Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

“It made me feel sad, horrified, for even someone as foul as he was did not deserve death. Who on earth does? The same fate awaits me too, and Oddball, and the Deer outside; one day we shall all be nothing more than corpses.”

This quote reveals Janina’s tragic view of existence and her egalitarian notions about other species. She lumps the deer into the same category as humans. The death of an animal should be mourned with the same gravity as that of a friend or even an enemy like Big Foot. 

“Now pay attention, there’s something you’re not seeing here, the crucial starting point of a process that’s hidden from you, but that’s worthy of the highest attention.”

Big Foot’s little finger supposedly offers this advice as it points upward in rigor mortis. His words echo William Blake’s notion that the macrocosm is contained in the microcosm. They also reinforce Janina’s insistence that everything in life is connected. 

“That’s why I try my best never to use first names and surnames, but prefer epithets that come to mind of their own accord the first time I see a Person. I’m sure this is the right way to use language, rather than tossing about words stripped of all meaning.”

Janina rarely views the world from its surface. She always looks for deeper meaning. Thus, she recognizes that language can often obscure truth. Names are the product of a specific social order, but they have nothing to do with the truth of an individual life.