“Even homeless shelters turn us away”: An Analysis of Sense of Belonging and Social Identity in the Short Story “A Zombie’s Lament”

Students: Gisela Mendez & Nadina González Nomi

"By building relations we create a source of love and personal pride and belonging that makes living in a chaotic world easier." These words have been written in “The Columbia World of Quotations © 1996, Columbia University Press” by Susan Lieberman, who has a doctoral degree in clinical psychology. They make us reflect about sense of belonging, which is a major psychological construct adolescents develop during their school life. This paper will look at an example of fiction to explore the difficult situation the main character of a short story, who feels like an adolescent, finds himself in while searching for his identity and sense of belonging. This short story is “A Zombie’s Lament” which is  about Andy, who after dying in a car accident, revives as a zombie and has to deal with his new appearance. Reviled and discriminated  by a society that no longer considers him human, Andy tries to fulfill his desire to be part of society again.  The short story has been written by S.G Browne. Searching for his social identity, Browne has had different jobs before getting to the conclusion that he wanted to be a writer. Browne used to be a driver and an assistant producer.  And then, while he was attending the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, where he majored in business organization and management, he eventually started writing. Through the main character’s behaviour, the author reflects his own experience of looking for his social identity as a writer.

This paper will base on psychological theories of sense of belonging, social identity and exclusion. The main character of “Zombie’s Lament” tries to build his sense of belonging and his social identity along the story. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the short story “A Zombie’s Lament” by Browne can be used by teachers to make adolescents reflect how young adults might suffer from a lack of sense of belonging.

As Kiesner, Cardinu, Poulin, Bucci (2002) and Stone and Brown (1999) suggest, sense of belonging is a psychological construct. They have agreed that the sense of belonging is something that is built or made. Other exponent as regards this topic is Tajfel, who defines social identity as people’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s). Other relevant term, which will be used in this paper, is social exclusion. According to MacDonald and Leary (MacDonald & Leary, 2005), it refers to the perception of being excluded from desired relationships or devalued by valued relationship groups.These definitions fit the experiences of sense of belonging, social identity and exclusion that are shown in the story. Complaining about not to be considered part of society, Andy starts looking for people like him and, in this way, he begins to construct his social identity.

The story “A Zombie’s Lament”, published in 2009, is included in ‘Zombies: Encounters with the Hungry Dead’, an anthology of thirty-two short stories about the living. Although the story appears at first to be about a zombie fighting the system for his rights as an individual, an analysis of the story will explore the adolescent’s need for a sense of belonging and a social identity. The main character suffers from lack of sense of belonging and this situation affects his identity. How can he belong to the dead if he is not really dead? How can he belong to the undead if he is not really alive? This situation raises questions about his identity, about who he is, where he belongs to. Although the main character is a man in his early thirties, he can resemble any adolescent because of his way of trying to belong to any group. For instance; trying to belong to the living group, Andy has “taken dozens of showers and even soaked in a tub filled with disinfectant” and he has also “ tried to learn sing language”. In essence, this might be a story about the way in which adolescents must make connections with people.

Adolescents participate in a complex social environment populated by friendship groups. There are lots of benefits to being a member of a group. Teens feel more secure when they know that they have others around them who share their goals and care about their progress.  The desire to belong to a group may influence an adolescent's behaviour well before the adolescent is actually a member of the group. Individuals may change their behaviour in order to gain peer acceptance. This is what actually happens in the story when the main character explains that a famine zombie had to pose as a breather in order to get a hotel room. She had to wear bracelets and jewelry in order to hide scars pretty well, had to add sunglasses, a little make-up, a couple bottles of cheap perfume before a room was given to her.

As it has been explained, the desire of being part of a group is something important for teenagers, but why? Tajfel proposes that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football team etc.) which adolescents belong to are important sources of pride and self-esteem.  Groups give teens a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world. In the story, the main character shows a deep sense of unease:

“I get bored, like a dog left alone in the house who starts chewing on things in frustration- shoes, couches, pillows. And like a dog, I’m starting to feel anxious and frustrated”

In order overcome this situation, he decides to be part of a group, the local chapter of UA-Undead Anonymous.  By doing this, he has the opportunities to feel better about himself, “less estranged from society, more human”.   Having peer relationships is positively correlated with popularity and good social reputation (Cauce, 1986), self-esteem (McGuire & Weisz, 1982), and psychosocial adjustment (Buhrmester, 1990). This is what the main character of “A Zombie’s Lament” perceives inside the group. Inside UA, the members protect each other against the breathers and help each other to feel better about their nature.

It seems that if a teen successes in being part of a group, this teen will probably raise his self-esteem. However, what would happen if this teen would not achieve his goal of being part of a group. The truth is that the development of adolescents’ identity emerges thanks to the connection a teenager achieves in society ( Aloise- young, Graham and Hansel, 1994) . Participation in the social world of adolescent peer relationships can have its costs. Social exclusion has been systematically associated with problems in adjustment to society. Although the main character tries to be accepted by society, the fact that he does not belong to any group is perceived from the very beginning. There are two clear examples of this social exclusion:

“The undead, however, have more grief to deal with than southern blacks in the 1950's. Talk about civil rights issues.  The undead can't vote, get a driver's license, attend public schools, apply for unemployment, go to cinemas or theaters, and find a decent place to live or get a job.”

“My parents let me stay in the attic, but they avoid me, and none of my old friends want anything to do with me.”

Exclusion and social isolation are perceived as painful and are associated with a variety of negative affective experiences including anxiety, depression, anger, and shame (MacDonald & Leary, 2005). This is clearly expressed by the main character of the story when saying the following:

 “…When I get lonely I get bored. When I get bored, I get anxious. When I get anxious, I get frustrated. And when I get frustrated…”

In some ways, adolescents’ lack of sense of belonging can be reflected in “A Zombie’s Lament”. The way Andy tries to be part of a group resembles the way teens tries to belong to a group of friends. Groups give teens a sense of social identity, a sense of belonging to the social world. One of the most common places, where adolescents might spend most of their time, is school.  Adolescents who have positive sense of peer group belonging might have significantly fewer behavior problems at school than those who do not have positive sense of peer group belonging.  Loneliness might be the central reason why some adolescents are unhappy and distraught (Buhrmester, D. 1990) It is important for adolescents to be aware of the relevance of being part of a group because of the benefits this means, such as improvement in self-steem.

REFERENCES
• Aloise- young, Graham  & Hansel.(1994)  “The Role of Self-monitoring in Adolescents Susceptibility to Passive Peer Pressure”, Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 37, Issue 8.
• Browne, S (2008) http://sgbrowne.com/bio/
• Buhrmester, D. (1990)  “Child Development”, Volume 61, Issue 4.
• Cauce , M (1986) ‘Social Networks and Social Competence: Exploring the Effects of Early Adolescent Friendships’, American journal of community psychology, Volume 14, Number 6
• Jeff Kiesner, Mara Cadinu, François Poulin & Monica Bucci (2002) ‘Group Identification in Early Adolescence: Its Relation with Peer Adjustment and its Moderator Effect on Peer Influence’,  Child Development Vol. 73, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 2002) Published by: Blackwell Publishing Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3696439
• Lieberman, S. Importance of Building a Classroom Community.  http://stefaniemckoy.com/BuildingCommunity/CommunityImportance.Html (accessed  1/7/12)
• MacDonald, G & M, Leary. (2005) ‘Why Does Social Exclusion Hurt? The Relationship Between Social and Physical Pain’. Psychological Bulletin, Vol 131(2)[ Journal Article ]
• Mc Guire, K & J, Weisz.(1982) ‘Social Cognition and Behavior Correlates of Preadolescent Chumship Ghild Development’  http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jweisz/pdfs/1982a.pdf (accessed 1/7/12)
• Stone, M & B, Brown (1999). ‘Descriptions of Self and Crowds in Secondary School:  Identity Claims and Projections’.   The role of peer groups in adolescent social identity: Stability and change San Francisco. In Jeffrey McClellan (Ed.)
• Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The Social Identity Theory of  Intergroup Behaviour. Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Chicago, S. Worchel & W. G. Austin (Eds.)
• The Columbia World of Quotations © 1996, Columbia University Press


.