A Study Guide for Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang"
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A Study Guide for Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang" - Gale
13
The Monkey Wrench Gang
Edward Abbey
1975
Introduction
The Monkey Wrench Gang is the most widely read and uproarious novel by Edward Abbey, an American writer whose unbounded appreciation for nature—and outspoken disdain for the bureaucratic and industrial interests that spoil it—earned him legendary status in environmental circles. Born in the Northeast, Abbey fell in love with the majestic rocky canyons, plateaus, buttes, and deserts of the Southwest. He moved there in the late 1940s to attend university and later spent numerous seasons serving in such jobs as fire lookout and park ranger. His earliest novels address the passing of the true and honorable cowboy mentality and lifestyle in a somewhat fatalistic way, as if conceding the eclipse of an era. By the 1970s, however, Abbey was goaded by civilization's affronts to his adopted homeland—especially the damming of the Colorado River at Glen Canyon in 1963—to write a more proactive, inspirational, and controversial tale, one that effectively introduced to literature a new breed of cowboy, the eco-vigilante.
First published in 1975, The Monkey Wrench Gang revolves around the activities of four individuals who band together for their common goal: to preserve the wilderness of their home region using any and all means deemed both necessary and morally justified. Not content to merely protest, sign petitions, or lobby the government, they start off by sabotaging a herd of construction vehicles being used to level and desecrate the landscape for the sake of a convenient byway. As time passes, the gang's methods, ethics, and circumstances evolve in riveting ways.
Readers should be aware that in this cult classic of the seventies, the author makes liberal use of off-color language and periodic reference to the various parts of the human body and their biological functions; this includes a few vaguely detailed scenes of a sexual nature. There is also very mellow drug use and a fair deal of gleefully unbridled violence against machines and other man-made things.
Author Biography
Edward Paul Abbey was born on January 29, 1927, in Indiana, Pennsylvania. His family lived in the Appalachian backwoods near the town of Home. His father, Paul Revere Abbey, was a logger, trapper, and farmer. He was an anarchist (someone who believes in rebellion against established authority), and although he was agnostic (believing that God is unknowable), he had a rigid sense of morality. The family lived the lives of self-sufficient pioneers. Abbey's mother, Mildred, was an artistic and intelligent schoolteacher and choir organist.
Abbey immersed himself in the woods around their home, where he and his four younger siblings imagined Indian spirits still lingered. He would avoid farm chores whenever possible but would listen with rapt attention when his father discussed with friends Soviet Communism, socialism, and radical labor organizers. His father also recited the poems of Walt Whitman. Abbey's own literary inclinations emerged early on; in the fifth grade, he created a newspaper for his siblings and friends to read and produced a comic book, The Adventures of Lucky Stevens.
In 1944, appalled by industrial advances into his beloved woods, Abbey hitchhiked through the West. Occasionally performing migrant work like fruit picking, he saw places ranging from Yosemite National Park to the southwestern rangelands and desert, which, in particular, captured his heart. He returned to Pennsylvania to finish high school as a top student and was drafted into the military just as World War II was winding down. From 1945 to 1947, he received basic training and then served police duty in Naples, Italy.
Upon returning home, he locally advocated draft evasion, bringing him to the attention of