George Hayduke (character)

George Washington Hayduke is a fictional character in Edward Abbey's novels The Monkey Wrench Gang and Hayduke Lives!. Hayduke is an ex-Green Beret, one-time explosives expert and medical assistant to the Viet Cong, and an American environmentalist hero.

Origins

The character of Hayduke was based on a composite of several Vietnam vets that Abbey called friends. He is most likely named after the Haiduks, rebels in the Ottoman Empire.

Hayduke is Abbey's codification of the wants, longings, and desires of the average male environmentalist awash in the frustrations of corporate greed and corruption where the voice of the little people remain unheard -- until the little people rise up and take direct action because, as Abbey's Monkey Wrench Gang puts it, "somebody has to do it."

Books

George Washington Hayduke's first set of adventures outlined in The Monkey Wrench Gang leave him stranded at the top of a 700-foot (210 m) cliff after a raging storm, surrounded by law enforcement officers in helicopters dropping grenades on his position. Hayduke's body is seen shredded by gunfire as he topples into the maelstrom of the raging canyon waters 700 feet (210 m) below, thus ending the last of the Monkey Wrench Gang's heroic work in America's besieged Southwest.

Edward Abbey's first work covering Hayduke was in 1975. In 1989 (the year of Abbey's death) Hayduke Lives! was released. The adventures of Hayduke and the original Monkey Wrench Gang become tied with the activities of more legitimate environmental organizations like Earth First! (The Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front did not exist at the time Abbey wrote The Monkeywrench Gang).

Aliases

George Hayduke uses a number of aliases over the course of the books, including:

• Leopold
• Rudolf the Red
• Herman Smith
• Fred Goodsell