Rhetoric Review Oct 2011

“I Was Ready For a Mending”: Rhetorics of Trauma and Recovery in Doug Peacock'sGrizzly YearsandWalking it Off

Amy Larsen

Abstract

Abstract Doug Peacock, known as the inspiration for Edward Abbey's George Hayduke in the environmentalist comedy The Monkey Wrench Gang, has published his own accounts of their relationship and his conservationist work. These memoirs recount his experiences with PTSD after serving in Vietnam and argue for grizzly bear conservation. By using trauma to establish identification with the audience, the texts encourage readers to value other species and their own while resisting the totalizing tendencies of Burkean consubstantiality. The texts build identification and preserve difference through narrative structure and appeals to collective memory that encourage empathy yet stress the specificity of personal experience. Notes 1 I thank RR peer reviewers Jeremy Engels and Randy Lake for their valuable suggestions and encouragement. 2 On the representation of My Lai in popular cinema and how collective memory of the war has evolved, see Owen.

Journal
Rhetoric Review
Published
2011-10-01
DOI
10.1080/07350198.2011.604612
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Topics
modern rhetorical theory archival research
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References (22)

  1. Abbey (1990)
    Hayduke Lives!
  2. Abbey (1975)
    The Monkey Wrench Gang
  3. Alderman and Harold. 1998.“Abbey as Anarchist.” Coyote in the Maze: Tracking Edward Abbey in a World of Words…
  4. Balaev (2008)
    Mosaic
  5. Bergalnd (2000)
    The National Uncanny: Indian Ghosts and American Subjects
Show all 22 →
  1. Burke (1950)
    Rhetoric of Motives
  2. Capps (1982)
    The Unfinished War: Vietnam and the American Conscience
  3. Haraway (2008)
    When Species Meet
  4. Herman (1992)
    Trauma and Recovery
  5. LaCapra (2001)
    Writing History, Writing Trauma
  6. McFarland (2007)
    Proteus
  7. 10.1017/S0021875803007102
     ↗
  8. 10.1080/07393180216565
     ↗
  9. Peacock (1990)
    Grizzly Years
  10. Peacock (2005)
    Walking it Off
  11. Pennebaker (1997)
    Opening Up
  12. 10.1353/lm.2000.0011
     ↗
  13. Perelman (1969)
    The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation
  14. Ratcliffe (2005)
    Rhetorical Listening: Identification, Gender, Whiteness
  15. Ricoeur (2005)
    The Course of Recognition
  16. United States. U.S. Bureau of the Census (2009)
    census.gov
  17. Wolfe (2003)
    Animal Rites
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