Down The River By Edward Abbey Analysis

When reading the text “Down the river”, by … Abbey, it becomes very obvious his constantly changing tone. When the topic of a sentence or a paragraph is humans, he sounds resentful and uses obscene words to better convey the way he feels about the human being and human activities, “… the domestic routine (same dreams every night), the stupid and useless and degrading jobs, the insufferable arrogance of elected officials, … , the foul, diseased cities we live in … what utterly useless crap we bury ourselves in day by day, …”,however when the topic of his writing becomes about nature, he switches to a more poetic and soft tone, he speaks in detail of what he sees in nature and makes a reader fall almost as deeply in love with nature as he is. “Down the river we drift in a kind of waking dream, gliding beneath the great curving cliffs with their tapestries of water stains… the royal arches in high relief and the amphitheaters shaped like …show more content…
However Abbey completely despise the human race after all he identifies the trip as an opportunity to improve his relationship with the rest of civilization. “In these hours and days of dual solitude on the river we hope … to renew our affection for ourselves and the human kind in general …”. This single quote brings to question what message Abbey really wants to convey in “Down the River”. He condemns civilization for its various injustices against Nature but yet he wishes to strengthen his relationship with civilization. I believe that in this single quote Abbey identifies himself as a prophet rather a savior to the human race after all he identified himself as a “naturist” rather than a Christian or a