National Invective and Environmental Exploitation in Thomas Bernhard’s Frost

Autopsies on the body of nature: Dark ecology in Thomas Bernhard'sVerstörung

“… 1 1 Bernhard's word choice in German, Land , has some important connotations not covered by “countryside.” In his article on Frost and the thematics of environmental disturbance, Sean Ireton notes that Bernhard utilizes the word Land in a regional as well as a national sense, so that his denunciation of the countryside can simultaneously be read as an onslaught on the Austrian nation (cf. Ireton, 2017, 207). …”

“… 8 8 Earlier contributions examining Bernhard's negative representations of nature include Ireton's aforementioned article on Frost . Noting how Bernhard aims to reclaim the Austrian countryside “as a locus terribilissimus ,” Ireton reads this “subversion” of the tradition of romanticist nature writing as a deconstruction of “the broader concept of Heimat ” (Ireton, 2017, 208). …”