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Devil In The White City Analysis

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Reagan Carter Period 4 Devil in the White City Reading Log The "Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson is a nonfiction novel that reveals the chaos of Chicago. The novel mostly takes place in Chicago around 1890-1893 while towards the end of the novel it takes place in 1895 Philadelphia. Larson recreated two men that would live in Chicago. The two men will have different plots and will each provide a meaning in one another. One plot is by the architect that will build the Chicago World's Fair his name is Daniel Burnham. The other man's name is H.H Holmes and he is trying to acquire work as a pharmacist or a doctor around the same time period, but he isn't a regular man. Daniel Burnham's …show more content…

No one knows who coined the term, but it fit, and the Montauk became the first building to be called a skyscraper.” page 25 The author uses a polysyndeton structure sentence to help emphasize how marvelous the building was. The author’s use of diction also helps portray how grand the building was. "Great murderers, like great men in other walks of activity, have blue eyes.”page 35 This simile compares great men and how Burnham and Holmes are equal at what they do. Both men take very cautious and highly detailed when it comes to their work. The “blue eyes” reference helped compare the men with one another since both are just men. “ “I was born with the devil in me,” he wrote. “I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.” “ page 108 The comparison to murder with a song writer and his songs help create a deeper metaphor. The act of murder was so thrilling to him that he couldn’t just do it once but it had to be annual thing. Just like how songwriters write their lyrics. “The fair was so perfect, its grace and beauty like an assurance that for as long as it lasted nothing truly bad could happen to anyone, anywhere.” page

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