Jacqueline Molinero Gutierrez Gender Perspectives in Cont. Eur. & Span. Lit. Professor Nowak-McNeice November 6, 2019 Written Report: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Tokarczuk’s novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead creates an interesting dialogue regarding the status of animals in our society. As an avid environmentalist and vegetarian who is against the meat industry for a multitude of reasons, I thought that the novel presented compelling arguments that even made me further reconsider my own biases regarding animal’s “inferiority” to humans. However, even aside from the main character’s obviously misguided decision to commit murder, I found it difficult to relate to her passionate defense for animals rights in the same way that I often find myself feeling alienated from what is sometimes referred to as “white environmentalism” or “white veganism.” These terms are often used to refer to environmental and animal rights movements centered around white ideals that fail to consider intersections of race, poverty, and/or other factors that affect the relationship between these marginalized communities and the environment. For example, “white vegans” are known to sometimes shame others as lazy anti-environmentalists for not adopting a vegan lifestyle despite the fact that not all communities have equal access to the necessary financial resources or knowledge required to become a healthy vegan. In this same sense, I thought that the main character’s compassion for animals was moving and I appreciated her advocation for these defenseless creatures, yet I find it difficult to give equal importance to animal rights and human rights when members of my own family who are undocumented do not have equal access to resources in society or when they have to debate between being seen by a doctor for their illnesses or not because they are too poor to afford health insurance. Though the main character does address these human social inequalities alongside her passion for animal rights, I wish she would put the same energy that she has for animals towards dismantling oppressive systems for humans as well. In certain contexts, the main character does provide interesting arguments as to why animals rights and human rights should be given the same level of importance, such as in the quote: “It’s Animals that show the truth about a country . . . Its attitudes towards Animals. If people behave brutally towards Animals, no form of democracy is ever going to help them, in fact nothing will at all.” I found this quote interesting because here the main character describes animal rights as a sort of pre-cursor to human rights, which is something that I hadn’t thought of before. Usually, animals rights is thought of as an afterthought that can be addressed only once all human rights are secured. However, I thought this thought was an interesting approach to the issue of oppression: the whole system of capitalism thrives off of the idea that those in power must prosper at the expense of the “weaker” members of society, so if we are to undercut this ideology shouldn’t we begin with protecting animals, the weakest members of society? Moreover, I thought that this quote provided some interesting commentary on the connections between the oppression of marginalized communities and the oppression of animals: “’… Maybe the boar was rabid?’…‘No, it’s the killer who was rabid,’ I cried, because I know that argument well; the slaughter of Animals is often justified by the fact that they may have been rabid.” This quote directly parallels arguments that are often used against people of color who are killed by police officers, shifting the blame from the abuser to the victim by making it seem as though the victim was “violent” and therefore deserved to be killed. However, other aspects of the main character’s argument shows her obvious ignorance towards the real circumstances faced by marginalized communities, as shown in the quote: ‘You have more compassion for animals than for people’// ‘That’s not true. I feel just as sorry for both. But nobody shoots at defenceless people… at least not these days.” Again, this clearly shows that the main character is out of touch with the reality of the situations faced by those such as the multitudes of unarmed Black people that are shot and killed by police officers every year. In these instances, I felt disconnected from the main character’s arguments and was reminded of her privilege as a European white woman and her obvious disconnect and even apathy towards the issues faced by real people around the world. Quotes like these reminded me a lot of “white environmentalism.” Overall, I think that Tokarczuk’s novel provokes interesting questions regarding the overlapping connections between the oppression of animals and the oppression of people and how we deal with these connections as a society. Moreover, the extremism of the main character’s actions provides an interesting lens through which we can explore these issues.
