Dead Wake Character Analysis

The Open Sea In eighteen minutes nearly 1,200 people lost their lives due to U-20 boat captain, Walther Schwieger. A new form of war technology allowed for this to happen without a single hand of human on human contact. Throughout Erik Larson’s Dead Wake, you will be completely captivated by the way he manages to turn a historical event into a storyline that will have you instantly hooked. Larson manages to switch from New York, Washington, Berlin, London, and the vast seas throughout the chapters. The fearless acts, new technology, and the specific time in war all played a part in the demise of what everyone thought to be the undestructable boat, The Lusitania. The main theme that reoccured in Larson’s story of the last crossing of the Lusitania is courage and how indivduals adapted in a time of fear. During the tenth month of World War 1, the Lusitania was set to sail the open seas from New York to Liverpool on

It included British citizens, Russians, Persians, French, Greeks, Swedes, Belgians, Dutch, Italians, Mexicans, Finns, Denmark, Spain, Argentina, Switzerland, Norway, and India. The passengers brought a plethora of different belongings on board. One passenger in particular caught the eye of Larson. Charles Emelius Lauriat Jr. was a first class passenger from Boston. He was president of one of the greatest-known bookstores, Charles E. Lauriat Company. It was “the golden age of American book collecting,” (54) so it was a perfect time for Lauriat’s business. There was something that seperated Lauriat from all of the other booksellers in the area. Following after his parents, he would take an annual trip to London to buy old books and take them back to America. It is known that, “By century’s end, the store had become one of the country’s leading sellers and importers of rare books, manuscripts, and illustrations, its bookplates destined to be treasured by future bibliophiles.”