Nature offers peoples a vital heritage reserve that Charles Exbrayat attempts to narrate in Those of the Forest. The study we undertake is devoted to the forms of resistance of a people whose salvation lies in the values of their natural environment, threatened by industrial progress. Taking shelter, feeding, dressing, moving around, all contribute to what nature offers them best. The peaceful life led by the Rustandais is only possible through their rustic environments of mountain and forest. They carry out their daily activities in these pleasant places in order to extract vital resources. However, progress intruded into this environment where the Piedmontese from elsewhere wish to establish a factory, build roads, houses, grocery stores, and in short transform Rustande into a modern city. From there arose a resistance that opposed the advocates of progress and the conservators of heritage. The study revolves around the paradigmatic strategies implemented to highlight the antagonism between the Rustandais, protectors of their heritage, and the actors of progress. The question raised by this study is whether the resistance will allow the essential to triumph over the superfluous. If the resistors position themselves as the authors and accomplices of their own suffering, the worst is to be feared. By invoking the psychocriticism of Charles Mauron, the study will determine that the hostilities of progress sometimes offer opportunities that lead to unconsciousness in the minds of peoples. Claude Duchet's sociocriticism will allow for an analysis of the evolution of the behavioral habits of the characters in the face of the advancement of progress. Exbrayat's story illustrates the arguments of progress, according to which its advance is irresistible and man must therefore get used to it while taking care to safeguard his cultural values.
Abstract: nature, heritage, resistance of peoples, paradigm, civilization