Desert Solitaire is a nonfictional work that was inscribed by an American author acknowledged as Edward Abbey. The book was published in 1968 marking Edward Abbey’s first foray into the world of autobiographical writing. The work was transcribed when Abbey was still working as a ranger at the Arches National Park in the desert in Utah. The book is a sporadic understanding of one man’s expedition to feel nature in its untainted form. This paper is set to discuss if the author is contradicting his ideals or not by praising the technological objects such as the drilled well, storage tank and windmill. Additionally, it also focuses on how Abbey, the author describes the experience of setting out on the river and what the words he uses tells us.
In the book Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey, on page 126, Abbey praises the “drilled well, its windmill and storage tank.” These are technological objects, are they not? Is this a contradiction of ideals? Why or why not?
The “drilled well, windmill and the storage tank” are technological objects as a consequence of civilization. This is a contradiction of his ideals because he is opposed to modernity or rather civilization that destroys the desert landscape and estranges man from their natural environment yet he completely relies upon the modern contrivances in exploring and living in the desert. Additionally, he praises the “drilled well, its windmill and storage tank” because without them, he cannot survive in the wilderness (Abbey, 2016).
In the book Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey, look at pages 154 and 156: How does Abbey describe the experience of setting out on the river? What do the words he uses tell us?
Abbey describes the experience of setting out on the river as, “delirious exhilaration of independence, a rebirth backward in time and into primeval liberty, into freedom in the most simple, literal, primitive meaning of the word, the only meaning that really counts”. The words he uses tell us that the river trip was just a way of him participating fully with nature by being taken by the haste of currents and submitting their selves to the fates of water (Abbey, 2016).
Reference
Abbey, E. (2016). Desert solitaire. Éditions Gallmeister.
