Idealism and Extremism

Eleanor Catton writes Birnam Wood as an indictment of idealism, illuminating that balance is the answer to forward progress rather than extremism. She showcases this in an array of ways that she weaves together throughout the novel, using the deaths of the main characters to exhibit the danger in focusing on ideals instead of compromising.

Birnam Wood struggles with compromise as a group, hindering any forward progress. Shelley notes that “The difficulty…was in knowing whether it was better to raise public consciousness through protest, and risk putting off those very people who were yet to be converted to the cause, or to risk accusations of hypocrisy and try to change the system from within” (19). She admits that the group contains “The idealogues, who were combative and self-conscious and who cherished revolutionary aims; and the do-gooders, who were more reliably hard-working, but who were...