I am legend - Richard Matheson
Daan Warmerdam
5H2
, Opdracht 1
Summary:
At the beginning of the book, we learn of Robert's daily struggles to push off the
vampires and repair all damage they do, to kill his attackers and dispose of their
bodies, and to endure their nocturnal taunts, howling and rock throwing. He has
boarded his house and hooked up a generator. To keep him alive he escapes the
disease and loneliness through music, art, gallows humor, and occasional binge
drinking. He has lost his wife and daughter to the dread disease that has converted
the population to vampires, and his former friend and co-worker (and vampire), Ben
Cortman, taunts him every day.
We learn that he had fought in a war in Panama, a war which the U.S. won, but
which brought in its wake dust storms, swarms of insects, and a plague which
converted the entire human population into vampires. Robert thinks immune to the
disease as a result of the bite of a vampire bat which sickened him but did not kill
him. One day, after a particularly vicious assault by swarms of vampires, Robert
resolves to figure out how to defeat them, "or ditch the whole mess, life included."
After his early experiments yield confusing results, Robert theorizes that some of the
disease's effects are psychological, induced by a sort of mass hysteria gleaned from
vampire legends. Robert learns how to use the microscope and is able to isolate the
bacteria that causes the disease. The discovery is significant as it confirms that the
belief in vampires is not based on superstition, but is a scientific fact.
One day, Robert befriends a stray dog who seems to have escaped the infection,
and after finally gaining his trust and affection, the dog is infected by the vampires
and dies. Two years later, Robert has once again settled into a pattern of day-to-day
survival. He has killed off most of the vampires, but the survivors continue to harass
him at night. Then he meets Ruth, a pretty young woman who has lost two children
to the disease and her husband to a vampire killer. Robert is not sure he can trust
her as she is repulsed by garlic, but says it is because she is weak from hunger and
shock. She agrees to let Robert test her blood the next morning. Robert shares with
her all he has learned about vampires, and they make love. Ruth allows Robert to
draw her blood, but begs him not to look at it under the microscope. When he does,
he sees that the germ has mutated. Ruth pounds his head with a mallet until he is
unconscious and leaves him a note confessing that the mutant vampires have
figured out a way to survive and sent her to spy on him and that it was Robert who
killed her husband. She professes to love him, and urges him to flee while he still
can.
Seven months later, Robert witnesses trained killers from the new vampire society
brutally execute six vampires and then riddle Ben Cortman with bullets as he tries to
crawl to safety. Next, they smash into Robert's house. He was prepared to surrender
peacefully, but now he believes they are out to kill him, so he shoots them. Robert is
seriously wounded in the crossfire, and is transported to a jail hospital. Ruth visits
him and announces that the new society is taking back the world with violence. She
says that the people hate and fear him for killing so many of them and want him
dead. She tells him that he can't fight them, there are too many of them, and gives
