Feed your inner devil with The Devil in the White City

The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson

By: Mitchell Copeland

Abstract:

In the year 1893, Chicago, Illinois hosts the 1893 World’s Fair; A place that shows just how grand America can be. H. H. Holmes is a con man who uses his strong social skills and cunning wit to outsmart authority and commit insurance fraud. He has been assigned to the important task of helping set up the World’s Fair. H. H. Holmes has made a lot of progress and hired special people for important tasks. But Holmes is plotting something that goes far beyond conning the insurance company. Sometimes the people with the biggest smiles have the most to hide.

Movie Comparison:

The resemblance between H. H. Holmes, from The Devil in the White City, and Megamind, from Megamind, is very similar in that they are both the protagonist and the antagonist in their stories. H. H. Holmes uses his manipulative speech to trick people into doing evil things for him, just like Megamind. Both these characters also are very intelligent and use their smarts to their advantage. Megamind has an evil minion that he uses to help him in his tasks, as Holmes uses his work associates to do things for him. Megamind uses his skills in technology to trick by pretending to be someone else, as Holmes uses his social skills to manipulate people. Both Holmes and Megamind have strong social skills that they use to control people. While Megamind may turn out good in the end, both Megamind and Holmes are the villain in their story. Holmes uses his intelligence to outsmart the insurance companies out of money, as Megamind uses his smarts to steal money from the cities banks. All in all, Holmes and Megamind are very similar characters.

 Evaluation:

This story is about H. H. Holmes, who has been hired to help set up the 1893 World’s Fair. This fair is taking place in Chicago, Illinois. Holmes and his very loyal men have been working on this fair through dangerous conditions and cold winters. But Holmes, being a con man, has other reasons besides money for setting up this fair. He is planning something so dark that no one could have seen it coming, not even his closest of associates. This book while being too sad, was very interesting due to the protagonist also being the antagonist.

The Devil in the White City was a good book, but it was a little bit too sad at times. For example, “In August alone,the building took three lives. Elsewhere on the grounds four other men died and dozens more suffered all manner of fractures, burns, and lacerations. The fair, according to one later appraisal, was more dangerous place to work than a coal mine (Lar 178).” shows that there was a lot of death and sadness in the book from working on the building. The book has a lot of death and destruction,  “Larson’s breathtaking new history is a novelistic yet wholly factual account of the fair and the mass murderer who lurked within it (Editorial).” The World’s Fair was supposed to be a place to show how great America was but instead it only made people sad, “The White City had drawn men and protected them; the Black City now welcomed them back, on the eve of winter, with filth, starvation, and violence (323).”  The book takes what was supposed to be a happy time and made it sad.

Though The Devil in the White City may have been a little sad, it was very interesting due to the protagonist also being the antagonist. The story was told from a very interesting perspective, for example, “‘I was born with the devil in me,'” he (Holmes) wrote. “I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing ( 109).” This quote shows that Holmes while being the protagonist, was evil. Another good example of Holmes being evil is, “His weakness was his belief that evil had boundaries (349).” This quote shows that Holmes was far more evil than people gave him credit to be.

The Devil in the White City,  while being a little bit sad at times, was overall a very good book. It has action, suspense, and is very entertaining. Having the protagonist be the antagonist was a very good way to make this book a must read.

Larson, Eric. The Devil in the White City. New York: Vintage Books, 2003. Print.

“Editorial Review.” Amazon. Amazon.com, 6 Apr, 2012. Web. 11 Dec. 2013