“Putting the cult in cultivate”: a rhetoric of guerrilla gardening in Green Valentine

ABSTRACT

Green Valentine

(2015), by Australian author Lili Wilkinson, is a young adult romance in which two teenagers rebel against their local council by guerrilla gardening. By taking part in an illegal activity, the protagonists of Green Valentine stage a political protest that stands in for their voices, which are silenced in public debates about the environmental future that they will inherit. Throughout this article, I examine the rhetoric of guerrilla gardening represented in Green Valentine. While the protagonists are too young to vote, their gardening is an active argument that communicates their political hopes. I conclude that the rhetoric of gardening in Green Valentine underscores the importance of community and political action to stop the capitalist production of spaces that impair the environmental future.

KEYWORDS:

• Guerrilla gardening
• ecocriticism
• rhetoric
• young adult romance
• community gardening

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lili Pâquet

Lili Pâquet is a Lecturer in Writing at the University of New England, Australia. Her research interests include environmental rhetoric, crime fiction, and law and literature. Her book, Crime Fiction from a Professional Eye, was published by McFarland in 2018.