"more than a little strange": Imagination and Ecology in Jayber Crow

Abstract: In view of Wendell Berry's engagement with marriage as a metaphor for our relationship with the land, this paper considers how Jayber Crow's "strange marriage" draws attention to the imagination's role in relational and ecological healing. Berry's novel, Jayber Crow , demonstrates the transformation of Jayber's imagination from a self-fulfilling, objectifying gaze to a vision that fosters faithfulness in the world, resulting in his imagined marriage vow. Jayber's transformed imagination models the fruits of a whole imagination that encompasses grief, imagines a creational covenant, and, as the Mad Farmer says, practices resurrection.