The Millionaire's Hothouse In The Orchid Thief

The Millionaire’s Hothouse is the first chapter from Susan Orlean’s literary nonfiction personal narrative The Orchid Thief. Orlean’s opening chapter gives her account of the main character John Laroche, a self-taught American horticulturist. In this initial chapter, the reader learns how Laroche comes to clash with the legal system for orchestrating a theft with three Seminole Indians to strip a protected Florida State park of its endangered native orchids. It has been a predominant idea that any type of change for the environment is always detrimental. However, one of the main themes of The Millionaire’s Hothouse is how an environment can adapt to change, sometimes for the better. One of Laroche’s most defining qualities is his ability to obsess. He calls it being passionate, but he also deem “life

Just as Florida is described as both wild and tame, the orchids are wild in the fact that they grow naturally and tame in the fact that they are endangered and protected by law. The orchid species had been mutated many times by multiple amateurs, producing countless hybrids. The man-made pond that Orlean identified is also a hybrid, a product of both man and nature. At the end of the chapter, the orchid seems to personify Florida in its paradoxical existence. The Millionaire’s Hothouse is a poignant introduction to a classic in literary nonfiction, foreshadowing a story of the little-known world of orchid collecting. The chapter places Florida’s inhabitants in an endlessly evolving world, full of life and new beginning. Larouche, described equally with great detail, adds color with his rapidly adjusting preoccupations Ultimately, however, the reason for Laroche’s fixation is about him finding himself, and the amazing transformations to which people will go to gratify it. Laroche made such great changes in life to attempt to find his true