The Waltzing Dead : The Merit of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Abstract

When Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was published in 2009, the parody of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice that now takes place in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, few expected the novel to be more than a joke. However, it instead inspired a phenomenon that wholly consumed popular culture. The monster mashup fuses well-known classical literature with traditional horror monsters. In PPZ, the nineteenth-century novel of manners is introduced to the twentieth century monster of the Americas, the zombie. Through this combination, new interpretations of feminism, otherness, epidemics, and Gothic horror can be gleaned, providing a richer reading of both Austen's original text and Grahame-Smith's new text. The unusual combination of remix studies, zombie studies, and Austen studies has effectively created a monster.