Critical Analysis

La’TaraTaylor
ENC1102

Professor Myers

CriticalAnalysis

WordCount: 1000

Date: July 22, 2008


“A Deadly Obsession”


Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief is an adventurous novel which gives a meticulous description of the history and the development of orchids. Visionary passion and fierce obsessions are demonstrated, in reference to the great desire individual’s posses to obtain this historically significant piece of nature. The passion for collecting is described in the book as a means of infusing meaning into life, subjecting the vicissitudes to some order, and acquiring the ability to mold and change the nature of things. This book is not about flowers and it's not about Laroche; it's about obsession and the lengths people will travel to satisfy an urge or an addiction. For these people the addiction is orchids and the victims are diverse: Florida Seminoles, Park Rangers, Literature Professors, Adventurers, and members of the English House. Orlean’s most evident description of obsession is demonstrated in the text through her employment of syntax and plot.


Orlean has a delicious sense of wonder, a beautiful and lyrical writing style, and an eye for fascinating details. She has the ability to place the reader in the middle of a swamp, at an orchid show, or on an expedition into the wilds of South America. Not only does Orlean provide the reader with little known facts about orchids, but she also explores some of the oddities of human nature. What causes people to become so passionate about collecting orchids that they risk their fortunes or even their lives to acquire rare species of this coveted plant? When does a passion for collecting orchids become an unhealthy obsession? Orlean uses style to help the reader understand the main character. Writing style is the manner in which a writer addresses a matter in prose, a manner which reveals the writer's personality, or voice. It is particularly evident in the choices the writer makes in syntactical structures, diction, and figures of thought.


Orlean hopes Laroche will offer her insight into orchid mania, and he makes a lively, contrary companion as he guides her through Florida's often bizarre botanical subculture. In Palm Beach mansions and low-rent bungalows, at conferences, galas, and greenhouses, she is introduced to devotees who regale her with accounts of rivalries and discoveries, of lives both ruined and enlightened by a passion for "the most compelling and maddening of all collectible living things." Determined not to succumb to the flower lust, Orlean does succumb. In the end, she makes a heart-of-darkness trek into the frightening Fakahatchee swamp. As Orlean reveals her own desire to find the elusive white flower, orchid mania resonates as a metaphor for any obsession. Fanatic behavior, she suggests, is really admirable optimism. This is an excellent example of the author employing narrative modes by placing action filled and adventurous moments within the novel. This is beneficial because it adds voltage to Orleans form of style.


The Orchid Thief allows the reader to view taut prose from an acute observer of the psychological backwaters of modern human experience. Orlean writes with a sideways glance at her main character, John Laroche, who by twists and turns of his genius and deviant mind is the meandering throughline of this personal history. He is the titular thief who, along with some Seminole Indians, gets caught red-handed in the Fakahatchee Strand collecting endangered orchids. His eventual conviction is secondary to a telling string of tales about orchid people, nurseries, Seminoles and, not least, the Florida Peninsula itself. Orlean, as narrator, is sometimes a bit too wide-eyed. One of her tricks is to convince us she only half believes Laroche and then is, after ample initiation, able to sort out his aberrant behaviors. She sees through the foibles of Laroche's indulgent, chain-smoking know-it-all deviance, still admiring his ability to move on from utter failure. Her casual interest in orchids is piqued but then reined in after seeing others' orchid addictions. She is most enamored of one species (because of Laroche), the Ghost Orchid, the species on which Laroche is sure he'll make his millions. The species woos her throughout driving the plot to its ultimate conclusion. Plot is all the events in a story particularly rendered towards the achievement of some particular artistic or emotional effect. A plot's structure is the way in which the story elements are arranged. Writers vary structure depending on the needs of the story. For example, in Orleans The Orchid Thief, the author withheld plot exposition until later in the story. In this text it is at the end of the story where you understand Orlean’s true feeling in reference to seeing the ghost orchid. At the conclusion of the book Orlean states “At this point I realized it was just as well that I never saw a ghost orchid, so that it could never disappoint me, and so it would remain forever something I wanted to see” (Orlean 232). This is important because throughout the book Orlean continually voices her desire to see a ghost orchid in bloom. Orlean’s expectations of seeing the ghost orchid were so elevated that it led the reader to believe up until the very last few words of the text that her anticipation would come to reality. However, this revelation no matter how many times she visited various nurseries and the Fakahatchee failed to occur.


Throughout this text the elements of style and plot were demonstrated in various way to grasp the readers attention and provide an in depth description of the story line. Unity is established in The Orchid Thief because Orlean formulated a beginning, middle, and an end which included plausibility, surprise, and suspense. The style Orlean provided revealed her way of perceiving experience and organizing perceptions. Orleans writing of The Orchid Thief’s was heavily descriptive, with emphasis on setting and atmosphere. It also offers focus on action and plot movement. Lastly, all elements of literary nonfiction were presented in a manner which assured the reader was able to understanding the characters in the story, see their evolution throughout the manuscript, and make inferences in relation to the plot.



Works Cited
Orlean, Susan. The Orchid Thief. New York: Random, 1998.