Interconnectedness in The Overstory The Overstory by Richard Powers is a book that follows the lives of several characters who are brought together by their shared passion for trees and nature these characters are from diverse backgrounds, but they all share a deep connection to the environment and know the importance of protecting it. This book has an important theme that is seen throughout it, which is the interconnectedness we as humans have to the environment and each other. One way that the book shows interconnectedness is how the characters’ lives are connected with trees. This can be seen in every character's story so I will give a brief overview of how both character and tree are connected. starting with Nick Hoel (watchman), Nick …show more content…
This can be seen on page (126) when Patricia finds out that trees have deep-rooted communication. She states that when something happens to one tree it notifies the other trees around to warn them. Furthermore, another way that interconnectedness can be seen in this book is how the characters are connected. This can be seen on page 132 when it states “these people are nothing to plant – patty. And yet their lives have long been connected, deep underground. Their kinship will work like an unfolding book”. This section of the book confirmed that the characters are connected together even if they themselves didn’t know each other yet. Notably, there are some characters that have fallen in love throughout the book. For example, Olivia Vandergriff and Nick Hoel are seen in the book to have fallen in love after the experiences they've been through. This can be seen on page 269 when both Olivia and Nick are camping atop a tree as a way to protest, she says to Nick “You know, if one of us falls, the other is going with” and nick responds, “I’ll follow you anywhere”. You can see how just much they are in care for each other in this section. Another pair of characters that fall in love in this book are Douglas Pavlicek and Mimi Ma. Their relationship starts when Douglas and Mimi accidentally meet each other at the site where the town is cutting down trees. After a while, both Mimi and Douglas start to do protests and get arrested together which fosters their relationship with each other to the point where Douglas falls in love with