Devil In The White City Daniel Burnham Character Analysis

They walk amongst us, silent and unseen until the ghastly moment of their horrid crime takes root. These are the killers, spawned from the Devil’s own seed, while others are nurtured in the squalid ruins of their environment. Devil In The White City, authored by Erik Larson, is a story that takes a close look at the World's Columbian Exposition, the world's fair that Chicago hosted in 1893 in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America. The fair was tainted by deaths, a serial killer, and an assassination. The lead architect, Daniel Burnham, and the serial killer, Henry Howard Holmes, play pivotal roles in the events that unfolded before, during, and after the fair. Throughout this novel, we are informed of many possible

causes and motives of H.H. Holmes such as the interaction with the skeleton at a young age or the death of his childhood friend, but never his true reasoning. Understanding H.H. Holmes and people of his kind is important in order to help them and derive their motivation.
To begin with, learning the causes that lead people like Henry Howard Holmes to the killer instinct they receive can be extremely influential. As we know, in Holme’s childhood, he faced plenty of series of events that had the possibility of leaning him more towards the psychopathic ways we learn of in the future.

On page 39, it describes the moment in which bullies from his school force him to go face to face with a skeleton in a doctor’s office. Such a terrible experience truly could have scarred Holmes, but at the same time his comfortability with an representation of death could have prompted his killer roots. Also, the “accidental” death of Holmes’s childhood friend, at an event that Holmes was present, was another red flag in terms of potentially becoming a psychopath. We learn more of Holmes’s younger upbringing through the text in which it states,"He drifted through childhood as a small, odd, and exceptionally bright boy....in the cruel imaginations of his peers, he became prey" (Larson, 38) Holmes was essentially an outcast, a person who has been rejected by society or a social group. He was the target of many because of his oddness and rather unique characteristics. With no solid upbringing, and a probable fascination with death, Holmes was bound to be the infamous serial killer he became in his future.
It wasn’t just Holmes who suffered though, Patrick Prendergast was another man who appeared to psychopathic because of

his mental illness. In fact, it states, “That Prendergast was a troubled young man was clear; that he might be dangerous seemed impossible. To anyone who met him, he appeared to be just another poor soul crushed by the din and filth of Chicago” (Larson 54) They connected his ways to just the poor conditions of life served by the city of Chicago, but really Prendergast suffered from mental illness which is another likely cause of these serial killers. He eventually kills Alfred Trude, a defense attorney that Patrick had been preying on when his illness started to incline. One final cause would be the harsh ways of adulthood. If not raised correctly, it could be trouble to prosper in the adult world, as Larson exclaims of Holmes saying, “The intermittent depression that had shadowed him throughout his adult life was about to envelop him once again. ” (Larson 124) Depression can lead to many actions, and one of those is death. Also, still in adulthood, Holmes faced discrimination, though maybe for the right reasons. It states, “Holmes was charming and gracious, but something about him made Belknap uneasy. He could not have defined it. Indeed, for the next several decades alienists and their successors would find themselves hard-pressed to describe with any precision what it was about men like Holmes that could cause them to seem warm and ingratiating but also telegraph the vague sense that some important element of humanness was missing. At first alienists described this condition as “moral insanity” and those who exhibited the disorder as “moral imbeciles.” They later adopted the term “psychopath,” used in the lay press as early as 1885 in William Stead’s Pall Mall Gazette, which described it as a “new malady”. Half a century later, in his path-breaking book The Mask of Sanity, Dr. Hervey Cleckley described the prototypical psychopath as “a subtly constructed reflex machine which can mimic the human personality perfectly. … So perfect is his reproduction of a whole and normal man that no one who examines him in a clinical setting can point out in scientific or objective terms why, or how, he is not real.” (Larson 112) Still seen as different by others like Belknap, Holmes was given the term a psychopath. Not happy with their lives, people like Holmes could essentially take out their feelings with the action of murdering others.
Consequently, now with possible causes, it is important to try and decipher the motives of these serial killers. Many believe it is just a gut feeling triggered by the brain, but others say it is a sign of revenge and other feelings. As for Holmes, he believes it was assigned to him, stating “I was born with the devil in me, I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.” (Larson 278) Holmes felt that his killings were prompted by the Devil’s wishes and thought it was not wrong. He compared it to a poet’s want to sing, not recognizing that death is unethical and shouldn’t just be done. So with a false claim that he believed to be true, Holmes carried on with his killer ways taking the lives of many.
That in itself is another motive, with no feeling of wrongdoing, a serial killer will continue to murder. As stated in the text, “Beside his own person and his own interests, nothing is sacred to the psychopath.” (Larson 115) A serial killer like Holmes had no true connections with any of his victims. In fact he would just use them to better himself, so when he gets rid of someone, it doesn't affect him in the least, allowing him to feel nothing and move on to the next victim. This motive just allows serial killers to become a bigger and stronger predator seeking for more prey, which results in the death of many.
All things considered, understanding the causes and motives of serial killers like Henry Howard Holmes is essential to help them and derive their motivation.Whether it is the person’s childhood, traumatizing experiences like Holmes’s interaction with the skeleton, or maybe the false thoughts depicted in the individual’s mind such as Holmes’s with the Devil, we need to recognize the importance of these people and counter their psychopathic ways.

Holmes claimed the lives of hundreds, though officially under the law they were only able to charge him with 9 counts of murder, many died at his hands. In a day with better technology, a bigger population, and a changed society, we need to try and end serial killers for once and for all because who knows the impact they can

serve.