Resident Evil Through Nietzsche

Resident Evil through Nietzsche

Human beings are filled with contradictions.  People value the truth, but lie to prevent minor offenses.  People seek the truth, but then reject it if it does not conform to their beliefs.  All to often people search for the truth and look to social conventions for moral guidance that lead to unfavorable consequences.  Examples of noble deeds leading to horrible endings are present in the film Resident Evil.  How the dichotomy of language influences people’s ability to see the truth is presented in Friedrich Nietzsche’s “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense.”  More specifically, the interpretation of Resident Evil through Nietzsche will demonstrate how language influences the development of good and evil, how metaphors create illusory personifications that deter from truth, and finally, how humans will substitute social conventions and personal desires for the truth.

In Resident Evil, good and evil is established through culturally understood naming conventions of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland.  A virus is released in an underground genetic and viral research facility.  Once released, a sophisticated computer system, known as the Red Queen, terminates the staff and seals the facility.  A group of military operatives are sent into the facility to determine the nature of the accident.  The operatives find Alice, a security agent who is experiencing memory loss.  They describe that the Red Queen has gone “homicidal” and that they are going in to find out what happened.   In his descriptions of truth, Nietzsche identifies that language or a concept “ … now becomes fixed, i.e. a way of designating things is invented which has the same validity and force everywhere … “ (766).  In other words, language has the same meaning to members of a group or society.  Alice is reflective of innocence and curiosity and the red queen is reflective of fury, violence, and madness.  These notions are culturally shared and these naming conventions initiate distinctions of good and evil.  That the Red Queen has gone “homicidal” deepens the attachment of madness and violence and further embeds the idea of evil.   However, the notion of the Red Queen as evil will be challenged after it is discovered her acts were meant to contain the spread of a deadly virus.

The military operatives and Alice arrive at the Red Queens room.  The Red Queen projects herself with red laser light and as a small girl.  The Red Queen advises her actions contained the spread of a virus that if released, will destroy the world.   She also advises that it will be a mistake for the group to shut down the Red Queen.  The group ignores her and shuts her down.  Nietzsche would consider the projection of the Red Queen as the “first metaphor” and her voice as the “second metaphor” (767).   Nietzsche suggests that each metaphor moves the interpreter further away from the truth (767). The group transitions away from the truth for every metaphor presented of the Red Queen.  They have established the Red Queen as evil and chose to ignore what she has to say.  Had the group considered alternative ideas, they might have recognized the Red Queen is reflective of a chess piece that demonstrates logic and structure.  They might have considered that the Red Queen had complete information where theirs was minimal at best.  They might have understood that shutting down the Red Queen would let lose all of the monsters the computer had effectively contained.  The illusory projection of the Red Queen allowed a nebulous form to become the point of fixation on which the group could project distrust as they would to another human.

The adverse perceptions of the Red Queen culminate when Alice is asked to kill an infected teammate.  If the teammate is allowed to live, she will spread the virus throughout the world.  However, Alice is aware of an antidote, which may or may not work.  She screams to the computer that she is willing to take the chance.  The Red Queen responds with, “I don’t deal in chances” (Resident).   The Red Queen has a position that is clear and reasonable.  The death of one individual, who is infected with little chance of survival, is preferable against the loss of six billion people.  However, Alice has become blinded to the truth.  It is her desire and arrogance that lead her to believe her actions are worthy.  Nietzsche was clear that people tend to put themselves at the center of the universe (764).  Nietzsche would say Alice’s has classified her environment as good versus evil, the living versus the dead, and the rational against the non-rational (768).   The classifications build moral realities based on linguistic preferences that is “more familiar, more human, and hence something regulatory and imperative” (768).  Alice’s actions appear reasonable, but in the end, her actions destroy the planet.  Her conventional notions of good and evil prevented her from determining right from wrong.

Nietzsche’s works reveals how limited humans are to understanding truth based on language and convention.  Poorly formed concepts and metaphors divert us from the truth and produce substitute concepts on which we act.  In a world built on shared assumptions, the reader needs deconstructionist theory to render established realities obsolete and enable people to sift through the wreckage for elements of truth.

          

Works Cited

Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland. New York: Macmillan. 1865. Print

 Nietzsche, Friedrich. “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.  Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al.  2^nd ed. New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 2010. 759-774. Print.

Resident Evil. Dir. Paul W. S. Anderson.  Perf. Milla Jovoich et al. Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment. 2002. DVD