Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Study Guide for Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang"
    A Study Guide for Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang"
    A Study Guide for Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang"
    Ebook58 pages36 minutes

    A Study Guide for Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang"

    By Gale and Cengage

    1/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJun 15, 2016
    ISBN9781535838450
    A Study Guide for Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang"

    Read more from Gale

    Related to A Study Guide for Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang"

    Related ebooks

    Literary Criticism For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Tree Time and Mortality in the Eyes of Alfred Hitchcock, Richard Powers, and Ursula K. Le Guin

      Oct 16, 2018

      1. Trees tell time when they cease to live. Concentric bands show up clean and countable, the index of so many wet and dry seasons past, but only when the end has been determined, when no more rings will be added. The tree is always recording, but it

      11 min read

    • Article

      Necrolog

      Oct 7, 2021

      Necrolog
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Toxic Cactus

      Jun 1, 2020

      The Toxic Cactus
      9 min read

    • Article

      Breedlove’s War

      May 21, 2019

      Breedlove’s War
      3 min read

    • Article

      Summer Reading

      Dec 29, 2021

      Upstanding town councillor and partner in the Wallaby Bay fishing fleet, Eve, 70, never forgets the day 30 years ago her duplicitous husband died. She was about to leave him when the call came that a winch had fallen on top of him. Recuperating from

      7 min read

    • Article

      And Nature For All

      May 13, 2021

      And Nature For All
      9 min read

    • Article

      Wild Life

      Jun 11, 2020

      Wild Life
      6 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Aug 22, 2022

      Books
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Poetry No. 111

      Sep 6, 2022

      The Art of Poetry No. 111
      26 min read

    • Article

      Previews

      Nov 10, 2019

      Previews
      3 min read

    • Article

      Summer Reading

      Dec 29, 2021

      Summer Reading
      5 min read

    • Article

      How Roger Deakin’s Love Of Water Inspired Me

      Oct 15, 2023

      It is strange to come to know Roger Deakin so intimately and yet not know him at all. Like many others, I first met him in the pages of Waterlog when I read how he slipped into the spring-fed ditch beside his old farmhouse and swam during a summer th

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Poetry No. 112

      Dec 6, 2022

      The Art of Poetry No. 112
      26 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Fiction No. 242

      Dec 15, 2018

      The Art of Fiction No. 242
      28 min read

    • Article

      Now That It’s Come to This

      Jun 3, 2021

      Now That It’s Come to This
      13 min read

    • Article

      Get To Know A Few Queer Trailblazers

      Jul 31, 2022

      Known for: helping declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder A relentless gay-rights activist, Barbara Gittings is as staunch as they come. She grew up in the US at a time when psychiatrists believed they could ‘cure’ gay people, but young Gitti

      4 min read

    • Article

      Dear Inga, Love Jack

      Jun 30, 2020

      Dear Inga, Love Jack
      20 min read

    • Article

      Origin Story

      Apr 1, 2022

      Origin Story
      15 min read

    • Article

      The Life Of Sojourner Truth

      Oct 6, 2022

      The Life Of Sojourner Truth
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Study Guide for Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang"

    1/5

    1 rating1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 1/5
      When the author is too stupid to understand one of the terms they use to describe the main character, you can be assured the overall quality is not good.

    Book preview

    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

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1