Dread Nation

Although Dread Nation offers a fantastical rendition of one of the darkest events in American history, Ireland’s use of zombies never distracts from the greatest danger to the American people. Amidst a global crisis, the people of Ireland’s America cannot put aside their personal prejudices, even if it might be the difference between life and death. Ireland uses the story of the shambler uprising to remind the reader that racism and power imbalances are the real viruses that will bring about the destruction of the country.

At the beginning of the novel, Jane explains how schools like Miss Preston’s were created because of the “Negro and Native Reeducation Act” (17), a decision made by Congress to turn Black and Indigenous children into personal bodyguards for white Americans. All other forms of education were still prohibited, such as learning how to read. She adds that “slavery—the kind that ended with the War between the States, anyway—is no more” (109), but life as a person of color hasn’t improved in this altered timeline. In this world, Black and Indigenous children are abducted from their homes when they reach fighting age, and children like Jane are left to wonder about the safety of their friends and families back home while they lay their lives on the line to protect the white people of America.

At a university lecture, Professor Ghering proposes that Black and Indigenous people are best suited to fight the shamblers, because “neither the Indian nor the Negro is as highly developed as their European cousins, and thus show some of the resistance to the pathogen that we see in animals” (67). Ghering’s brand of science is based in eugenics and long-disproved scientific theories about the origin of mankind, and despite plenty of evidence proving otherwise, he insists that Black and Indigenous people are somewhat immune to the virus. However, his public experiment quickly goes wrong, and the reader is reminded of the lengths that people like Professor Ghering will go to justify taking power away from entire groups of people.

When Jane meets Mr. Redfern, he explains that the American government took away his power when he was only six years old. His real name was stripped away from him, and he was forced to adopt a new “Christian” name. He tells Jane, “They took me from my family, cut my hair, beat me every time they felt like it” (163), and tried to scrub out any and all evidence of his Indigenous heritage. For Mr. Redfern, the government didn’t just kidnap him and take his childhood, they tried to erase his connections to his tribal history and his identity as an Indigenous man. This ends up backfiring when Mr. Redfern gains the trust of the mayor, but secretly conspires against him to help Jackson, and the reader is led to believe this won’t be the last time someone like Mr. Redfern decides to take back his power in small ways.

Colorism is the unfair advantages experienced by light skinned people of color or those who can pass for being white. Throughout history, some people of color who can pass have hidden in plain sight for various reasons. Ireland uses Jane’s mother and Katherine to demonstrate that passing can become a life-threatening situation.

Throughout Part One, Jane mentions that Katherine has a fair complexion, and that “a body likely wouldn’t even know that she was colored unless someone told them” (13). While this detail isn’t relevant in the first part of the novel, Jane is quick to use Katherine’s appearance as a defense mechanism when they arrive in Summerland. Jane feels guilty for putting Katherine in the situation she’s in, so she decides to set Katherine up for a good life by insisting to others that she is white. Katherine, however, is fearful that she won’t be able to keep up the charade. Ironically, the sheriff declares that he’s “got ways of figuring out whether or not someone’s colored” (204). The sheriff and the preacher believe in phrenology, which claims that people of different races have different head measurements. Much to Gideon’s amusement, these phony measurements provide satisfactory proof to the sheriff that Katherine is white. Ireland uses this detail to point out the inconsistent science of bigotry can be.

Still, Jane has her own fears around Katherine passing. She knows that if the truth ever gets out and people in town discover that Katherine is Black, both of their lives could be in danger. After all, according to Jane, “There’s nothing white folks hate more than realizing they accidentally treated a Negro like a person” (223). The ruse begins to take a toll on Katherine, who feels like she is turning her back on her people and living a lie. She must say “despicable things” about herself” and “laugh at jokes that cut like rusty knives” (361). Jane perceives that the stress of the situation is taking a significant toll on Katherine. She notices that Katherine is jumpier and more fearful, and Jane starts to think that maybe she “didn’t do her a favor after all” (372).

Still, Jane remembers how passing for a white person might have saved her own mother’s life. She explains to Katherine that her mother was a slave who was light enough to pass for a white woman: “When her mistress died on the road to meet her fiancé, my momma pretended to be her, and that’s how she came to be the mistress of Rose Hill” (436). Jane remembers how the stress of the secret also took a toll on her mother, and how Jane’s dark skin at birth nearly gave her away. Still, Jane knows that being light like her mother or Katherine can be a gift, and just like she helped her mother conceal the truth all those years, she is determined to help Katherine maintain the facade for the sake of her future.