I am Legend in Context

Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend has been a deeply influential text, not only in sci-fi but also in positioning the figure of the vampire more broadly. The subsequent adaptations, The Last Man on Earth, Omega Man, and I Am Legend, all represent and reflect anxieties of their cultural moment. Matheson’s text offers fundamental differences from its adaptations, particularly in the exploration of the hero figure. Despite the vampires being on “the periphery” as Clasen argues, how they manifest threat is key to understanding what cultural shifts there have been. Through an examination of the different ways these texts have been read critically, we open up avenues for understanding the ideas at the heart of I Am Legend. It has been read with a focus on race, gender, science, and the post-apocalypse, and the contextual positioning offers a deeper understanding of the story’s implications. Ultimately, the texts have become an intertextual web, each impacting the other and subsequently impacting other vampire narratives that deal with the questions of boundaries and selfhood.