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Analysis Of Devil In The White City By Erik Larson

1010 Words5 Pages

Living a dream gives a person the feeling that life it too good to be true. It’s bliss for a while, then things go right back to where they were before anything had happened. The Chicago World’s Fair gave people feeling of being in a dream because of it’s aesthetic, the wonderful inventions that came with it, and the freedom many people got to experience. Devil In The White City by Erik Larson describes how the people of America, and other visitors, were living in heaven for six months before the World’s Fair closed in the fall of 1893. In the book, Larson also reveals the negative aspects of the fair and how it was damaging to the country in some ways. Above all, the thing that effected people the most at the World’s Fair was the buildings and great architectural work that went on. The lights alone had a huge effect on people. One person recalled, ““As the light was fading in the sky, millions of lights were suddenly flashed on, all at one time... Having seen nothing but kerosene lamps for illumination, this was like getting a sudden vision of Heaven”” (254). The allusion to heaven while still being alive creates a dreamlike mindset for people. It’s something new and mind-blowing. Something no one has ever seen before. The way nature worked with the buildings also impacted visitors. Larson wrote that, “The shared …show more content…

“In the first six months of 1892 the city experienced nearly eight hundred violent deaths”(12). Catastrophes happened even before the fair technically started, but the with a huge flow of people to help build the fair came a huge amount of crime. In a short time frame, “[in] August alone the building took three lives. Elsewhere on the grounds four other men died and dozens more suffered all manner of fractures, burns, and lacerations”(178). Many people lost their lives. Families lost loved ones. To finish a project so quickly, it ended up being a dreadful time for numerous people on the

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The World fair was the engineering project of its time. It brought plenty of excitement and attention to itself, but it also brought crime. The problem is, even though everything seems fine with the fair, there were bad things still happening. Stealing, cheating, and in extreme cases even murder. Chicago was in charge of building the World’s fair, but ended up hosting a murderer in its walls.

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The Devil In The White City had many plot lines that took place in Chicago around 1893 at the World's Fair. The first plot line focuses mainly on Daniel Burnham constructing the World's Fair with his partner John Root. It tells a story of struggle for the men, how they had such a hard time constructing the large Farris wheel, to having to open unfinished, then having trouble getting attendance up. Then the struggle is over for the two guys for a short amount of time. Not long after they gather up just enough money to pay off their debts, the Fair had to shut down, as the mayor of Chicago had been assassinated, honestly a more positive reputation for Chicago.

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The Devil in the White City Rhetorical Analysis Essay The Chicago World’s Fair, one of America’s most compelling historical events, spurred an era of innovative discoveries and life-changing inventions. The fair brought forward a bright and hopeful future for America; however, there is just as much darkness as there is light and wonder. In the non-fiction novel, The Devil in the White City, architect Daniel Burnham and serial killer H. H. Holmes are the perfect representation of the light and dark displayed in Chicago. Erik Larson uses positive and negative tone, juxtaposition, and imagery to express that despite the brightness and newfound wonder brought on by the fair, darkness lurks around the city in the form of murder, which at first, went unnoticed.

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“In August alone the building took three lives. Elsewhere on the grounds four other men died and dozens more suffered all manner of fractures, burns, and lacerations. The fair, according to one later appraisal, was a more dangerous place to work than a coal mine” (Larson 178). Larson’s comparison of a coal mine to the fair serves to show how hazardous the fair was to work in. Larson explains the danger of the fair by listing the various injuries that ailed the miners, such as “fractures, burns, and Lacerations.”

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Erik Larson writes “Beneath the gore and smoke and loom, this book is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging in the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow”(Larson xi). In the book The Devil and the White City, Erik Larson tells a story of 2 very determined men, Daniel Burnham and H. Holmes, using their talents and determination to create good results, but also bad results; one being a very successful and good spirited architect, the other being a witty evil serial killer. It reveals how in every good act or intention, there is some kind of evil, and also the other way around. Erik Larson explores the underlying difference between good and evil, while telling 2 tales of Daniel Burnham, and Henry H. Holmes Daniel Burnham and Henry H. Holmes are alike in many ways, as explored throughout the novel. Both of these men used their determination and skills to accomplish many things, good or bad.

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