Burton, Liberal Directions, 130.

48 49
The early British postwar period, then, was notable for the philosophi-
cal debate that existed over whether Vansittartism still had a place in
their society, or if Germans should instead be regarded more favorably.
So, while Richard’s ‘bad’ German portrayal allowed British viewers to
justifiably condemn and indict remorseless, wholly evil German Nazis,
Frieda, the ‘good’ German, presented them with the opportunity to con-
sider establishing positive relations with their former enemy. This po-
tential goodwill gesture had its stipulations, however; the Germans had
to be nonthreatening and accepting of their defeated status; and they had
to admit responsibility and seek forgiveness for their nation’s wrong-
doings. Frieda, therefore, reaffirmed notions of British civility with
contrasting images of militaristic Germans, but the film also suggested a
possible future with harmless and repentant Germans as companions.
Mai Zetterling was a Swedish actress who played Frieda. The
filmmakers’ inability to cast a German for this role illustrates the stormy
national mood that existed after the war’s recent end, as Ronald Mil-
lar, the screenwriter whose play the film was based upon, recalls: “’[T]
he war was still an open wound and even if a German actress were to
be granted a work permit, which was highly unlikely even by a Social-
ist government, we had seen no German artists on film since before the
war.’”16
Their casting choice evidently proved to be successful because
Zetterling received mostly critical approval and praise; for instance,
she was chosen as the “most promising newcomer” by Kinematograph
Weekly.17
Her appeal, however, seemed to be attributed mostly to her
physical characteristics rather than her acting abilities. Leonard Mos-
ley of London’s Daily Express expressed this viewpoint aptly when he
gave his reply to the rhetorical question offered through the promotional
poster (“Would you take Frieda into your home?”): “When Frieda is the
Swedish star Mai Zetterling, who is not only lovely but can make her-
self look like a tired and frightened kitten, the answer is ‘Yes, sir!’”18
Whether or not Frieda managed to compel some British to consider
adopting a more tolerant attitude towards Germans (as the filmmakers
16 Alan Burton and Tim O’Sullivan, The Cinema of Basil Dearden and Michael
Relph (Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 283.
17 Ibid., 283.
18 John Ramsden, Don’t Mention the War: The British and the Germans Since
1890 (London: Little, Brown, 2006), 315.
had hoped), is difficult to gauge. But despite its controversial themes,
Frieda enjoyed mostly critical praise, a large viewing audience and
financial success: “Frieda appeared in several ‘Best Film of the Year’
lists, including the Daily Mail and the Daily Express. It featured in the
Motion Picture Herald’s—annual list of ‘Box-Office Champions.’”19
Some critics and scholars, though, gave mixed reviews for the film. Josh
Billings of Kinematograph Weekly praised Frieda as being provocative
and well made, but he came off as being chauvinistic and dismissive by
also labeling it as a melodrama targeted mainly for female audiences:
“Primarily made for the less subtle feminine mind, it carefully under-
lines its salient situations.”20
And in his written account of the history
of Ealing Studios, Charles Barr acknowledges Frieda’s profitability,
but argues that the film does not explore adequately the serious issues
around which the storyline revolves.21
One aspect of Frieda that particularly bothered several critics was its
ending, which Millar had changed from the stage version: “In the origi-
nal play, Frieda returns to Germany to extirpate her own—and her
nation’s—culpability and guilt, and to contribute to regeneration.”22
This
ending does not allow for Frieda the possibility of a happy and secure
future in Britain with Robert, so perhaps it is more plausible, consider-
ing the immediate European postwar social climate. For those disap-
proving reviewers, then, the film’s final scenes in which Robert rescues
Frieda after her suicide attempt and the couple reunites affectionately
came across as far-fetched.23
Aside from this critique, Frieda remains
compelling because it proposed that the British should attempt to de-
velop close, positive relations with their defeated and hated enemy. And
it suggested this charitable gesture right after the end of the war, when
fresh memories of Nazi atrocities stirred passionate feelings of anger
throughout Europe.
Approximately a decade after Ealing Studios released Frieda, Brit-
19 Burton and O’Sullivan, The Cinema of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph, 283.
20 Josh Billings, “Reviews for Showmen: Frieda.” In Kinematograph Weekly
3046 (June 26, 1947), 16.
21 Charles Barr, Ealing Studios (Woodstock: The Overlook Press, 1980), 76.
22 Burton and O’Sullivan, The Cinema of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph, 283.
23 “Frieda.” In Monthly Film Bulletin 14 (July 31, 1947), 94.

50 51
ish film studio Rank Organisation produced The One That Got Away,
directed by Roy Ward Baker. The film begins on September 5, 1940,
at Winchet Hill, Kent in England, with the shooting down of Franz von
Werra’s aircraft and his subsequent capture by the British. Von Werra’s
captors take him to two separate military bases in order to interrogate
him to try to make him disclose any sensitive information, which he
does not. Afterward, they transfer him to a POW camp where he at-
tempts his first unsuccessful escape during a scheduled exercise march.
While von Werra initially manages to get away after an opportune
moment when the guards are not monitoring him, a few days later the
British recapture him out in the remote countryside and then move him
to another POW camp.
Von Werra’s second attempt is much more elaborate than his failed first
try. This time, he digs a tunnel from one of the rooms past the outer
barbed-wire fence and guard tower and escapes from the camp. But
in order to get back to Germany, von Werra poses as a Dutch pilot and
accesses an RAF air base to try to steal a British airplane to flee the
country. The British capture him once again, however, and they relocate
von Werra along with the other German POWs to Canada. Von Werra
finally succeeds on his third attempt. After escaping while on a train,
he finds a small boat and makes it across an unfrozen section of the St.
Lawrence River to the United States, a neutral country at the time. The
filmmakers do not show von Werra’s eventual return to Germany. They
explain, through onscreen text, that he crossed into Mexico and then
through South America before finally reaching Berlin on April 18, 1941.
Von Werra is an intriguing character because he is a Nazi enemy who
does not want to ally with the British, but Baker manages to change von
Werra’s image to an appealing, acceptable German without eliminating
his national allegiance. One way he accomplishes this is by making von
Werra nonthreatening. In fact, he never resorts to violence in the film;
he always spends his time and energy trying to escape from the British.
And when the British capture and subsequently recapture him after his
escape attempts, he always surrenders immediately without resisting. In
one scene, his captors place him in a holding room at their military base
shortly after they shoot down his plane. Von Werra quickly goes over
to the window and begins to open it as if preparing to try to escape. He
stops, however, after seeing a woman with her child crossing the nearby
street. This act suggests to the viewer that von Werra is willing to re-
main a captive rather than risk creating a situation that might endanger
innocent people.
The interrogation scenes also help to convey a nonthreatening im-
age. During the first interrogation, the British officer and von Werra
share cigarettes and talk to each other while sitting in comfortable easy
chairs near a fireplace. Visibly, only their military uniforms indicate
the film’s war theme within this relaxing, domestic setting. The inter-
rogator eventually feels safe enough with von Werra and calls away the
guard standing watch just outside the office, but von Werra never tries to
escape or overpower the interrogator. In the second interrogation, von
Werra notices the British officer is permanently crippled as a result of
his military service. Von Werra, however, rather than displaying some
perverse sense of pleasure or satisfaction from seeing his enemy’s injured
state, shamefully apologizes: “Oh, I regret…I’m sorry.” So, despite von
Werra being a German military officer, philosophically he is not barbaric
and he does not desire hostilities, and thus viewers do not identify him
as a typical war-mongering Nazi soldier.
While the film takes place during the war, Baker minimizes Nazi ideol-
ogy and imagery. For instance, the only time viewers see a swastika is
during the initial capture scene, which briefly shows the symbol on von
Werra’s plane’s tail in the background. And throughout most of the film,
the German POWs do not wear military uniforms; von Werra, for in-
stance, wears a suit and tie each time the British transfer him to another
POW camp. In another scene, when the British are about to relocate the
German POWs to Canada, their commanding officer gives his soldiers
an inspiring, patriotic speech, to which they respond with several shouts
of “Sieg Heil!” One of the British soldiers, though, then tells them to
take their sandwiches before they leave. As University of Hull lecturer
Melanie Williams points out in her article analyzing the film, Nazi pride
“is swiftly brought back down to earth by the wry humor of a British
guard’s banal reminder to them.”24
This downplaying of Nazism thus
makes the German soldiers less threatening and therefore more tolerable
for the audience.
24 Melanie Williams, “’The Most Explosive Object to Hit Britain Since the V2!’:
The British Films of Hardy Kruger and Anglo-German Relations during the 1950s.” In
Cinema Journal 46 (Autumn, 2006), 91.

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