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This article has been published in: Ocula 35, Zombesque. Sociosemiotics of a cultural epidemic

author: Andrea Bellavita (Università degli Studi dell’Insubria (IT))

Return of death and dealing with guilt. The unconscious, preconscious and conscious between the living dead and revenants

language: italian

abstract: The interpretation of the zombie as the return of the repressed is one of the great topoi of psychoanalytic analysis, particularly starting with the form elaborated by Romero's Night of the Living Dead, which crystallises its intrinsic perturbing nature: monsters with post-human features, ravenous, who want to contaminate and destroy collective life. Robin Campillo's film Les Revenants overturns the theme of structural antagonism, but explodes that of acceptance: its returnees are no longer monstrous and do not bite, but force family and society to come to terms with the excruciating drama of living with their dead. The short-circuit is potentially even more deconstructing: how can one accept that one no longer wants the dead family member, who no longer undermines survival but erodes the relational balance? The essay sets out to explore the connection between the decrease in monstrosity and danger and the increase in unsustainability of the revenant, and to see how different declinations of this narrative formula produce different circumstantial values with respect to the socio-semiotic, cultural and industrial systems in which the different texts are realised.

citation information: Andrea Bellavita, Ritorno della morte e gestione della colpa. Inconscio, preconscio e conscio tra living dead e revenants, "Ocula", vol.26, n.35, pp.75-90, September 2025. DOI: 10.57576/ocula2025-33

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