Can anyone give me a good and quick summary on the book I Am Legend by: Richard Matheson ??

Question

I have to do this thing for school where I compare the book and the movie. I only saw the movie and read a quarter of the book. I just want to know if there a major difference between the book and movie, if anything changes

Thanks in advance for any help..............

Answer 1

(SPOILERS)

I Am Legend is the story of Robert Neville - apparently the sole survivor of a bacterial pandemic apocalypse, the symptoms of which resemble vampirism. The author details Neville's daily life in Los Angeles from January of 1976 to January of 1979, as he attempts to comprehend, research, and possibly cure the disease that killed mankind, and to which he is immune. Neville's past is revealed through flashbacks, while his emotional struggle to cope with losing his family is dealt with by going about a daily routine.

Every day, Neville prepares for nightly sieges from a vampire horde. He spends the daylight hours repairing his house: boarding windows, hanging garlic garlands, disposing of vampire corpses and gathering supplies. Once darkness falls, the infected come out of hiding and lay siege to Neville's house. They taunt him and attempt to entice him out - he recognises one 'vampire' as his friend Ben Cortman.

After bouts of depression and heavy drinking, Neville decides to find the causes of the disease. Books and other research materials are obtained from a library, and through painstaking research Neville is able to discover the root of the vampiric disease; a strain of bacteria capable of infecting both deceased and living hosts. However, he does not realize that the living hosts (the infected) are still inherently human, even though they exhibit all the signs of vampirism - due to the lack of his scientific training, he fails to grasp that bacteria can mutate. He demonstrates during experiments on an unnamed woman and Ben Cortman that fear of the crucifix is a purely psychological trait. Since Cortman is Jewish, it is the Torah to which he reacts, rather than Christian religious artifacts.

At one point, Neville notices a wounded dog which has somehow survived outside. Initially wary, after some weeks the dog becomes more responsive, to the point where Neville is able to finally drag it inside his house and treat its wounds. Soon after, it gets infected and dies.

In June 1978, Neville comes across a seemingly uninfected woman abroad in the daylight and captures her. After the initial shock of seeing another human wears off, Neville becomes suspicious of Ruth and is skeptical of her story. He also notices that she is strongly against the killing of the vampires - he feels that if her story of survival was true, she would have become hardened to their fate. Too late, he discovers that she too is infected and just as he realizes the extent to which the virus has mutated, Ruth knocks him out and leaves.

When he wakes up, Neville discovers a note left by Ruth. In it, she tells him that the infected have slowly been able to adapt to their disease to the point where they can spend short periods of time in sunlight and they are even attempting to rebuild society as they now know it. They fear and hate Neville since he unwittingly targets and destroys their people during his daytime excursions and view him as a predator. In their quest to capture him, the infected sent one of their own to Neville. She adds that they have evolved enough to hunt the true vampires (dead bodies animated by the 'germ') and even manufacture pills that keep the baser vampiric instincts at bay. She warns Neville that their hunters will come for him since they view him as a threat. Neville finally believes Ruth but decides not to leave, weary of his lonely and monotonous existence. Eventually the infected come to capture him; Neville watches from his house as they emerge from cars, kill the vampires outside with weapons and storm the house. He puts up a struggle but is badly wounded and, once captured, is taken to their headquarters.

Neville meets Ruth again in his prison; she informs him that she is a ranking member of this new society but unlike the others she doesn't fear and hate him. She tells him she had come to his prison to try and help him escape but that is now impossible. She acknowledges the need for Neville's execution, and slips him pills, claiming they will 'make it easier'. Emotionally broken, Neville finally accepts his fate and tearfully asks Ruth not to let this society get too brutal and heartless. Ruth kisses him and leaves.

Neville goes to his prison window and gets a glimpse of all the infected milling around in the yard waiting for his execution. When they spot him, he sees the fear, awe and horror in their eyes and he understands to them he is a scourge, just as they were a scourge to him at the beginning of the novel. Previously Neville saw the destruction of the infected survivors as a right and a moral imperative to be pursued for his own and mankind's survival, but now he finally acknowledges defeat. He is the only immune human left in the world, the only survivor of the "old race".

He glimpses a future society wherein infection is normal and he, Neville, is a murderous, biologic deviant. As he turns away and swallows the pills, Neville grasps the reversal that has taken