Reciprocal Salvation:A Study Of Human-Plant Relation In The Overstory

Richard Powers(1957-)is a major American contemporary novelist.The Overstory,published in 2018,is one of Powers’ most famous masterpieces.The Overstory tells the story of nine people across different sectors whose lives are related to trees and receive insights about the relationship between plants and human.Based on the Timber War,an actual event that took place in California at the end of the 20 th century,the climax of the novel displays the fierce struggle between forest activists and loggers.The urgency of creating a shared community of people and plants in the face of a worsening ecological crisis around the world is reflected in The Overstory.It expresses Powers’ reflection on anthropocentrism and his concern for environmental responsibility.This thesis uses John Charles Ryan’s critical plant studies to analyze The Overstory.Ryan explains Phyto-criticism/ Critical Plant Studies as the study of plant texts that describe plant life,botanical history,ethics,and the relationship between humans and plants.In the meantime,he suggests people embracing a critical rethinking of the relationship between plants and human society.What’s more,Ryan creatively interprets the botanical poetries of eight contemporary European and American poets and puts forward some key concepts of critical plant studies such as vegetative soul,vegetal body,vegetal empathy,botanical melancholia and plant death,focusing on the ‘agency’ of plants and exploring the connection between humans and plants physically.Based on the listed relevant theories and concepts,the thesis intends to explore the relationship between human and plant in The Overstory.The thesis consists of five chapters.The first chapter is an introduction,which introduces Richard Powers and The Overstory,background information of the author and the novel,literature review,theoretical framework,and originality of the thesis.The second chapter displays that plants and activists in the novel share the existential situation in common.The thesis shows that in the human society dominated by instrumental rational thought,on the one hand,lumber companies and state board perform overseeing and sanctioning assaults against the forest.Acts such as uncontrolled deforestation leads to a significant reduction of vegetation coverage and the loss of forest biodiversity.On the other hand,individuals become the victims of the modern society,suffering injustice and mental distress.By exploring the juxtaposition of ecological trauma and individual trauma in the novel,the thesis reveals the ethical thought that both humans and plants need salvation.The third chapter analyzes the healing power of plants for human.By analyzing how plants guide,enlighten,and empathize with environmentalists in the novel via vegetal body,vegetative soul and vegetal empathy,it reveals the redemption that plants bring for humans.On the one hand,the plants serve as tangible and spiritual beings and have a profound connection with humans,which supports activists to overcome their physical and psychological trauma and dilemma,thus presenting the agency of plants.On the other hand,it is the environmentalists’ recognition of the plants’ agency and the identification of plant empathy and botanical melancholia that allows them to learn brand-new knowledge of plants,revealing the power of plants in affecting human’s emotional attitudes and values.Therefore,a closer reading of the novel and a deeper exploration of how plants interact with the characters by virtue of the agency not only provides a new angle for re-reading the theme of “trauma and healing” in the novel,but also helps readers to understand the environmental ethics that Powers conveys in this novel.Chapter four centers on how the activists healed by the plants save the plants,including participating in environmental movements and saving seeds,spreading academic knowledge about trees,and building a virtual gaming world in which human and non-human matters coexist equally in order to awaken people to ponder about the relationship between humans and plants.To a certain extent,the novel offers a possibility for the interdependence and mutual salvation between human and plants,as well as a remedy for the way out of the ecological crisis of mankind.The fifth chapter is the conclusion.By analyzing the shared conditions of suffering and reciprocal salvation between humans and plants,the thesis reveals the healing power of plants for human via vegetal body,vegetative soul and vegetal empathy,which presents the unique interconnection between human and plants,and is a new perspective of understanding plants that is distinguished from the Western traditional way.How to think about the relationship between human and plants will affect people’s attitude towards nature as well as the protection of ecological environment.The ideas of how activists view plants and how human and plants achieve the reciprocal salvation in the novel can serve as the guide for resolving the grave current ecological problems.