The Devil In The White City Summary

The book “The Devil in The White City” was composed by Erik Larson. This book re-creates the history of the Chicago’s World Fair of 1893. Larson wanted to highlight precisely what went down at the World Fair of 1893 and why everything happened. This book was actually based off of Chicago’s World Fair, as well as what happened and put his own twist on it story. The author has several purposes within this book, which is a narrative non-fiction (a history with a strong story).

He killed two of her children and Benjamin Pitezel, his business partner and her husband. Today’s doctors have theorized he may have had an antisocial personality disorder. Even Though he was charming and could socialize well, he may have looked down to other people, class or not. This disorder may have made him distance himself from others, making him dangerous and homicidal. He lacked the basis of humanity, empathy, and compassion, which made his actions to him justifiable, like the construction and murders in the Murder Castle.

In 1884 he was almost unable to graduate school because he promised a girl to get married to her, which did not happen. 3 After graduation he moved to Chicago. Holmes was a serial killer, he fits the profile by, the first thing is that he had over 3 kills, which classifies as a serial killer, at an early age he captured animals and killed them, and then did surgery on them. 3 Holmes motive to kill people was to take their property.

That is the thing, he had a darkness to him that no one saw til he was caught. He would murder young homosexual men, usually marines. The way he took their lives was either strangling or having them overdose on painkillers and alcohol. After their deaths, he dumped the bodies near highways, interstates, and freeways, normally in the ditch.

He sexually assaulted, tortured, and killed his young victims. Before diving deeper into why this killer clown committed such horrific crimes, it's important to discuss his upbringing.

H. H. Holmes is known as the first serial killer in America. During the mid-1890s, he built a 3-story hotel in Chicago, which people called the “Castle”. It was known that he would lure people, specifically young women, into the hotel and they were never to be seen again and it is estimated that he killed about 200 people(Crime Museum para 4, 5, & 10). H. H. Holmes was an American sociopath who killed, kidnapped, and betrayed the trust of many. H. H. Holmes, born with the name Herman Webster Mudgett, grew up in Gilmanton, New Hampshire.

His final Murder occurred on November 9th, He killed a Women by the name of Kelly, Mary Jane. Her body was found on the bed Terribly graphic by cutting all of her body part apart. She was slashed and

The World Exhibition which was meant to be a shining beacon of the modern world to show the advancements of humankind would be tainted by the horrors brought by a depraved man considered to be America's first serial killer, H.H. Holmes. In Erik Larson’s novel “The Devil in the White City’ Larson details the ingenious architecture, science, politics, and gruesome murders of Chicago during the Gilded Age of The United States. Larson paints his picture with vivid and engaging language with incredible use of colors depicting the psychotic blue shown across Holmes's facade and the burning flame in Roots' persistence to plan the World Fair. Larson uses these themes to help the reader understand the changes the world will face as technology advances

As people began to catch on to Holmes, he leaves Chicago and is eventually apprehended and sentenced to death in 1896. The “Murder Castle” claimed the lives of many, although like Bundy, Holmes victims count is unknown (Biography.com Editors,

In Erik Larson’s novel The Devil in the White City takes place during the Gilded Age. During this period of time everything appears good and golden on the outside when in reality everything was full of corruption. In the novel, the author takes the reader to the city of Chicago, where the city is “swelled “in population causing the city to expand in all “available directions” (Larson 44). As Chicago became the “second most populous [city] in the nation after New York” there was an urge that city show off to the world and the nation of how great it was through the Chicago World’s Fair (Larson 44).

Holmes, the mysterious serial killer. Burnham and Holmes have many similarities, the biggest one being their sheer determination to reach a goal or get what they want, which is used towards the manufacture of good, or the manufacture of sorrow. However their differences separate them apart, their biggest difference being their actions, as one build the World’s Fair and does this for the wellbeing of everyone, while Holmes uses his talent to kill many people, and cause commotion in Chicago and such. In conclusion, Erik Larson tries to show the underlying difference between good and evil, and how no matter what, evil is accompanied by good, and vice versa. Even the title of the book “The Devil in the White City” shows the most prominent theme of this amazing novel, by Erik

Robbing grave, stealing body parts and murdering women. His ten year crime spree and heinous acts earned him the title of prolific. So much so that many horror movie villains were based on

The Devil in the White City gives a unique glimpse into how there is both bad and good existing in the city. In my opinion the point of the book was to show how both good and bad coexist in one place. Sometimes with the knowledge of the other existing. The book was written by Erik Larson and published by first vintage books. Published almost 14 years ago the book is still relevant today and still has much to teach us.

In fact not long after he got out of prison for killing his mother he then tried to abduct three girls and did not get away with it. He was caught and sentenced to three and a half years for the crime and had to serve the whole sentence. After he got out of prison he then moved to Pennsylvania where he married his cousins' ex-wife and worked at a mushroom farm. It is said that he started his killings sporadically over there while working at the farm up until he was accused of molesting his wife's daughters from her previous husband. Though he did end up admitting to molesting the girls he then started drifting throughout the southern part of the USA and committed various killings along the way that involved torcher rape and cannibalism.

H. Holmes had two main reasons for his crimes: monetary gain and pleasure. When Holmes went to Medical school at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor he discovered that he could monetize dead bodies (Martin). Holmes eventually began to use his medical expertise to prepare his victim’s bodies, and sell them to medical schools and labs (Hirschlag). But the monetary gain from selling the bodies was not enough to justify the risk associated with killing, so Holmes would manipulate his victims to get them to list him as their insurance beneficiary, and receive their life insurance (Hirschlag). Despite all this, Holmes might have been able to make more money just being a doctor, so he must not just have killed for money, but something else: Enjoyment.