The Monkey Wrench Gang

“We are caught,” continued the good doctor, “in the iron treads of a technological juggernaut. A mindless machine. With a breeder reactor for a heart” (pg. 64). In “The Monkey Wrench Gang”, by Edward Abbey, one of the main characters, Doctor “Doc” Sarvis, is referring to the very thing the Monkey Wrench Gang has banded together to fight, industrialization. Joined by George Hayduke, Bonnie Abzug, and Seldom Seen Smith, the band of eco terrorists travel the southwestern desert in search of signs of human industrialization. Armed with explosives, guns, sand, beer, and their unique ideas, the Monkey Wrench Gang destroys any modern development. Eventually the law catches up to the team, with Bonnie, Doc, and Smith being incarcerated, and Hayduke,…

Four decades ago, Edward Abbey's iconic novel "The Monkey Wrench Gang" served as a wake-up call to environmental activists. In it, self-appointed guardians of the Colorado River become so incensed by the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam that they conspire to detonate the massive 710- foot concrete structure. Although the dam remains intact, the sentiment behind removing the dam has since resurfaced. Both Lake Powell, the reservoir formed by the Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Mead, located 300…

Throwing a Wrench into the Literary Machine: A Poststructuralist Examination of The Monkey Wrench Gang Chapter One: Statement of the Problem An army of bulldozers propels its way through a nearly vacant town, churning powerfully towards the buildings it intends to reduce to meaningless rubble. The remaining inhabitants, left powerless to negotiate with the destructionists, all share an indignant determination to ax the onslaught of the place they call home. As the mechanized gears continue to…

the people of the rainforest. Tribes all throughout history have had a medicine man, or a shaman. A shaman, usually a wise elder, male or female, who can connect with the spiritual world in order to use that power for healing, and things along those lines. A single shaman can hold thousands of years’ worth of knowledge that has been accumulated and passed down by word of mouth. When one of these shamans dies it is a huge deal considering that most modern day shamans have not had an apprentice,…

use of these rhetorical aims strengthens his argument that the desert is a unique environment in need of honor, care, and protection. Although it poses many dangers to human health, the great deserts represent the last frontiers of the American west and ultimately the last few spaces free from the forces of commerce development. Abbey invites his reader not only to the vastness of the desert, but into the reader’s own spiritual interior reflected in the desert. Author: 1927 – 1989…

He turned a little sideways in his chair to drink his mug of coffee. At the table on his left the man with the strident voice was still talking remorselessly away. A young woman who was perhaps his secretary, and who was sitting with her back to Winston, was listening to him and seemed to be eagerly agreeing with everything that he said. From time to time Winston caught some such remark as 'I think you're so right, I do so agree with you', uttered in a youthful and rather silly feminine voice.…