78 pages • 2 hours read
Edward AbbeyThe Monkey Wrench Gang
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1975A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Important Quotes
"Great river—greater dam."
(Prologue , Page 2)
In standard Abbey-style deadpan humor, Abbey introduces a symbol of the protagonists' enemy: the bridge spanning Glen Canyon and the Colorado River. This bridge, which the gang sabotages, and its adjacent dam represent the kind of industrialization of the Southwest against which the gang fights.
"Someone or something was changing things."
(Chapter 2, Page 16)
Hayduke, upon returning to the Southwest for the first time in years, notices drastic changes to the landscape. Like Doc, Hayduke seems to characterize the forces of industrialization not as individual humans but as a machine.
"Though still a lover of chipmunks, robins and girls, he had also learned like others to acquire a taste for methodical, comprehensive and precisely gauged destruction."
(Chapter 2, Page 20)
Whether Hayduke had a choice in acquiring his taste for the kind of firearms- and explosives-based destruction he learned in Vietnam is unclear. His appetite for these things stands at odds with the less-violent tendencies of the rest of the gang.
