Devil+in+the+White+City

=**//The Devil in the White City//** = Facilitator: Ben DeSantis Room Assignment: Student Enrollment:

Greetings to those of you who, like me, saw "Devil" in the title of the book and were intrigued. I assume that you were not disappointed by Erik Larson's gripping account of the good and evil that worked their way into the city of Chicago for the 1893 Fair. If you haven't started reading yet, I encourage you to do so. While a nonfiction book, Larson's detailed account of the story is able to help the reader forget that this is a historical account and, therefore, the ending of the story has already happened and can be documented. Take a look below at some of the themes, symbols, and questions to consider (to be added soon) as you read the book and digest what you've read. If you have any questions for me in the interim, e-mail me at benjamin.m.desantis@gmail.com. See you in several weeks! Enjoy the read!

__Themes from the Reading__ -- These are just a few. I'm sure you can come up with more on your own.
 * Good vs. Evil
 * Appearance vs. Reality
 * The effects of pride
 * The impact of ambition
 * The power of dreams
 * Deception

__Possible Discussion Questions__ -- I know you'll want to spend a lot of time discussing Holmes -- and we will -- but let's not forget the other players in the story.

**Author** 1. Why do you think Erik Larson chose to tell Burnham and Holmes’ stories together? How did the juxtaposition affect the narrative? Do you think they worked well together or would you have preferred to read about just Holmes or just Burnham?

2. What narrative techniques does Larson use to create suspense in the book? How does he end sections and chapters of the book in a manner that makes the reader anxious to find out what happens next?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">3. Small pictures of the fairgrounds, the architects, Holmes, and a map of the fairgrounds were at the beginning of each chapter. Do you think nonfiction books need pictures and maps are a necessary addition to a book?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Chicago World's Fair** <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">1. In what ways does the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 change America? What lasting inventions and ideas did it introduce into American culture? What important figures were critically influenced by the Fair?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">2. After the Fair ended, Ray Stannard Baker noted “What a human downfall after the magnificence and prodigality of the World’s Fair which has so recently closed its doors! Heights of splendor, pride, exaltation in one month: depths of wretchedness, suffering, hunger, cold, in the next” [p. 334]. What is the relationship between the opulence and grandeur of the Fair and the poverty and degradation that surrounded it? In what ways does the Fair bring into focus the extreme contrasts of the Gilded Age?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">3. The White City is repeatedly referred to as a dream. The young poet Edgar Lee Masters called the Court of Honor “an inexhaustible dream of beauty” [p. 252]; Dora Root wrote “I think I should never willingly cease drifting in that dreamland” [p. 253]; Theodore Dreiser said he had been swept “into a dream from which I did not recover for months” [p. 306]; and columnist Teresa Dean found it “cruel. . . to let us dream and drift through heaven for six months, and then to take it out of our lives” [p. 335]. What accounts for the dreamlike quality of the White City? What are the positive and negative aspects of this dream?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">4. In his speech before his wheel took on its first passengers, George Ferris “happily assured the audience that the man condemned for having ‘wheels in his head’ had gotten them out of his head and into the heart of the Midway Plaisance” [p. 279]. In what way is the entire Fair an example of the power of human ingenuity, of the ability to realize the dreams of imagination?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">5. Do you think a fair of this size could happen in today’s America? What advantages or disadvantages can you foresee with such a project?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**H.H. Holmes** <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">1. How was Holmes able to exert such power over his victims? What weaknesses did he prey upon? Why wasn’t he caught earlier? In what ways does his story “illustrate the end of the century” [p. 370] as the //Chicago Times-Herald// wrote?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">2. Why did H. H. Holmes use the aliases he did?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">3. How was Holmes able to get away with so many murders without becoming suspect? Were you surprised by how easy it was for him to commit crimes without being caught?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">4. What ultimately led to Holmes’ capture and the discovery of his crime? Was this inevitable?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">5. Would Holmes have been as successful a serial killer in a different city? In a different time? What allowed him to kill so many victims?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">6. Why did Holmes kidnap the children and take them all over the country? Do you think he wanted to get caught?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">7. What do you think of Holmes’ claim that he was the devil? Can people be inherently evil? How would you explain his strange allure and cold-hearted behavior?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">8. At the end of the book, Larson suggests that “Exactly what motivated Holmes may never be known” [p. 395]. What possible motives are exposed in //The Devil in the White City//? Why is it important to try to understand the motives of a person like Holmes?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**General** <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">1. Burnham, Olmsted, Ferris and Holmes were all visionaries in their own ways. Discuss what drove each of these men, whether they were ever truly satisfied, and how their lives ultimately ended.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">2. Larson writes, “The juxtaposition of pride and unfathomed evil struck me as offering powerful insights into the nature of men and their ambitions” [p. 393]. What such insights does the book offer? What more recent stories of pride, ambition, and evil parallel those described in //The Devil in the White City//?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">3. What satisfaction can be derived from a nonfiction book like //The Devil in the White City// that cannot be found in novels? In what ways is the book like a novel?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">4. What fact, phrase or character stuck with you the most after finishing this book?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">5. Leonardo DiCaprio bought the film rights for this book, and rumor has it he is likely to star as Holmes if/when the film is made. Who should be cast Burnham, Ferris and the other characters? Will DiCaprio be a good Holmes?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">__Guided Reading Questions / Questions for Understanding__ <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Author** <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">1. In the note “Evils Imminent,” Erik Larson writes “Beneath the gore and smoke and loam, this book is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow” [xi]. What does the book reveal about “the ineluctable conflict between good and evil?”

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Chicago World's Fair** <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">1. In what ways does the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 change America? What lasting inventions and ideas did it introduce into American culture? What important figures were critically influenced by the Fair?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">2. After the Fair ended, Ray Stannard Baker noted “What a human downfall after the magnificence and prodigality of the World’s Fair which has so recently closed its doors! Heights of splendor, pride, exaltation in one month: depths of wretchedness, suffering, hunger, cold, in the next” [p. 334]. What is the relationship between the opulence and grandeur of the Fair and the poverty and degradation that surrounded it? In what ways does the Fair bring into focus the extreme contrasts of the Gilded Age?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**H.H. Holmes** <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">1. In describing the collapse of the roof of Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building, Larson writes “In a great blur of snow and silvery glass the building's roof—that marvel of late nineteenth-century hubris, enclosing the greatest volume of unobstructed space in history—collapsed to the floor below” [p. 196–97]. Was the entire Fair, in its extravagant size and cost, an exhibition of arrogance? Do such creative acts automatically engender a darker, destructive parallel? Can Holmes be seen as the natural darker side of the Fair's glory?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">2. How did Holmes’ hotel contrast with the buildings of the World's Fair? Can architecture reflect goodness or evil, or are buildings neutral until used?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">3. How was Holmes able to exert such power over his victims? What weaknesses did he prey upon? Why wasn’t he caught earlier? In what ways does his story “illustrate the end of the century” [p. 370] as the //Chicago Times-Herald// wrote?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">4. Why did H. H. Holmes use the aliases he did?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">5. How was Holmes able to get away with so many murders without becoming suspect? Were you surprised by how easy it was for him to commit crimes without being caught?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">6. What ultimately led to Holmes’ capture and the discovery of his crime? Was this inevitable?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">7. Would Holmes have been as successful a serial killer in a different city? In a different time? What allowed him to kill so many victims?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">8. Why did Holmes kidnap the children and take them all over the country? Do you think he wanted to get caught?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">9. What do you think of Holmes’ claim that he was the devil? Can people be inherently evil? How would you explain his strange allure and cold-hearted behavior?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">10. At the end of the book, Larson suggests that “Exactly what motivated Holmes may never be known” [p. 395]. What possible motives are exposed in //The Devil in the White City//? Why is it important to try to understand the motives of a person like Holmes?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**General** <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">1. What is the essential difference between men like Daniel Burnham and Henry H. Holmes? Are they alike in any way?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">2. Burnham, Olmsted, Ferris and Holmes were all visionaries in their own ways. Discuss what drove each of these men, whether they were ever truly satisfied, and how their lives ultimately ended.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">3. How did the White City contrast with Chicago, the Black City?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">4. Larson writes, “The juxtaposition of pride and unfathomed evil struck me as offering powerful insights into the nature of men and their ambitions” [p. 393]. What such insights does the book offer? What more recent stories of pride, ambition, and evil parallel those described in //The Devil in the White City//?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">5. What satisfaction can be derived from a nonfiction book like //The Devil in the White City// that cannot be found in novels? In what ways is the book like a novel?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">6. What is the total picture of late nineteenth-century America that emerges from //The Devil in the White City//? How is that time both like and unlike contemporary America? What are the most significant differences? In what ways does that time mirror the present?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">9. Rate //The Devil in the White City// on a scale of 1 to 5. Defend your rating as though you were reviewing the book for another publication.