The White City By Erik Larson

Serbian poet, Dejan Stojanovic, once stated, “Devil and God – two sides of the same face.” When looking at Chicago during the Columbian Exposition, there were two sides of Chicago known as the white city and the black city. The white city was the fairgrounds where the World Fair occurred. The black city, however, is the rest of Chicago where the crime, poverty, disease, and filth was represented. Erik Larson constructs the black and white city in Devil in the White City by incorporating figurative language, imagery, and juxtaposition.

Devil in the White City written by Erik Larson is a true story based on the building of the most important fair in the United States of America, the 1893 Columbian Exposition World’s Fair in Chicago. Erik Larson also told the story of the psychopathic murderer; H.H. Holmes used his World’s Fair Hotel as an evil castle to lure in young women who came to see the fair. The story starts off with Larson describing that Chicago won the Congressional vote to host the World’s Fair and beat out its competition New York City. In only two short years, the White City was built. The fair brought in an estimated 40 million visitors in the only six months it was open. Daniel Burnham was the chief architect of the World’s Fair. Burnham had the staggering

The attachment “Murder, magic, and madness at the fair that changed america” to the title hardly does the novel justice. Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, a nonfiction novel that surrounds the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, also known as The World’s Columbian Exposition. The novel follows the lives of two real men, Daniel Burnham, the architect who builds the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and H.H. Holmes, the serial killer who exploits the fair to find his victims. Many new inventions were introduced at the fair, such as Juicy Fruit gum, the Ferris Wheel, and many other novel ideas that impacted the lives of many people for generations. The beautiful fair Burnham creates provides the perfect distraction and lure for Holmes’ activities. In his novel The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson suggests that good and evil coexist in the world by using charged language, imagery and juxtaposition to show although people view the fair as a perfect dreamland immune to evil, it still lurks outside in the dark, influencing the rest of the world.

Erik Larson has organized The Devil in the White City chronologically, alternating between the construction of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and the evolution of a serial killer. In doing so, Larson is able to explore the details of the fair in-depth, while keeping the interest of the reader. By using this organizational structure, Larson is also able to tell the gruesome tale of a serial killer without scaring away his audience. Overall, the pairing of these two stories helps to balance out the novel.

Furthermore, Burnham has the passion to succeed in architecture in hopes of building the White City. “He found his calling, he wrote in 1868, and told his parents he wanted to become the ‘greatest architect in the city or country’ ”(Larson 19). Burnham has a dream to be the best, and he uses his passion for a respectable cause. Through his architectural capabilities, creativity, and innovation, he is able to affect millions of people that attend the fair and the ones who do not. As he begins to take his blueprints and put them into reality, he gives hope and inspiration to all Americans during a time of depression. Burnham uses his unique ingenuity to make the unrealistic White City that is unlike anything America has ever seen, and he shows his originality to as many people as possible. As Burnham oversees and creates the new White city, he develops a new,

How can two people be so different, yet so similar? The World’s Columbian Exposition was a major event in the 19th century. The fair was something that’s never been done before in history triumphing the famous Eiffel Tower. As spectacular as the fair was there were murders being committed without any signs of slowing down. The Devil in the White City tells a story between the architect Daniel Burnham and the infamous serial killer H.H. Holmes. Erik Larson uses imagery, diction, and comparisons to characterize and show how similar their traits and goals were during this time.

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 book The Devil In the White City by Erik Larson re-tells the story of Chicago’s World Fair, while H.H. Holmes, also known as “America’s first serial killer”, emerges as a dark force within the fair. Switching back and forth between the experiences of the head fair administrator, Burnham, and the other directors along with the evils of Holmes, the reader begins to understand the world of tragedy and crime that lies behind the public’s excitement. From a devastating storm to the deaths of multiple builders, suspense builds as tragedy is followed by more tragedy. Through the use of contrasting ideas and ethical clauses highlighted by symbolisms and descriptions within the book, Erik Larson creates an underlying argument that one’s pursuit of pride and success often causes destruction and comes at the price of another’s well-being.

Erik Larson uses a skilled combination of rhetorical strategies and syntactical devices throughout Devil in the White City to not only paint a comparative narrative but also to create powerfully alluring atmosphere that highlights the juxtaposition of the eriness of serial murders with the detailed description of the Chicago World’s Fair. Through the employment of foreshadowing, juxtaposition, and deliberate humanization, Larson creates a vividly compelling account of two stories for the purpose of assembling a story that is rich with complexity and, when it come to certain characters, controversy as to the nature of certain characters.

Larson’s, The Devil in the White City, recounts a defining time period for America. Larson sheds light on the ageless conflict: Good v.s. Evil, as he recounts the events that took place at the fair that changed America. With America falling behind in global dominances and its need to strive, Daniel Burnham tries to successfully construct the Chicago World's fair and hopes it will spark the turn of the century. As Burnham tries to builds up the White City, and while H. H. Holmes flourished in the dominant Black City, Larson takes the reader on a tour of both cities. As Holmes lives in the shadows of the Black City, he successfully murders many people without any suspicion. Holmes’s ability to manipulate, his charisma, and his bravado marks

Tucker Max’s famous words state that “the devil doesn’t come dressed in a red cape and pointy horns. He comes as everything you’ve ever wished for.” H. H. Holmes, a main character in Erik Larson’s 2003 novel titled “The Devil in the White City,” exemplifies Max’s statement. This novel recreates the lives of Daniel Burnham, the architect of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, and H. H. Holmes, the mastermind serial killer who takes advantage of the fair to find his victims. Larson demonstrates the contesting forces of good and evil within the World’s Fair among his use of figurative language, allusion, and imagery to emphasize that evil can lurk in the shadows as well as in plain sight.

Write an essay discussing the historical insights presented in Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City, being sure to answer the following questions: In what ways does the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 represent the contrasts and conflicts of the Gilded Age? What is the Fair’s lasting imprint on American society & culture, & what new trends does it signal for the twentieth century?

Erik Larson’s book Devil in the White City is full of magic and madness that has shaped the society of the late 19th century that is specific to in Chicago. The issues that have been handled through this time frame that are addressed in this book is that how Chicago was known to be the black city at first, and how the city hoped that hosting the World’s fair would increase their reputation. Secondly, the magic of a man named Daniel Burnham that did put the plans of the world fair in Chicago into life and the obstacles that he had overcame. Next, once the world fair was complete, it has made Chicago “The White city,” by its dazzling designs and attractions that made it memorable. Then, the madness of H.H. Holmes and how his evil deeds has

The prologue begin aboard the Olympic following a man named Daniel Burnham on April 4, 1912. Burnham is suffering of severe pain in his foot. Burnham tries to send a message to his friend Millet who is aboard the Titanic, but the message was not allowed to be sent. Burnham thinks back to the fair and reminisces of the people that helped with the fair and thinks about who is still alive from the fair.

Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City is a historical novel that portrays true events that occurred during the final years of the Gilded Age. Larson employs his vast research in order to write a historically accurate book, while filling in the subjective details all in order to make for an interesting read for the audience. Although the novel is based on historical facts, the actual goal for Larson is to portray a sharp contrast between good and evil, and he does this by presenting two main characters around which the plots of this novel is built. The entire novel shifts back and forth between Daniel Burnham, the protagonist, and H. H. Holmes, the antagonist. The book is outlined so that alternating chapters follows distinct plot