Analysis Of The Devil In The White City By Erik Larson

In the late 1800s the Chicago World’s Fair was well on its way to becoming a modern marvel of the time, little did the fairgoers know that both good and a great evil lurked among them. The Devil in the White City is a historical nonfiction book written by Erik Larson, within it there lies two stories of two very different men. The tale of good follows the life of a young architect whose goal is to make an impact on the world. How will he accomplish this? By making the, “legendary 1893 World’s Fair”. The tale of evil follows the the man who would become the first serial killer in American history. Their names, Daniel Burnham and H.H. Holmes. Daniel Hudson Burnham, was one of the two main architects who essentially created the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, Illinois. The fair’s goal, to bring the government's economy back from

Using a series of different sources he created a historical narrative of two vital events in United State’s history. In the book, Lason notifies the audience that, “However strange or macabre some of the following incidents may seem, this is not a work of fiction. Anything between quotation marks comes from a letter, memoir, or other written document.(XI)” Just a few of these sources are the Olmsted Papers, Burnham Archives, and the Chicago Tribune. Larson’s reasons for creating this book are to show two very different people, one who created, and one who destroyed. His reasons for writing are shown in his Author’s Note which reads, “Beneath the gore and smoke and loam, this book is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, other in the manufacture of sorrow.(XI)” Another reason for this novel is to show conflicts in the world, “In the end of the story of the ineluctable conflict between good and evil, daylight and darkness, the White and the