David Brower's Encounters With The Archdruid

In the novel Encounters with the Archdruid, author John McPhee sets out to portray environmental conservationist David Brower in three different environments with a different adversary in each. In preparation for writing this novel, McPhee shadowed Brower over the course of a year. McPhee also strategically paired Brower with people whose opinions differed greatly from Brower’s in order to extract Brower’s argument and to recognize the changes in his argument. David Brower, head of the Sierra Club, was responsible for halting copious legislation that would have been harmful for the environment. He is widely regarded as the “most unrelenting fighter for conservation in the world” (McPhee 87). McPhee uses this notion to his advantage, by building
In Brower’s initial representation, he is shown to be a knowledgeable, credible source about environmental issues. This is juxtaposed when the vast majority of his debate with Park consists of his insisting that the beauty of the forests is enough to justify abandoning the minerals. When Park explains that the mining would “hardly show on the surface,” Brower ignores him, instead giving the illogical idea that he should mine for copper in concrete (46). Brower’s reluctance to consider any opposing ideas, in addition to his inability to provide any scientific facts for his reasoning, contradicts the previous notion that Brower is a reasonable, logical person. McPhee also enforces this new version of Brower by explaining the hypocrisy of his philosophy. Because Brower lives in a comfortable house and does not “wear a skin and live in a cave,” Brower is “not consistent with his philosophy” (47). The need for mining minerals, which Brower is consistently lobbying against, is not consistent with the life he leads. As Park points out, Brower enjoys the luxuries that minerals provide, including copper wiring, zinc covered downspouts, and his television which uses a plethora of minerals from all over the world (49). This again is a clear juxtaposition of the image of Brower that readers are initially presented with. Once again, this forces readers
In this portion of the book, readers are introduced to a much more confident, thoughtful version of Brower than seen when he was on the mountain. Brower appears to have all the confidence and facts readers expected when they first learned of Brower’s accomplishments. In what Brower calls “The Sermon,” he says that if people believe that they can continue to use resources at the same rate, they are “stark, raving mad” (80). This appears to be one of the first logical and fact-based statements that Brower uses to support his opinion. This radically different version of Brower is consistent throughout his time on the island. Charles Fraser, the sustainable developer of Hilton Head Island, describes Brower as “argumentative, quiet, and shy” as Brower listened to Fraser’s ideas about sustainable development (103). This version of Brower is completely different from the one in the previous part, indicating that the change in antagonist coupled with the change in environment has severely impacted Brower’s character and argument. Brower is so compromising that he even alludes to being okay with seeing “ten percent [of the island] developed . . . and ninety percent not” (142). When arguing against mining in the mountain, Brower would not concede to any mining whatsoever, but when presented with the idea of developing an island sustainably, Brower is