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

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an individual person's death to the environment he or she had once inhabited, the two
beings with genetic relation to the Earth's plant life survive and continue living into the
future. This sequence of events implies there is an urgent necessity for one to think about
life as existing beyond his or her finite, embodied existence. Moreover, the acceptance of
this idea also doubles the notion of embrace as causing death; in this case egocentricity
has been revealed as a viewpoint incapable of being sustained. Lastly, Woodrue appears
in a partial portrait made up of ten panels from where he stares from his window out at
the reader. This moment is reminiscent of Goya's “The Sleep of Reason Produces
Monsters,” as it also confronts the viewer with the image of suspicious, threatening
creatures (Figure 1).
As I read these pages, I found myself thinking that if Sunderland had showed
respect for all beings regardless of whether they were human or belonged to another
species would have produced an entirely different outcome in the story. There seems to
be an urgent need for an identification of an ethic to ensure mutual survival. Ironically,
though, the conclusion and its focus on Woodrue reveal that the pursuit of personal power
through the exploitation of others leads to individual demise and replacement. This
narrative asks readers to look beyond personal concerns and consider how individual
prosperity is related to the level at which that condition exists for others. Readers are
asked to contemplate the intersection of the scientific and the spiritual, indicating both as
necessary avenues for pursing answers to unknown questions. More specifically, the
blending of these two seemingly diametrically opposed viewpoints stresses that progress
can be made through fusion and incorporation rather than exclusion. The latter is shown
to actually limit or hinder understanding. Through this fictional context, the creators are