The Devil in the White City Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Devil in the White City - Essay Example many as 200) and the World Fair that was going on at the time in the same city produces a vivid picture of America that presents both its best and its worst sides. The two stories, of creation and destruction, come together to create a whole: The so-called Gilded Age of American history was indeed a time of remarkable productivity. After the damage and chaos of the civil war a sudden spurt of energy occurred throughout America, but especially in Northern and mid-Western cities such as Chicago. An echo of the English Industrial Revolution that had transformed Britain a century before, American industry blossomed, and with it is cities. However, as Larson suggests, along with the growth of great cities with populations measured in the millions comes the anonymity, strangeness and loneliness associated with them. Holmes was both a product of these tendencies, and also took advantage of them. His comments regarding his own moral state, while melodramatic, may also encapsulate the great battle that was occurring between Labor (ie. individual human beings) and Capital (the great productive force) that was producing highly efficient, but somehow inhuman cities: While obviously self-serving, Holmes brings up an important factor – the sense of powerlessness within the modern cities as the battle between Labor and Capital played out. The idea of creation is vital within the book, in the sense of an industrial construction of various worlds that both clash with and yet strangely compliment one another. Thus, Daniel Burnham struggles against an unforgiving landscape (swamps) and government bureaucracy to see his dream rise above the city; and all the while Homes is building (and then secretly adapting) his torture and murder house. The fact that Holmes was a Doctor of Medicine adds a further layer of irony to the book. A person trained to help and cure people, who one might expect would be least likely to actually enjoy doing the opposite, enjoys doing just that.