Mike Schaff Character Analysis

An oil worker who moves to Bayou Corne for retirement before his new town is swallowed by a giant sinkhole caused by a Texas Brine drilling disaster. Schaff grew up in a two-room house among family on a former plantation and worries that “big government” is destroying Louisiana’s tight-knit local communities. After the sinkhole, he became a reluctant environmental activist—he did media interviews, wrote to his representatives, and even spoke at protests with tears in his eyes. He did so because he felt deeply nostalgic for the neighborly love he found, and lost, in Bayou Corne—it was the model of his ideal community, a “nearly wholly private world” where government played little role. He works with General Honoré to found The Green Army and tries unsuccessfully to convince fellow Tea Party supporters to add environmental protections to their policy agenda. Mike exemplifies the Great Paradox (irresponsible drilling destroyed his life, but he still rejects EPA regulations) as well as the endurance self that Hochschild sees underlying the paradox—he maintains a loyalty to the Tea Party, strong religious beliefs, and a disdain for government and its beneficiaries. By the end of the book, Schaff has found a new house on the water, like his place in Bayou Corne, but finds out that fracking wastewater is about to be dumped nearby.