Character Development in Edward Abbeys The Monkey Wrench...

Character Development in Edward Abbeys The Monkey Wrench Gang Search and Rescue, Utah State Police, and Bishops of the Church of Latter-Day Saints chase a group of bridge destroying, billboard burning, bulldozer mutilating eco-terrorists through the desert of the Southwest. The group known as the Monkey Wrench Gang consists of four very different characters: Seldom Seen Smith, also known as Joseph Smith, George Washington Hayduke, Doctor A. K. Sarvis, and Bonnie Abbzug. Each character has his own opinion of why nature needs to be saved. The group decides to make their mark on nature by taking care of the different machines, roads and bridges that are destroying it. With all the destruction the gang is causing, being caught is†¦show more content†¦Let?s Save Some of It (14) plastered on the back bumper. George Washington Hayduke, Vietnam veteran from Tucson, Arizona, has a distaste for the way the Southwest is becoming industrialized. He found it, no longer what he remembered, no longer the clear and classical desert. . . . Someone or something was changing things (15). That ultimate world . . . of meat, blood, fire, water, rock, wood, sun, wind, sky, night, cold, dawn, warmth, life. Those short and irreducible words which stand for almost everything he thinks he has lost (355). In Hayduke?s opinion, This is my country. Mine and Seldom?s and Doc?s - yeah, hers too (336) and anyone who would want to mess with it is in trouble. Seldom Seen Smith, a Mormon and husband to three women all from Utah, guides river trips down Lee?s Ferry for a living. Smith, like Hayduke, remembers the Southwest to be something different. He recalls, the golden river flowing to the sea. . . . He remembers the canyons. . . and the amphitheaters (31). What he doesn?t remember is all these things lay[ing] beneath the dead water of the reservoir (31). A true autochthonic patriot, Smith swears allegiance only to the land he knows (358). All the members of the gang agree with Smith and feel that they want a counter-industrial revolution (211). Edward Abbey uses various types of slang to get each character?s opinions across to the reader. For example, when Hayduke asks if Doc thinks he is aShow MoreRelatedMonkey Wrench Gang Summary Essay792 Words   |  4 PagesThe Monkey Wrench Gang By Edward Abbey I read The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey. The book is 421 pages, and was published by Lippincott Williams amp;Wilkins in 1975. It is a fictional story about a group of four people who meet, and all want the same thing. To stop development on America’s southwest. Edward Abbey’s purpose in writing this book was to raise awareness about what is happening to, quite literally, our back yard. This book takes place in the southern Utah and Arizona, and