The Devil In The White City Analysis

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Recommended: Literary elements in the devil in the white city

Throughout my life I have read many books. However, “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson is the most impactful of them all. “The Devil in the White City” is full of manipulation, unexpected killings, and World Fair construction problems. “It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so very easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root. This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history” (Larson). “Devil in the White City” has changed my perspective on people you do not know and the work of construction.

Chicago wins the bid for the 1893 World's Exposition or as some call it the World Fair. Author Larson includes two different plots. One of the plot lines is about an architect, named Daniel …show more content…

The second plot line is about a man named H.H Holmes who happens to be a serial killer who uses the location of the world fair as his choice of victims to slaughter. I found plots of the story to be very intriguing and full of life lessons. H.H Holmes was a master manipulator and a fraud. His birth name is actually Herman Webster Mudgett. He pretends to be a pharmacists. To pull off his cover up he tries to talk with intelligent scientific works as a pharmacists would. In connection with the story “Doublespeak” Holmes has to use a specific jargon to protect his identity. On top of the pharmacists building where Holmes works, he builds rooms to rent out to visitors of the World Fair. However, he refuses to hire an architect to build because, his secret plan would be revealed: an airtight vault equipped with gas valves with a chute from the upper floors to the basement to dispose of all the bodies of his victims. “Reading this has made me realize that people can be frauds and live in a harsh and cruel lifestyle. I do not understand how someone can kill innocent people they do not even know and be ok with that lifestyle choice. It has happened in past history such as with

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