The film White Zombie set in Haiti during its occupation has much in common with the reading The Magic Island by W.B. Seabrook. Both the film and the readings illustrate various superstitions and beliefs of Haiti people during this time. White Zombie shows dead people of Haiti being resurrected by a wicked white man. This man goes on to turn a women into a zombie so that another white land owner ca have her has his wife. W.B. Seabrook’s The Magic Island discusses many superstitions of the people of Haiti. These superstitions include Fire-hags, Vampires, Werewolves, and Zombies. The narrator goes on to say “It seems to me that these Werewolves and Vampires are first cousins to those we have at home, but I have never, except in Haiti, heard anything like zombies.
The Magic Island reading goes on to tell us that the poorest peasants are the ones targeted to become these zombies. It also tells us that these zombies become the person who makes them slaves/servants who are forced to work on farms doing “dull heavy tasks”. This can be seen a call back to slavery in Haiti. These white necromancers ( the people who create the zombies) can be seen as white slave and land owners who and the zombies can be seen as the Haitian slaves that worked the fields.
This relates to a scene in the film White Zombie when the white man who creates the zombies, Von Gelder and Charles Beaumont go to the grave of Madeline to turn her into a zombie. In this scene Von Gelder forces his zombie slaves to do his bidding by carry her coffin. This relates to The Magic Island because it shows that these zombies were meant to represent slaves of Haiti, doing the “dull heavy tasks” such as carrying the coffin. Von Gelder perfectly represents the white slave owner because he is in full control over these zombies/ slaves and they do whatever he wishes.
I found your description of the zombies very interesting. You determined from the reading that zombie selection was specific instead of random. Those who were turned into or believed to have been turned into zombies were peasants and people of lower class people. Slaves ironically would not have belonged to the lower class as in most societies they weren’t even considered citizens of the nation.
I found your post on both the film and the passage to be very interesting. You mentioned that it is the poor and lower class that are usually targeted to become the zombies, as they are easier to take control of and to turn into their slaves. The zombies are meant to represent the slaves of haiti and it is clear that the upper class have a need to control others.
I definitely agree with how you said the ‘zombies’ were the ones enslaved and how they were the true memory of slavery back in the day. If you also look back in the reading, they were also referred to as “dead man” and that shows the un-human qualities these slaves had just like the ‘zombies’ since they were overworked with heavy tasks as you did quote from the reading.
I really believe that the portrayal of zombies in White Zombie and Magic Island bring light to how slaves had been treated in the past. If you look at how both slaves amd zombies were treated, it really removes the race from slavery and allows people to see just how horribly slaves had been treated. They were mindless drones, who obeyed their master and did absolutely nothing else. By allowing people to see something so similar to slavery, with different types of people as the slaves I hope that the book and movie were able to help some people look past their racist biases and realize that the Haitian slaves were just as deserving of human rights as anyone else.