The Living Dead

If you are reading this, you are alive... and so is everyone else who is living right now. Whoever lived already and has ceased to do so, is dead. But there is an exception to this: the Dead family. I don't mean a family that no longer lives, but simply one whose last name is Dead.

In my previous blog I had posed the question of why Tony Morris decides to give her main characters this last name. It becomes pretty much obvious when the family is in the car and it is said that "the Packard had no real lived life at all." (33) Although the Deads own the car and drive it every once in a while, their lives don't count as "real lived lives." So then they are just lives. Thus, the Deads become, both literally and metaphorically, the living Dead.

This symbolism becomes even more clear when Pilate affirms that "there ain't but three Deads alive." (38) This is definitely an oxymoron, but she also means that the three only living Deads are her daughter and her granddaughter. When Rena won a diamond, she saved it and kept it hidden, while Malcom Dead would have showed it off without even enjoying it. Malcom Dead's family is lifeless, just living because they have to. While Pilates and her family are actually living, thus becoming the only three to be alive.


One of the aspects that makes Malcolm Dead so lifeless is his greed - he lives for the sole sake of wealth. For example, for him, car rides were only "a way to satisfy himself that he was indeed a successful man." (33) He probably owes this predominant trait to his father, who died because of greed, as he was more willing to lose his life than to give up his belongings and own nothing.

However, deep down, Malcolm Dead is actually a sensible human being. He is awed and mesmerized by Pilate's singing earlier in the novel, and now he is transfixed as he tells the story of his childhood. He describes everything perfectly, as he mentions every detail he treasures. The imagery is great, as he for example, describes the taste of "wild turkey the way Papa cooked it." (51) The description actually made my mouth water - no lie.

Malcolm Dead, at the end, tells his son that you should own a lot of things "and let the things you own own other things. Then you'll own yourself and other people too." (55) The fact that he uses the word "people" as if it were a basic commodity makes the sentence even more avaricious  And this is what he'll teach this son. Milkman will now become a dead Dead as well. The third Malcolm Dead, in both name and personality.