To leave everything behind and settle on a remote island with only the bare necessities is a thought that probably everyone entertains at some point in their life. But there aren’t many who successfully execute this desire. In Ron Howard’s Eden, we are introduced to a group of Europeans who had not only considered the possibility of distancing themselves from human civilization but had spent years trying to bring their idea of ‘how life should be’ to life.
Eden is based on a true story—Dr. Friedrich Ritter, a German physician, moved to the remote Galapagos island of Floreana in 1929 with his partner, Dore Straunch. The post-World War I economic crisis, followed by the rise of fascism, resulted in Ritter’s decision to move away from the chaos. He started working on a manifesto for his radical new philosophy that was meant to save the world. He would write letters that the boats passing by the island would at times pick up, and that was how the world came to know about their experimental lifestyle.
Spoiler Alert
Why were Friedrich and Dore hostile towards their new neighbors?
Friedrich and Dore were well aware that the whole world was watching their experiment from a distance. People were waiting for them to come up with a revolutionary philosophy that would help them reimagine life itself. Friedrich and Dore quoted their favorite philosophers in their daily conversations, and they were proud of surviving on the island following a vegetarian diet. They were building an ‘ideal’ life, and perhaps at the back of their minds they always knew that their hardships and sacrifices would one day yield great results. Along with producing a pathbreaking manifesto, Friedrich also hoped to cure Dore of multiple sclerosis simply with willpower, and Dore trusted his instincts. The couple treasured the solitude, and they were not pleased when a family of three showed up.
Heinz and Margaret Wittmer eagerly arrived at Friedrich and Dore’s doorstep on the remote island. They had come with their son, Harry, who was suffering from tuberculosis. Their doctor had recommended sending their boy to a sanitarium, but they couldn’t afford one. When Heinz learned about Friedrich’s experiment, he decided to follow in his footsteps. He was confident that the fresh air would heal Harry, and he was ready to overcome the hardship that came with living on the island. Friedrich made it very clear that living on the island wasn’t going to be easy; there were two freshwater springs, and summers were, therefore, ruthless. There were wild animals everywhere, so safety was also a concern. But his warning didn’t scare off the Wittmers. Friedrich recommended they stay at one of the pirate’s caves, and he confidently told Dore that their new neighbors would not stay for long. But Friedrich couldn’t have been more wrong.
The Wittmers didn’t have an option but to make the most of what the island had to offer. They dug out a makeshift well to collect water from the spring, they worked every hour of the day to build their own front-yard farm, and they eventually shifted from the dangerous, mosquito-infested cave to a stone house that they had built in a few months. Friedrich and Dore were surprised by how things turned out. Friedrich was rather envious of how well the Wittmers had managed to provide for themselves. He was supposed to be the one to teach the world how to live an ideal life, but here he was, feeling like a complete failure. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that an ordinary couple (who lacked Friedrich and Dore’s philosophical prowess) did what they thought was impossible for anyone else but themselves to achieve. The Wittmers tried to maintain a friendly relationship with Friedrich and Dore, but their presence itself made the couple feel defeated. When Heinz begged Friedrich to help Margaret deliver her baby, he refused. Margaret ended up delivering all by herself, but thankfully Friedrich showed up when she experienced post-delivery complications. Hainz was thankful to Friedrich, and while it helped ease the tension between them, they never really shared a friendly relationship.
How did the Baroness impact the dynamics on the island?
While the doctor and the Wittmers preferred keeping their interactions to a minimum, things gradually changed when Baroness Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn settled on the island. The self-proclaimed Baroness was apparently a cabaret dancer, driven by a desperate desire for wealth. When she learned about the doctor’s experiment in the Galapagos, she assumed it could be her ticket to winning the lottery. The Baroness planned on constructing a hotel on the island, but the current inhabitants of Floreana were not happy with her proposal. She was a typical capitalist who saw an opportunity in the popularity of the island. She knew the story would sell, and all she needed were investors who believed in her vision. She had assumed the process would be easy, but living on the island was not as dreamy as the papers made it sound.
Soon, she ran out of packaged food, and instead of putting in the labor like everyone else, she plotted and conspired against her neighbors. She knew that the Wittmers had enough food in their house, so she had her men raid them and bring all the packaged food that they could find. Even though she heard Margaret struggle while giving birth all alone with wild dogs attempting to attack her, she showed her ruthlessness by choosing not to help.
The Baroness was devastated when her charms failed to work on businessman George Allan Hancock, who’d briefly visited the island. She’d hoped he would invest in her hotel plan, but things didn’t go the way she’d wished. She wasn’t ready to accept that the world had already figured out that ‘the Baroness’ was an act, and while they enjoyed the entertainment value that she brought to the table, she wasn’t taken seriously as an entrepreneur. Friedrich and Heinz protested when the Baroness’ lover, Phillipson, stole all the goods that Allan Hancock brought for all of them. They were ready with their guns, but Margaret stopped them from killing each other. The Baroness realized that she’d unintentionally brought her enemies together. Friedrich and Heinz looked past their differences because they had a common enemy that they desperately wanted to get rid of.
Why did Friedrich blame Heinz for the Baroness’ murder?
When the Baroness tried to cause a misunderstanding between Friedrich and Heinz, they figured it was time that they permanently got rid of her. Neither Friedrich nor Heinz had moved to the island to become murderers, but they struggled to stick to civility when the person they were dealing with didn’t care about the rules of the game. Heinz murdered Phillipson at first, leaving the Baroness in a completely vulnerable position. Rudolph Lorenz, her lover, had also turned his back on her, and she figured she had no choice but to offer the men a stake in her hotel business. She knew it was a lost cause, but she figured it was worth a try. The minute she made the business proposition, Friedrich put a bullet in her head. The Baroness’ and Phillipson’s bodies were disposed of at sea. Since Friedrich knew it would be impossible to explain the situation to Dore, they agreed that it was best for Rudolph to pretend as if the Baroness and Phillipson had left the island.
The lie wasn’t convincing, so Friedrich decided to frame someone for the Baroness’ disappearance. Since Rudolph had already agreed to leave the island, he only had to get rid of Heinz and his family to relive his initial tranquil days on the island. Margaret knew that Friedrich would try to remove them, and the best way to do so was to blame her husband for the Baroness’ disappearance. She decided to have a word with Dore, who seemed to be in complete agreement with her partner and had no intentions of helping Margaret and Heinz. But Margaret helped Dore picture how frustrating her life would be if she and Friedrich ended up as the only humans on the island. It was obvious that Dore was frustrated with Friedrich’s transformation—from a philosopher who was about to revolutionize the world with his words to a perpetually hungry beastly man who gave in to his primal instincts and had come to realize that life encompassed only the basic needs (food and sex). She had trusted him to cure her, but clearly he had no idea what he was doing anymore. Margaret had offered Dore a bunch of chickens as a peace offering. She warned Dore that the doctor was a dangerous, violent man and he would eventually hurt her as well. Meanwhile, Friedrich wrote a letter to the governor of Galapagos, falsely claiming that Heinz Wittmer had killed the Baroness.
What happened to Dore Straunch?
When Dore Straunch moved to the remote island, she’d hoped to become an evolved human being and set an example for humankind. She wanted to live a life of non-violence, of choosing peace and finding contentment in the bare necessities. She hoped to indulge in art and literature and live an idealistic life. But the island brought out the worst side of them. As long as there was no competition, they were at peace. But the minute their neighbors settled and they experienced envy, their lives drastically changed. Friedrich no longer cared about his manifesto; he wondered how their neighbors could build a better farm than them in such a short span. With months of only surviving on vegetables, he felt the deep desire to taste meat. He had tried to suppress his primitive instinct to become an evolved man, but with limited resources and the constant fear of losing everything, he resorted to violence and gave in to his desires. Even though Dore chose to turn a blind eye to everything that was going wrong, Friedrich’s shift in belief became very difficult for her to ignore. He had destroyed the typewriter, he lacked depth in his thoughts, and he was happy just satisfying his primal desires. But Dore expected so much more, and she was no longer happy with the man she was living with. She knew he no longer valued her, and in a way, they both had started to despise each other. Dore reminded Friedrich of all that he failed to be, and seeing him made Dore reconsider everything she’d done so far.
During Eden’s ending, Dore fed Friedrich dead rotten chicken. Friedrich died of food poisoning, but in his final moments he cursed her with his dying breath. He figured she intentionally fed him the rotten meat. In the end, the governor of Galapagos showed up on the island. He had received Friedrich’s letter, and he was convinced Heinz had killed the Baroness. Dore confirmed Heinz’s involvement, but when the governor spoke to Margaret, his opinion changed. Margaret was dismissive of the governor’s claim; she stated that Friedrich had been on the island for four years, so how could he make the amateur mistake of consuming spoiled chicken unless someone fed it to him? She also added that she had given Dore fresh chicken, so unless it was intentional, there was no way to explain Friedrich’s death. Margaret had by then learned one had to protect oneself to survive in the wild, and she did exactly that. She protected herself and her family. Dore left the island with the governor of Galapagos; there was not enough proof to hold her accountable in the court of law, and she had nothing left to stay on the island for anymore. Especially now that she was alone, and after speaking against the Wittmers, it was obvious that they would not help her.
Did Margaret and her family continue to live on the island?
In Eden’s ending, we learn that the Wittmers continued to live on the island. Even though Friedrich and the Baroness had claimed to be the owners of the island, in the end it was the ‘ordinary’ family that managed to do the impossible. Their determination to survive and their duty towards their children, in a way, made them more responsible. Margaret lived on the island for forty years until her death in 2000. Her son, Harry, met his tragic demise in a drowning accident at a very young age. Margaret is survived by her younger son, Rolf, who founded the Galapagos tour boat company. Her descendants continue to run a small hotel on the island. Dore Straunch returned to Germany, where she died as a result of her illness. Before her death, she wrote a book, ‘Satan Came to Floreana’, narrating her experience on the island. Margaret too had penned a book, ‘Floreana’, in response to Dore’s, and clearly, they had very different takes on similar incidents. The Baroness and Phillipson’s bodies remain undiscovered. The dead remains of Rudy Lorenz and the captain of the boat he was traveling on were found on the beach of Marchena, an island with no freshwater source. It was assumed their boat had run out of fuel and they ended up on the island and possibly died of thirst. In 1962, Heinz Wittmer died of natural causes in Floreana.
