City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations and Theses City College of New York 2014 Desert Odyssey Alan Good CUNY City College How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/234 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact:
[email protected] Desert Odyssey Alan Good Advisor: Felicia Bonaparte May 9, 2011 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts of the City College of the City University of New York Table of Contents Part I 3 Part II 5 Part III 37 Notes 52 Bibliography 57 2 I. The activity for which Edward Abbey’s 1975 novel The Monkey Wrench Gang is famous (or infamous) for describing is known by many names: eco- raiding, eco-tage, eco-defense, and even, in some circles, eco-terrorismi, all of which signify the committing of some form of sabotage in the name of ecology or the environment. For example, Doc Sarvis, Bonnie Abzug, Seldom Seen Smith, and George Washington Hayduke, the four characters who comprise the eponymous Monkey Wrench Gangii, want to blow up the Glen Canyon Dam, which has backed up the Colorado River and flooded a number of marvelous side canyons and drowned a number of small towns, including Smith’s home in what was once Hite, Utah. For simplicity, and because it sounds better to me, I will use the term employed in the novel’s title, monkey-wrenching.