Walking Corpses & Conscious Plants: Possibilist Ecologies in ...

Bingham 126
Woodrue also receives a different name, “the Floronic Man.” He is typified as a kind of
person, albeit an unusual one. This name suggests variance between those who make up
communities while further separating the Swamp Thing from belonging to any already
established ones.
However, because this narrative shows connections rather than creates divisions,
this differentiation has a layered meaning. I argue that this expression of a narrative ethic
is presented to readers through violent transformations which alter the bodies of
characters subjected to them and therefore force readers to contemplate their resonating
effects. Identifying the impact such transformations have upon the behaviors and
perceptions of the characters portrayed will lead to an affective experience of sympathy,
empathy, or at least thoughtful consideration for most readers. When Woodrue begins the
autopsy upon the creature, he even expresses a desire for the commonality, “Since the
bio-chemical fluke that had transformed me, I had longed for a chance to examine
another human-vegetable hybrid. I could learn so much” (Saga 18, panel 4). This
confession is paired alongside an act of bodily transformation: dissection. Since the
body Woodrue is examining is purportedly dead, the act does not necessarily seem
violent because it should not cause any pain. This assumption is incorrect, though. By
removing parts of Swamp Thing's body and analyzing them, Woodrue determines that
Swamp Thing is not now, nor ever has been, Alec Holland...or even human. Through this
discovery, Woodrue also realizes that the body he's been analyzing is still living! He
arrives at this conclusion by combining anatomical and botanical knowledge. After
discovering growths similar in shape and location to the organs found in a human body,
Woodrue must confront a myriad of questions. Though these growths share a structural