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Devil In The White City Analysis

700 Words3 Pages

Devil in the White City by Erik Larson is a nonfiction novel that takes is based around true events surrounding the building of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, a monumental event that holds great prestige, not unlike hosting the Olympics or Super Bowl today. The creation of the Chicago World’s Fair was designed to celebrate the discovery of america by Columbus, as well as to show the world that Chicago had recovered from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed most of the city. This bid to host the World’s Fair in America followed the great success of the 1889 French Exposition in Paris, where the Eiffel Tower, built to be a temporary landmark, stood as a monument to French beauty and sophistication. In this non-linear novel …show more content…

H. Holmes is introduced. Holmes is a doctor who come to Chicago in order to wind some work. He does fins a job in a small pharmacy which is later on given to him by the past owner. The location of the pharmacy is very relatively close to the location of the Fair which allows him to eventually buy a to that is situated across from his pharmacy. Holmes renovated the inside of that lot in order to satisfy his sadistic needs and turn it into a “Murder House.” This building contains secret passages and disposing methods. Most of the people whom Holmes killed were his past spouses. He would secretly manipulate these women so that they would marry him. This made them easy targets because they would’ve never expected Holmes to perform these horrendous acts of torture and gore. Once the disappearance of some of his victims began to be known he flees to Pennsylvania where he believes that he would be able to reside until the heat of the story cools down. Detective Geyer begins to discover some deep dark secrets in Holmes life which leads him into a wild goose chase trying to find this murdered. Holmes is eventually found and is convicted of quite a few cases of fraud and also several murders all across the United States. Larson’s The Devil in The White City is a book about different but overlapping plots of the live and events of two men whose fates were linked through the creation and the construction of the

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Larson’s use of juxtaposition between the “Black City” and the “White City” displays the different effect of the fair. Contrasting “garbage” and “clean,” he displays a new and improved Chicago after the fair commenced. This conveys to the readers as a significant change from a polluted devastation to a refreshing and “pure” society. Furthermore, the new “White City” introduced many benefits from the fair such as ambulance services and electric streetlights, this serves as a positive and innovative effect for the readers. Moreover, Chicago’s major transformation from the “smoke and garbage” of the “Black City” shows how much of an impact the fair exhibited on the readers and the

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