Analysis Of Devil In The White City By Erik Larson

The Artistic, Moral, and Inventive Progress of America
A six month long fair with lights and technology that the world had never seen anything like, a charming, blue eyed killer, and the beautiful city of Chicago; all elements that make up the novel, Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. This book is a retelling of the events that transpired in the city of Chicago before, during, and after the building of the Chicago World’s Fair, also called the World’s Columbian Exposition. For the majority of the book, each chapter switches off between the production of the fair and the life of the killer H.H. Holmes (his real name being Herman Webster Mudgett). Holmes is considered by many to be America’s first serial killer, and his actions are covered

Another was mentioned early on in the book, the cereal Shredded Wheat. On page 267 Larson tells of the general feelings about the new cereal introduced at the fair, “A new cereal, Shredded Wheat, seemed unlikely to succeed - ‘shredded doormat’ some called it,” (Larson 267). Obviously people didn’t really enjoy the cereal at all. It being considered unlikely to succeed combined with people calling it “shredded doormat” did not bode well for the cereal. Contrary to popular belief at the time, Shredded Wheat did succeed. The proof is at any grocery store, Shredded Wheat is still around today. Without the fair, who knows if it would ever have succeeded. What matters, however, is that Larson emphasized Shredded Wheat throughout the book very subtly. The cereal is only ever mentioned three times, the first being in the very beginning of the book without much reason, the second being the quote mentioned earlier about how it was likely to fail, and the third telling of how Shredded Wheat actually succeeded after the fair. Shredded Wheat was such a tiny, miniscule, detail that there was no reason Larson had to include it in the novel, but he did it to show the colossal effect the fair could have on any invention or product. He did it to show that the inventions unveiled at the fair made lasted. Inventions that started there were important and would stay with American people. Shredded Wheat isn’t exactly an amazing product, but it was one that Larson chose to show progress in inventions. So many new creations were at the fair that help people and are just useful in general, and whenever even one of these kinds of things are invented it shows progress in society. Erik Larson told of all of these new inventions to show progress in America, and he specifically talked about Shredded Wheat to prove that the inventions at the fair lasted in America. It can be argued that these new