This interdisciplinary thesis offers a Jungian investigation of the AMC television series The Walking Dead with a strong focus on the series’ gender representation. It examines rebirth and the relationship between ego and self in the lives of the survivors in a post-zombie-apocalypse landscape in order to appraise the series’ treatment of gendered norms and find meaning in relationship between the series, the Jungian concept of the self and quantum physics. In so doing, it posits infinity as a metaphor for the self and psyche.

Traditionally, studies of zombie narrative have focused strongly on the zombie figure, giving the impression that any rebirth the genre can depict must relate to the resurrection and dehumanisation of the living dead. Moreover, the small number of papers investigating The Walking Dead, though interested in the human survivors, are overwhelmingly cynical in their conclusions about the post-apocalyptic world the series depicts, convinced it is one not only of hopelessness, but, more pertinently, of dreadful sexism and a staunch adherence to patriarchal norms. Recently, a few studies have posited that, actually, this apparently obvious misogyny is not as simple as it seems. Rather, as time goes on, significant, complex change is taking place. This study expands upon these observations, taking advantage of the long-running and survivor-focused nature of the television series to examine an overarching theme of change throughout the series. This thesis shows that, when a deeper analysis of the series over time is conducted, a more positive view of gender in the series is reached.

Using a Jungian investigative lens, and continuously marrying its psychological argument with quantum physics, this thesis makes several major and unique claims. First, by exploring the series as an example of archetypal rebirth, it is shown how the narrative to date can be understood as a series of seven rebirth cycles, and that those cycles are even organised around metaphorical phases of pregnancy: conception, gestation, labour and (re)birth. Moreover, it is shown how the first rebirth cycle is a hopeful one characterised by dramatic socio-political change which has a positive effect on gender roles and representation. Second, by exploring the series as a whole system in which the time before and immediately after the apocalypse may be seen as the development of the ego and post-apocalyptic time may be seen as the development of the self, leading to union, it is shown how the event of Lori’s death and Judith’s birth is a symbolic one which reverses the patriarchal values of the ego time and introduces a new feminine value. This means that the time after her death depicts another rebirth: a shift both to the self from the ego and to feminine dominance from masculine. Moreover, as Judith grows up, she becomes representative of the union of ego and self: a synthesis of old and new in the series, and the hero image is passed from Rick to her. Third, the rebirth imagery created in this investigation shows a clear parallel with both the quantum field and the infinity symbol. Thus, it is also argued that the self is essentially the same thing as the quantum field, with archetypes and waves, and archetypal image manifestations and particles, being comparable pairs, and that both material and psychological reality may be understood using the infinity symbol. Furthermore, this leads to a greater understanding of the self, since both infinity and the quantum field show how the self is a dynamic process that is constantly in motion, and how the self can be both the whole and the parts of that system.