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Romain Gary's Elephants: Artistic Sensibility and Perverted Rationality

Following the train of thought in Romain Gary’s Letter to an Elephant, I reflect upon certain issues in the contemporary human relationship towards animals, while trying to demonstrate that it largely belongs to a wider paradigm of thought and action. Here I primarily refer to the effectiveness as a unique criterion used to evaluate human and non human animals. This technological ideal also overtakes rationality itself, which is being measured in terms of adjustment and whose perverted form also threatens human freedom (autonomy). Gary’s reflections in which the elephant appears as a leitmotif reveal many elements of this perversion, to which he opposes sensibility. In this respect, I examine the role of sensibility in the human relationship towards the animal ; however, I also emphasize the need for rehabilitation of rationality. Gary’s Letter to an Elephant and his novel The Roots of Heaven are primarily an incentive for this task.

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