(ARCHIVE) Cruelty.

Original image by me

TW: animal abuse, physical abuse

"Animal abuse, or animal cruelty is the crime of inflicting physical pain, suffering or death on an animal, usually a tame one, beyond necessity for normal discipline." - safevoices.org

(Originally published on March 15, 2023)

Current reads

I've recently been reading Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, a mystery book by Polish Author Olga Tokarczuk following the story of an eccentric elderly lady who lives in rural Poland finding out about a string of murders in her region. I'm not completely done with the book, but right from the start, I could see implications and direct references to animal cruelty.

In the book, Janina, the main character, is rarely referred to with her own name, as she feels like the name Janina does not fit her well. I'll refer to her just as "the main character" from now on.

The story starts with Big Foot, a poacher and a hunter,'s death. Big Foot is described as a cruel, immoral man who the main character constantly compares to the devil. He is shown hunting and stealing from other animals and people in unethical ways, such as purposely using painful traps on deer to hunt and dismember their bodies for money. Big Foot owns a dog, and she is always left chained outside the house, howling in pain because of the cold winter wind. Oddball, the main character's neighbor tells the main character that normally, the lights in Big Foot's house would be off by this time, and the dog would be asleep, but the lights were completely on and the dog was barking in an almost crazed state.

When the main character and Oddball arrive at Big Foot's house, two deer are staring at them from the dark.

The main character goes around the house trying to find any ID Big Foot had, and finds that the deer were around the house because Big Foot had caught another deer earlier in the day and had dismembered the deer and cooked food out of the body and made a trophy out of the head. The main character feels an even stronger disgust for the dead man, and cries tears of anger for the deer.

Later on, Oddball and the main character bring Big Foot's dog to Oddball's house. The dog is completely malnutritioned and unhealthy in general. The main character gives the dog the name "Marysia" after "the orphan in the classic children's story" (this page is in Polish so you may need to put the article into a translating page) (19).

Watching Marysia play around in Oddball's house, the main character thinks of an instance where she broke into Big Foot's house when he was gone to save Marysia from her pitiful state. Marysia was "anxious, [and] trembling all over" when the main character found her. The main character gave Marysia plenty of food, milk and shelter, commenting that she "spoke to [Marysia] soothingly, [and] gave [Marysia] an account [her] every move" (31). Marysia "watched [her] questioningly, clearly baffled by such a sudden change of circumstances" (31).

The very next day, the main character and Marysia went outside the house for Marysia to use the bathroom. The main character recalls that after Marysia took care of her business, she "glanced at [the main character] sorrowfully.... and raced off towards Big Foot's house... And so she went back to her Prison" (32).

So what?

These few sentences made me think a lot about the nature of animal abuse. Animal abuse is, and has been, a huge global issue that I've been interested in. I've been reading and watching a lot of media* on animal abuse and specifically the abusement of dogs and more "domestic" animals, which us as humans have more access to.

* Here are some of the things I've been reading and watching about animal abuse:

개를 낳았다 (Korean Naver webtoon about dogs)

내일 (Korean Naver webtoon on death; current episode explores topic of abuse and abandonment)

Animal cruelty facts and stats (an article on animal abuse)

The Link Between Animal Abuse and Human Violence (article on animal abuse and violence as a whole)

One example about dogs in the webtoon "내일" ("Tomorrow" on the english version of webtoons, however the current episodes on dogs have not been updated on the english website yet) showed how most of the time, dogs love their "owners" unconditionally, even when they are being abused both mentally and physically. Another example in "개를 낳았다" (not on the english website) was the story of a border collie who was abandoned and abused by its owner in the name of "education", and became extremely violent towards humans. However, after re-education and being loved by a new human companion, the border collie regained his love for people and became so much brighter than before.

A factor of animal abuse that is explored in both webtoons above and slightly in Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is neglect. Neglect is one of the very common forms of abuse. Similar to human child abuse, neglect in animal abuse is defined as: "

• Abandonment without proper food, water and shelter (this includes “foreclosure pets” who are abandoned in foreclosed homes)

• Failure to provide proper food, water and shelter

• Failing to provide medical care

• Hoarding

• Puppy Mills

• Starvation

• Tethering a dog outside without proper care" ("Animal Neglect").

Dogs, cats and pets in general that have been abandoned are called "유기동물" in Korean, and the direct translation of "유기" from Korean to English is 'Abandoning without caring and/or managing". Here in Korea, abandoning pets is treated as a serious crime, with the greatest punishment an individual can receive being 300 million KRW (roughly 2,272.39 dollars). Although Korea is slowly recognizing that abandoning animals is NOT the animal's "fault" at all, and is a show of lack of responsibility and disrespect towards animals, the stereotype that 유기동물 all have severe behavioral issues still exists, making it extremely difficult for 유기동물 to find a new companion after their traumatizing experience of being abandoned.

Examples such as these show how animal abuse can not be justified in any way, as it is essentially exploiting the rights of the minority/the weak and violating the minority's mind and body without regard of what effects this cruelty may bring to that minority.

Why should animals be treated any differently from humans, and why should humans have the right to abuse animals is these such ways?

All humans are inherently anthropocentric, anthropocentric meaning the belief that humans are the "superior" species and that the world revolves around humans. It's important to realize that although we may be the only species on Earth that have been able to build civilizations, therefore making us the "most intelligent animal" species in the world, it does not mean that the other species of the Earth are equally as valuable as us.

I don't want to drag on about this, so I'll leave this here. I'll come back next time with a short review of how I feel about Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead after I'm done reading it:).

Please share your opinions in the comments! It's always interesting to read what you guys think about the questions and issues I talk about in my posts.

See you next post!