Battling the Unstoppable: A Mild Attack of Locusts and The Walking Dead

 

Nature doesn’t care about our plans, our struggles, or our survival. It moves forward, relentless and indifferent. That’s the hard truth at the heart of Doris Lessing’s A Mild Attack of Locusts—a story about farmers fighting against a swarm that consumes everything in its path. But this isn’t just a story about insects. It’s about resilience, adaptation, and the fight for survival in a world that refuses to be controlled.

Sound familiar? This same fight for survival is at the core of The Walking Dead (2010–2022). While one story is about locusts and the other about zombies, both reveal how humans struggle against forces greater than themselves, how they try to rebuild, and how survival often comes at a cost.

                                        Unstoppable Forces: Locusts & Walkers

In A Mild Attack of Locusts, Margaret watches as the sky darkens with a massive swarm of insects. The locusts arrive like a biblical plague, covering the land, destroying crops, breaking tree branches, and making it nearly impossible to see the sun. Richard and Stephen, the farmers, do everything they can—setting fires, making noise—but it doesn’t matter. The swarm is too large, too relentless.

This sense of helplessness is exactly what makes The Walking Dead so compelling. When the outbreak begins, people try to fight it, contain it, outlast it. But like the locusts, the walkers keep coming. No matter how many are killed, more appear. The survivors barricade themselves, set traps, and find weapons, but in the end, the undead can’t be stopped entirely. Like the farmers, they are forced to accept that survival isn’t about winning—it’s about adapting.

                                                       

Survival at Any Cost

Both stories show that when disaster strikes, people must make impossible choices.

In A Mild Attack of Locusts, Margaret assumes all is lost after the swarm. But the farmers don’t stop. They immediately start planning to replant, to rebuild. They have no time for despair because their survival depends on moving forward, even if they know more locusts could come.

In The Walking Dead, Rick Grimes and his group of survivors face the same reality. After every attack, every loss, they have to keep going. They find new shelters, build new communities, and create a new way of life, even though they know the walkers will always be there.

Both narratives highlight that survival isn’t about avoiding disaster—it’s about enduring it.

The Psychological Toll

Survival isn’t just physical—it’s emotional.

Margaret sees Stephen, the old farmer, spend hours killing locusts, throwing them into fires. But then, in a small moment of quiet, he picks up a single locust and gently tosses it outside instead of crushing it. It’s a reminder that even in destruction, there is an uneasy respect for nature’s power.

In The Walking Dead, we see similar moments with characters like Carol, Morgan, and even Rick. After spending years killing walkers, trying to protect themselves, they sometimes hesitate—questioning if there’s anything left of humanity in this fight. Morgan, for example, goes from being a brutal killer to believing “all life is precious,” showing the emotional weight that survival carries.

Both stories remind us that living through disaster changes people. It forces them to harden, to fight, but it also makes them question what’s worth saving.

                                                     Rebuilding After Ruin

One of the biggest connections between A Mild Attack of Locusts and The Walking Dead is the idea that destruction is never truly the end.

In Lessing’s story, the morning after the locusts leave, Margaret looks outside and sees something strange—light shimmering off the locusts’ wings as they prepare to take flight. For a brief moment, the devastation is beautiful. And once they’re gone, the farmers immediately begin replanting, already planning for the future.

In The Walking Dead, this same theme runs throughout the series. After every major attack or loss, there’s always a moment when the survivors pick up the pieces and start again. Alexandria, Hilltop, and the Kingdom—all are examples of communities rising from the ashes, built by people who refuse to let disaster define them.

Both stories show that hope isn’t about avoiding destruction—it’s about choosing to rebuild anyway.

Written By: Amaris Prescott