Where It All Goes Down
America
From the Earth to the Moon is an all-American road trip. Although we start off in a gaudy meeting hall in Baltimore, Maryland, the novel's plot takes us to the middle of nowhere in Florida. Time to unpack those swim trunks, y'all.
Popping Caps
We start things off in the Gun Club's hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. Gun Club HQ is quite a sight—there are "all kinds of ancient and modern firearms spread over the wall in picturesque arrangement" (2.3). To be honest, it sounds more like a church than a meeting hall; the Gun Club's god just happens to be warfare (for more on this, check out our thoughts on the moon over in the "Symbols" section). Instead of ceremonial candles, we find "flames of gas issued from a thousand revolvers" (2.3), and in place of an altar, there's a "thirty-two-inch mortar" (3.4). We know one thing for sure-these guys aren't messing around.
At a certain point, it all just starts sounding tacky. This is Verne satirizing the self-seriousness of men like Maston, who consider "a shot […] the most startling manifestation of human power" (7.13) imaginable. Although his characters love war with every fiber of their beings, it's clear from this setting that their author couldn't disagree more.
The Devil Went Down to Florida
Florida is like the Wild West by comparison. While Baltimore is a decent-sized city, there are only about "3,000 residents of Tampa Town" (13.9), all of whom come out to meet the club when they first arrive. Don't tell them that Barbicane doesn't put too much thought into his decision to go to Florida, settling on the state mostly out of laziness—there's no need to hurt their feelings. Plus, it doesn't really matter: This impulsive decision changes the fate of Florida forever.
The Gun Club transforms the state overnight. Their work requires a lot of new infrastructure, and when all is said and done, this "miserable Floridian peninsula" will have gained "a vast trade centre, railways, and a considerable increase in population" (16.17). Not a bad deal. In fact, a similar thing happened in real life when NASA built the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, turning a tiny town into the home of some the smartest people on the planet. In a way, this is the Gun Club's greatest success—for once, they build something that helps people instead of killing them.