Moon-Eye Character Analysis

Moon-Eye is a wild horse, formerly owned by the rancher Roy Scobie, whose mysterious 10-year absence in the wilderness prompts Abbey to search for him . After hunting Moon-Eye’s tracks, Abbey confronts the horse in a stand-off that lasts hours. As they stare each other down, Abbey talks to the horse, using logic and persuasion to try to lure him into his grasp. Though Abbey’s attempt is fruitless—the horse bucking whenever he gets within reach, eventually sending Abbey away exhausted—Moon-Eye elicits Abbey’s longest chunks of dialogue in the entire book. Abbey spends more words on him than on Ralph Newcomb, his weeklong companion in Glen Canyon. The horse’s ability to inspire language suggests that Abbey regards him as an equal, an example of Abbey’s wider argument that humans are not superior to animals or to the environment.