Post 1: The Bridge

Nora Mertz
Due: Wednesday, October 14th
Romano Per. 4

Book: The Monkey Wrench Gang
Author: Edward Abbey

The Monkey Wrench Gang is an exciting novel about three men (Doc Sarvis, “Seldom Seen” Smith, and George Washington Hayduke) and one woman (Bonnie Abzug) who sabotage construction sites and power plants in the Southwest desert in order to protest the destruction of the environment. Throughout the book their missions become increasingly more intense and they come close to capture many times.
For my first post, I chose to analyze a scene in the book that I thought was really cool. It’s the very first chapter in the book, and it completely draws the reader into the plot. The author, Edward Abbey, manages to outline an entire scene constantly building the reader’s suspense, and then ends it with what I thought was a very surprising and unpredictable event.
The scene starts begins with Abbey describing how a large bridge between Arizona and Utah is about to be opened for the first time. Abbey builds suspense in this scene in two main ways, I believe- the temperature and the amount of people waiting for the bridge unveiling.
“Long rows of automobiles stand at the approaches, strung out for a mile to the north and south and monitored by state police on motorcycles, sullen… Five thousand people yawning in their cars intimidated by the cops and bored to acedia by the chant of the politicians. Their kids fight in the back seats… All endure though no one can bear to listen to the high-decibel racket pouring from the public-address system”. This excerpt shows that the author really establishes the suspense for both the people waiting for the bridge to open, as well as for the reader. This shows how important this event is and how many people are relying on this bridge.
The author also establishes suspense by talking about how hot it is while the people are waiting, saying, “The people wait. Sweltering in the glare, roasting in their cars bright as beetles under the soft roar of the sun. The desert sun of Utah-Arizona, the infernal flaming plasmic meatball in the sky”. This strong use of imagery really shows how the situation is ‘heating up’ (<— haha. puns.).
After many minutes of people speaking over the loudspeaker and people in their cars getting impatient and honking, there is what the author calls, (literally says this in the text, kind of weird), a climactic moment. They cut the ribbon and everyone cheers, only to realize that, “the center of the bridge rose up, as if punched from beneath, and broke in two along a jagged zig zag line.”.
Wow. 1 for the Monkey Wrench Gang. 0 for everyone else.