The Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney

By expanding the individual into the collective, however, what Finney really created with his novel is more akin to a new mythology. What Jack Finney did with the doppelganger trope in The Body Snatchers is often relegated to a generic categorization the novel is either science fiction or a horror or some hybrid of the two. Typically, however, the doppelgänger is limited to a single character, thus enhancing the dramatic tension of being the only one who knows the truth while everyone else thinks him crazy. The idea that each of us has exact double out there has long been used as a literary trope known as the “doppelganger.”ĭoppelgangers have been at the center of stories by writers ranging from Poe to Dostoevsky and from Charlotte Bronte to Stephen King. The disorder is characterized by just one dominating symptom: the sufferer is convinced that loved ones have been replaced by imposters who are exact physical duplicates. In 1923, a French psychiatrist named Joseph Capgras co-authored a paper with Jean Reboul-Lachaux that described a bizarre condition which would eventually become a disorder named Capgras Syndrome. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. Read by many as an allegory for the Cold War, or McCarthyism, it perfectly encapsulates the paranoia that comes with not knowing who around you can be trusted.These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. A strange grey substance that can slowly, slowly, become a perfect replica of a person.īut what has happened to the people being replicated?Īdapted for screen multiple times, The Body Snatchers is the origin of the phrase 'pod people', and a staple of pulp science fiction. Giant seed pods, filled with a strange, grey substance.

Miles dismisses this as delusions and refers her to a psychiatrist. He's a different person, despite being identical in every way except one: he is only pretending to have emotions.

But one day Miles sees a patient who claims her Uncle isn't himself. Welcome to the Best of the Masterworks: a selection of the finest in science fictionĭr Miles Bennell has lived there all his life. The classic novel of paranoia immortalised on film as THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.

The Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney