Edward Abbey: An Anarchistic Nature Lover

This paper intends to study the controversial writer, Edward Abbey, who is labeled as an environmental writer. He had a special love for desert and wilderness and had his own particular understanding of the desert and wilderness. His work Desert Solitaire, which is a record of his life during the three seasons as a park ranger in the American southwest and of related ideas, helped strengthen the wave of environmental protection movement after the influence of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was suppressed by the outbreak of Vietnam War and the anti-war effort. In Desert Solitaire, there are the poetic descriptions of the beautiful landscape of and the life in the desert which attract people to go to the desert and feel its magic; we can also find Abbey's idea of the protection of the wilderness and his aversion to development without limit. Abbey's ecological idea is not only manifested in his essays but also in his novels. The Brave Cowboy is a novel which opened up the road to maturity for Abbey's writing. Besides, the main character in the novel, Jack Burns, has something similar to the author, and taking a close look at this character may help us to understand Abbey better. The Monkey Wrench Gang is the most famous novel by Abbey. In this novel, Abbey directly and clearly expressed his idea of eco-sabotage. In his essays and novels, we can sense Abbey's deep love for the wilderness and his thought of the protection of the wilderness.In fact, under the surface of his fervent love for the desert and wilderness, there lies Abbey's philosophical temperament. In the desert, he felt freedom, solitude and the truth. He was happy when he was alone. He just didn't want to be controlled by any power. He wouldn't take his hat off for any authority. "Resist much. Obey little" is what he embraced as his faith. For this, he was deemed to be an anarchist. But in the strict sense of this word, Abbey was just being anarchistic rather than being an anarchist.The research is conducted by doing literature review and textual analysis. And the paper consists of four chapters. The first chapter will present the cultural and literary heritage that is virtually a fertile land where Abbey as a writer brings his talent into full play. And analysis of Abbey's love for nature and wilderness follows in the second chapter. He had respect for the natural lives, acknowledging the intrinsic value of them; he was in harmony with the desert animals; he cherished ecological holism which is represented in his works, both in his essays and his novels. The third chapter will be about Abbey's castigation of and aversion to technology and modernity. He saw the modern development was showing its presence in the desert and wilderness. Raged, Abbey advocated eco-defence. The analysis of the philosophic background and idea of Abbey will come in chapter four. Abbey is truly a "guardian of the wilderness." And though his thoughts are radical to some extent, his idea of the wilderness and wilderness protection is referential for us. His concern for the desert and wilderness is actually concern for the conservation of and claim for human nature at a time when technology and modernity are impinging too much on the human mind. Abbey takes a philosophic approach to the question of human-nature relationship. In a deep ecology sense, Abbey is just asking questions of "how and why." And that is what we as modern people should contemplate upon as we march forward.