“I Was Their Tool”: Environmental Revenge Agent Legitimacy in Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
摘要
This chapter delves into Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, briefly examining the novel’s parallels with eco-horror to then address its exploration of environmental revenge. Challenging anthropocentric views, the protagonist Janina Duszejko embodies the intersection of individual actions and broader environmental ethics. This reading employs ecocritical, liberation-theological, and cognitive-epistemological approaches to unpack the novel’s critique of animal exploitation and the way in which it speaks to the need for recognizing nature’s voice. It investigates the ways in which nature makes itself heard, and the manner in which agents acting in its defence may be legitimized, arguing that Janina’s actions, while morally reprehensible, underscore the urgent need for a re-evaluation of our relationship with the natural world, positing nature not merely as a resource but as an integral, sentient part of our collective existence.