American Studies. There are many ways to approach The Monkey Wrench Gang. You might treat it as a classic of environmental literature (and compare it to Ecotopia). You might treat it as a Western (and compare it to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), as a post-Vietnam novel (and compare it to Rambo or the novel First Blood), as a precursor of, and how-to manual for, the Earth First! movement, and so on.
Then again, you could focus solely on a single character — say, Hayduke, who could be compared to Will Weston, Butch Cassidy, John Rambo, and Dave Foreman respectively. Or you could focus on the use of a single element — such as theme or setting — in one or more of these works. Or you could do a men’s studies project, tossing Hayduke, Weston, and John Muir into the hopper and analyzing them as exemplars of different styles of masculinity.
The sky’s the limit. The intellectual world is all before you, where to choose.
The illustration above juxtaposes two iconic images: Hayduke and Rambo. In what ways are these two essentially the same character?
Thursday, April 9
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4 comments:
Hey, Dave Mazel, Bunsen is in love again. Check out my blog, man, at bunsensbark.blogspot.com.
BTW, I can't believe you would pollute the legacy of Rambo by putting him alongside those "other" works of fiction. Tsk. Tsk.
In my opinion, the only comparison between The Monkey Wrench Gang and Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid was they enjoyed destroying property. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid blew up trains, banks and held-up stagecoaches for money. They shot good citizens to satisfy their needs to steal. Yes, there is the similar cliff jumping/falling near death experience into the river below after Hayduke,Sundance and Cassidy are boxed in by their persuers.
There's similar post Viet-Nam experience between Rambo and Hayduke like their special forces training etc,... Rambo was very normal at first. However, when the police refused Rambo to stay in town then Rambo took action. Rambo was not an environmental activist.
Hayduke returns to the southwestern desert to take on the commercialism industrial giants and destroys, creating disaster that fuels his environmental activist cause.
D---
I think the mens studies would make a great example of comparison of these works. I think that due to the masculinity factor most men won't like Ecotopia or Will Weston. Men don't want to identify with a sissy that cries and is in touch with his feelings. They want a gritty badass who is saving the environment one small explosion and monkey wrench at a time. I would be curious to see if the primary demographic for ecotopia was geared towards women. I like the ideas and critiques conveyed in ecotopia, but I don't think the other two books were better because they had more action or went about things in a mischevious way, i thought they were all equally interesting. I believe, as males, in our time and age that if we need something to be destroyed or action to make things interesting we have become dependant on our desire to act when we can't. John Muir's novel was beautiful as it was educational. There were no explosions, no deaths (except for the lambs), and it was all portrayed in a very simple manner. I finished that book in one evening I was so interested!
These characters are the same in the sense that they are both post-Vietnam vets with psychological problems to begin with. Add in the pressures of a society that no longer understands them or holds their values and the game is on. Another character that holds these destructive abilities is another post-Vietnam character, Ron Kovic, from Born on the Fourth of July. But the overall messages that these characters give, other than don’t piss them off, is that they have determination and are not willing to back down once the job has been started. The only real difference is that Rambo is forced to fight for his way of life and Hayduke does it for the thrills.
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