Recreating the Garden of Eden : a case study of London's Vauxhall Gardens from the eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century

• Main Author: Giam, Mezza
• Other Authors: Faizah Binte Zakaria
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2022
• Subjects: Humanities::History
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/155956
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Aspirations to remake the lost Garden of Eden on earth have been fulfilled by the tools of science, technology, and capitalism ever since the Scientific Revolution. Weaving together environmental and social history, this thesis employs Vauxhall Gardens as a case study to demonstrate how the recreation of Eden involved the civilization of nature, space, and humans. It likewise aims to foreground the largely overlooked experiences and untold perspectives of marginalized Others at Vauxhall Gardens. Offering multifarious attractions and entertainments, Vauxhall Gardens served as one of the most renowned pleasure gardens in London from the eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century. Although it constantly attempted to construct itself as a civilized, Edenic space, the outcome was an imperfect one. The process of recreating the biblical paradise at Vauxhall Gardens almost always encompassed the Othering of vulnerable groups, along gender, race, and class lines. Nevertheless, by flaunting their Otherness through diverse carnivalesque acts, these marginalized groups were able to reclaim some space and legitimacy for themselves within the uninviting pleasure garden.