Alondra Perez

Professor McClure
Writing 39B
1 December 2015
RIP
Throughout the quarter, our main focus has been to fully understand the horror genres
characteristics and tropes. For this project, specifically, the purpose was to showcase that overall
understanding through our own means of communication. As groups, we were given the power
to create our own rhetorical situation. In other words, we were given the responsibility to choose
our own: purpose, audience as well as set expectations, the genre in which it was composed, and
the desired medium in which it was to be delivered in. This project, essentially, was a place for
us to demonstrate what we learned about how rhetoric works and how different texts are shaped
due to their own, distinct rhetorical situations. Therefore, after the completion of several
assignments, my group and I came to the final agreement that we would be showcasing our own
understanding of the horror genre through the creation of an informative power point that
focused on zombies, the audience expectations that come with that genre, as well the metaphor
behind the genre that ultimately lead to their grown popularity.
Our own rhetorical situation consisted of presenting to another 39B class from the
culturally diverse UCI campus, our own controlled idea with a live scholarly presentation to not
only inform the class about zombies and their popularity, but as well demonstrate our own
rhetorical knowledge in the process, while keeping the historical context in mind. Given the
differences in assigned class themes, our goal was to not simply be informative, but engaging
with our particular zombie context. Because our goal was to as well demonstrate our knowledge

of the characteristics and tropes of the horror genre, we did not fail to communicate the set
expectations that come with zombies, such as the apocalyptic, societal breakdown aspect of it.
Recently, over the years, zombie popularity has been seen to skyrocket because of societys
underlying fear to the very possible likelihood of there ever occurring such systematic,
worldwide breakdown. This piece of information served as our opportunity to better clarify the
metaphor behind a zombie apocalypse and relate it to the historical context of society today, in
order to further persuade the audience to try and see the idea of a zombie apocalypse under a new
perspective.
Given our goal to persuade the audience to perceive the horror genre and zombies under a
new standpoint, as rhetors, we had to make certain rhetorical decisions, such as what pieces of
information were necessary to include in our presentation to better solidify our purpose, while
keeping the specific references in mind that would help towards our appeal to our audience in the
process. For this reason, we chose to avoid condensing our slides with mundane historical facts
that described the evolution of the zombies, but really considered what pieces of information
would lead to creating more effective bridges between our subject and the audience. In order to
relate these new ideas to what the audience may find significant, we decided that our two main
focuses would be describing the metaphor a zombie apocalypse represents, along with the
expected tropes. Detailing the metaphor that a zombie apocalypse essentially represents, proved
to be successful because it allowed for the other scholars to gain better insight and understanding
behind the persisting usage of the monster in several works and genres. The audience was able to
understand that the zombie apocalypse trope illustrates the worst fear and anxieties of any
society or person if such chaos was to ever occur. Again, this specific element helped appeal to
the audiences interest because it allowed for us to spark an innate wonder to a possible what if.