Analysis of Abbey’s thesis in “Desert Solitaire" - Essay

 

 

 

 

Analysis of Abbey’s Thesis in

Desert Solitaire – A Season in the Wilderness

 

 

 

          To analyze Abbey’s thesis in Desert Solitaire, “Cowboys and Indians: Part II” directs my attention to his idea. In fact, Abbey physically stated his thesis in this chapter, “There is no mystery; there is only paradox, the incontrovertible union of contradictory truths” (124). Abbey illustrates his purpose making allusions with ethical appeal combining his pathos, ethos, and ultimately reaching logos, consequently presenting its paradox.

 

First, Abbey shows his pathos through emotional appeals illustrating the horned owl, the natural enemy of the rabbit. Yet from his eye-opening astonishment of nature, the rabbit surely is the natural friend of the owl. After it's been caught and subdued, the rabbit waits with no resistance, until finally it's eaten by the owl. Similarly, Abbey points out a condemned man passively becomes an instrument of his executioner. Abbey speculates the rabbit’s fear made the owl’s job easy, so as condemned man to his executioner, states, “Is it love? Or only teamwork again - good sportsmanship?” (123). Abbey provokes the irony to paradox of natural enemies in “well-organized system of operations and procedures,” to condemned man’s lifetime of dread, “someone is dying to please” (123).

 

Subsequently, Abbey makes an allusion embedded ethos through rational appeals illustrating the fact of Navajo Indians. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has been aiming the Indians into white men under the word “assimilation” (130). Afterwards, industrialization forces them into machines however, it requires a “Procrustean mutilation of their basic humanity” (133). In the end, cowboys and Indians, the originals, have nearly disappeared. Moreover, Abbey states, “well-intentioned proposals were made everywhere, over and over again, in reply to the demand for a solution to the national and international miseries of mankind” (133). Consequently, Abbey’s significant paradox indicates that the more convenient people want to be, the more lost in mankind. Furthermore, it will lead into environmental chaos. It also indicates Bacon’s “The Idols of the Marketplace,” which states, “the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding” ("The Four Idols" 419).

 

From his pathos and ethos, Abbey reaches the logos, his ethical appeal, through paradox. Abbey expresses his awareness of nature as it is, acknowledging the opposite consequences as well. Through his allusions to paradox, his ultimate ideas can be perceived. The secret beyond paradox is “balance, moderate extremism, the best of both worlds” (331).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Abbey, Edward. Desert Solitaire: A season in the Wilderness. New York:

Ballantine Books, 1971.

Bacon, Francis. “The Four Idols.” A World of Ideas. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. 6th ed.

New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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21 March 2005

 

EDWARD ABBEY

DESERT SOLITAIRE – A Season in the Wilderness

 

 

 

Outline for Short Essay #2:

Analysis of Abbey’s Desert Solitaire

 

 

           In “Desert Solitaire,” Abbey alludes in his purpose to the entire narrative with combining rational and emotional tones. Abbey sets his goal in “First Morning” stated, “Like a god, like an ogre? The personification of the natural is exactly the tendency I wish to suppress in myself, to eliminate for good.” More concrete for this idea, in “Cowboys and Indians: Part II,” Abbey illustrates his eye-opening astonishment of nature as well as human being whose part of nature, yet developing primitive nature under “provide for the enjoyment” is leading the whole environment chaos. “There is no mystery; there is only paradox, the incontrovertible union of contradictory truths.” Abbey is proclaiming the consequences that “if well-intentioned proposals made everywhere, over and over again, in reply to the demand for a solution to national and international miseries of mankind.” Ultimately, showing his optimistic posture of nature and acknowledging opposing views as well, his ethical appeal contributes to mankind appreciating the environment as it is.