Góry śmieci – (nie)poręczna metafora

The article builds on Zbigniew Mikołejko’s claim that “the trash mountains” are a convenient metaphor. According to the philosopher, the colloquial phrase allows you to talk about almost everything, but it distances you from empiricism, from authentic rubbish dumps. The author tests the usefulness of this metaphor by analysing the interactions between its parts. They show two symbolic processes: the desacralisation of the mountains and the ennoblement of rubbish. The article focuses on the first one and asks about the images of the hills of the Anthropocene epoch. By interpreting two literary pictures of the trash mountains, an author examines the functioning of that metaphor. In Miron Białoszewski’s Chamowo, the Warsaw landfill is terrifying and a sign of loss. However, in Zbigniew Rokita’s reportage, entitled Kajś. Opowieść o Górnym Śląsku, an industrial heap that is a mountain made by people, is a deformation of nature that has become a permanent part of the region’s landscape. The metaphor of “trash mountains” opens access to ecological issues and becomes a form of involvement in the analysed works.