Journal | Lagoonscapes
Monographic journal issue | 2 | 2 | 2022
Research Article | The Healing Mathematics of Life in a Gesture: Jean Giono’s The Man Who Planted Trees
The Healing Mathematics of Life in a Gesture: Jean Giono’s The Man Who Planted Trees
Abstract
Jean Giono’s The Man Who Planted Trees gives a key to the awareness of connections between trees, the land, and all life. It shows the weight of a gesture in the revival of an apparently hostile desert, the role of an individual’s action for the community, either local or global, and also the healing power of that gesture. The tree-planting performed by the fictional shepherd has echoes in reality through Wangari Maathai’s action and the Greenbelt Movement and other individual or collective actions. The article tackles the importance of both a simple physical gesture and literature; it shows how one person’s behaviour can make a difference and change the world.
Submitted: June 7, 2022 | Accepted: Nov. 24, 2022 | Published Dec. 15, 2022 | Language: en
Keywords Jean Giono • Planting trees • Wangari Maathai • Land revival • Connections
Copyright © 2022 Françoise Besson. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/LGSP/2785-2709/2022/04/006
