The Devil In The White City Character Analysis

In the years leading up to the world fair, Holmes had been perfecting his “castle” that was built upon his pharmacy. His house, nicknamed the “Murder Castle”, was filled with mazes, trap doors, and multiple torture chambers, including an incinerator to burn the remains of his victims. With the promise of a warm, clean bed, he lured fair-goers and young women who moved to the big city alone to further their careers were attracted to the young doctor. Holmes had relations with some of his guests, at one point getting Julia Conner pregnant in 1891, but he used his new found “hobby” to dispose of the problem (Larson 146). Holmes was eventually charged with insurance fraud and stood trial for the murder of Mr. Benjamin Pitezel, he was estimated to have killed between 20 and 200 people (“H.H” 2). Even though he was only charged on one count of murder, once in prison he admitted to killing 27 people in his time in Chicago. Holmes was hung on on May 7th, 1896, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the homicide of Mr. Pitezel (“H.H.” 1-2). The disturbing legacy of Herman Webster Mudgett lived on in the form of H. H. Holmes as America’s first serial killer.

His ambition was to create a game which involved the suffering of others. Killing people created him a sort of pleasure, “Holmes was enjoying himself. He had arranged the insurance fraud for money, but the rest of it was for fun. Holmes was testing his power to bend lives of people” (Larson 355). Holmes always looked for people that he saw as weak and he used them to create his game which to him was to see how far he could go in changing a person’s life. While Geyer was investigating the disappearances of the Pitezel children he said that all criminals had a motive but no one really saw clearly what Holmes’ motive was. Later Geyer was drawn to the conclusion of Holmes wanting to have power over people’s lives. Holmes wanted to control people and produce others a suffering as he did when Carrie Pitezel was put in a hotel by Holmes in front of the hotel her children were in, without any of them knowing, that was his game. In the novel both Burnham and Holmes had ambitions but both had very different ambitions, which led their lives in different paths. Burnham by having the ambition to want Chicago to prosper became America’s best architect. Holmes’ ambition took him to jail and eventually to his death. The novel The Devil in the White City, illustrates that everything is not what it seems using the character Holmes and the creation of the World’s Fair. Holmes was known as a charming doctor that starstruck every woman that he laid an eye upon. It was said by

How do the traditional gender roles we put on people in the 20th century affect how women and men see themselves now and during the 1940’s through the 1950’s. During World War Two tend to think of only men serving when that was actually not the case in World War Two ” some 350,00 women served in the armed forces.” In City of Thieves by David Benioff Vika,Kolya, and Lev all serve in non traditional roles. In City of Thieves the theme of masculinity and femininity plays a prevalent role in Levs feelings towards being a ‘real man’, Vika’s non traditional female role and Koylas masculinity throughout the novel.

    During the 1893 Columbian Exposition, H.H. Holmes was one of the first serial killers of America. Holmes would lure his victims into his building which he transformed into his “murder castle.” First he would manipulate his victims by coming off as a

In Erik Larson’s essay, The Devil in the White City, (2003), he investigates the way that Holmes used the World fair to lure in his victims. Erik larson establishes his ideas by developing the main characters in separate plots. Larson explains how the World Fair ended up in Chicago and how it was constructed and designed, in order to connect the fair to Holmes and show how he used it to lure in his victims. This novel was intended for anybody interested in a historic crime depicted in a narrative based mystery, and its intense, optimistic tone helps the audience picture the suspense before and during the fair. This essay is going to analyze how Erik Larson used a description of blue eyes to create a theme, and develop the two main characters.

The Devil in the White City reads, “As word spread that a young, handsome, and apparently unmarried doctor now stood behind the counter, an increasing number of single women in their twenties began to patronize the store”(Larson 46). You can’t build a log cabin without wood, and you can’t be a serial killer without victims. Victims are an essential part to the art of murder. As a result, he had a plentiful picking because he was “young, handsome and apparently unmarried”.  These attributes make Holmes a very charismatic person. While Holmes was being escorted to his death, the novel reads, “This was a difficult moment for his guards. They liked Holmes. They knew he was a killer, but he was a charming killer”(Larson 386). Even though the guards knew Holmes was a despicable person, they still liked him and found him “charming”. His charisma was such a potent attribute, even if people knew the real him...as seen in the text….they stilled “liked him”. They knew he had murdered innocent women and children, but still founded him “charming”. As can be concluded from the examples, Holmes’s charisma served him well in becoming a long time anonymous perpetrator.

In The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson tells the story of two men, an architect and a serial killer, operating in Chicago during the 1890’s

The Chicago World’s Fair occurred in 1893 to commemorate American history, specifically the landing of Christopher Columbus. This event had such a mass popularity that a book was written to commemorate the fair itself; it was titled, The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson. The portrayal of history in this novel is quite accurate when expressing the time period of the late nineteenth century in an elevated format, which allows the reader to draw comparisons of how the time mirrors the present, as well as differences in the ways it contrasts modern living, and most importantly allows a grasp of a total picture of the time period itself.

Part 1: The Devil in the White City is a true crime novel that takes place during the building, during, and aftermath of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. There are 2 main narratives,the first is Daniel Burnham, one of the main architects and designers of the World 's Fair. This plot line shows the extreme stress that all of the Architects experienced, as the construction was slow to start, slow to build, and was filled with shortages, deaths, and awful communication. The second narrative is centered around H.H. Holmes, one of America’s first notorious serial killers. His narrative takes place in his “Murder Castle” and shows his complicated history and his numerous credit scams, identity scams, and most importantly,

In the novel The Devil in the White City, Author Erik Larson uses imagery, irony, and juxtaposition to parallel the good and evil sides of the city of Chicago during the 1893 World’s Fair. Larson takes a more upbeat, joyous tone while following the story of Burnham and the architects designing the World Fair, but the tone turns much darker when perspectives change and we follow the plot of H.H. Holmes, America’s first known serial killer. Using rhetorical devices like imagery, diction, and syntax, Larson is able to paint a picture of Chicago from both the good and evil side, setting a more serious and ominous tone for the novel.

The award-winning author, Luis Alberto Urrea, creator of The Hummingbird's Daughter, Into the Beautiful North, and The Devil's Highway, describes The Devil’s Highway which occurred in May of 2001, one of many that impacted the desert on undocumented immigrants. which is a desert located beyond Sonora, Mexico. It is a desert which few turn to in able to cross over. A group of illegal Mexican were left for dead after attempting to cross; they were left stranded after traveling for days in the wrong direction, through mountains, desert and only a small amount of water along with a few personal items. The Devil’s Highway name was set out to one’s belief “bad medicine” (5). Even though the desert is an obstacle itself, there are still other physical

The second plot line within Devil in the White City follows H.H. Holmes. Holmes buys a pharmacy within Chicago and constructs a building that aids him in killing people and disposing of their bodies. The first floor of Holme's building acts as a front, a pharmacy, while the top two floors act as apartments for rent. These apartments have secret passages, hallways, and chutes that lead to the basement, making disposing of dead bodies convenient for Holmes. After Jackson park is announced as the site of

H. H. Holmes travels into the white city, leaving the bleak city frozen in place, Larson uses figurative language to reveal how Holmes starts to convert the white city into a kingdom of his own by seeing beauty and grace in some of the most disturbing scenarios. The comparison of Julia’s (Holmes’ mistress) murder to a “ballet” explains that Holmes sees death as a type of

1893. World’s Columbian Exposition. 27,500,000 attendees. Over 250 people killed. 27 confessed murders. In his best-selling novel, The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson writes about these details that illustrate two significant events that forever changed Chicago, Illinois in the late 19th century. Larson uses detailed imagery to describe the Chicago World Fair and its’ extravagance, an ominous tone to describe Dr. H.H. Holmes, his murders, and their darkness, and loaded language when describing both to make the reader more aware of the evil that could be lurking in the midst of something beautiful.

For part III of The Devil In The White City, Holmes begins to accept customers into his hotel, and at times declines some men trying to get a room, saying that he was out of vacancies for them, leaving more room for young women to check in. This of course made Minnie only jealous as Holmes effortlessly made them swoon.