Devil in the White City

Jake Frankenfield

Devil in the White City

Erik Larson

Historical Fiction

Challenge

Page 320

1. Right now in the book, the World's Fair has turned out to be the ultimate success, shattering the attendance record of the World's Fair in Paris of 397,000. Now there is great celebration in Burnham's shanty in the World's Fair premises. Meanwhile, Holmes has met yet another woman and successfully seduced her and asked her to marry her and she has accepted excitedly.

2. So far this book is great, the facts are interesting and I love to realize the process from making the fair to watching it become a huge success. I also think the Holmes plot line is amazing to watch and to see how naive people can be. The only part if this book I dislike is the pace, which is painfully slow and the seemingly useless information and how often it comes into play.

3. The theme I 've noticed is determination, and how hard work pays off. The fair as a perfect example, for a few tears they worked tirelessly and plugged away at it and even though the finishing touches were put on it while the fair was in session, it became a huge success. This was only possible because great minds worked for unending days and laborers worked equally as hard in building the structures. Another example is Holmes as he is, on the outside, an extremely successful entrepreneur with a number of his own businesses and a hotel. He has so many successful endeavors because, as it seems, he worked hard to get to the top, when in actuality he 's spending ridiculous amounts of money he doesn't have while murdering women for their money or pleasure on the side.

4. My favorite character is most likely Daniel Burnham. He is an incredibly brilliant and hard working man and I feel everything that has come to him, came because he earned it and I find it hard not to share his joy for success when he's done so much to ensure this of happening. Also I think he was pretty brave to take on the task of building basically the grandest exposition the world had ever seen and to achieve it is incredible.

5. My least favorite character to this point is Holmes because of his ability to use people and then literally dispose of them, without giving it a second thought. He and his assistance basically income without paying people back and he's murdered multiple women to this point, all for a. their money and property or b. he's grown bored of them.

6. I believe the plots are bound to have a major collide and Holmes may affect the fair's ceremonies. I believe Holmes will end up in major trouble with those he took loans from and will come up with some elaborate plan to pay it off, no doubt involving women and their murders. As for Mr. Burnham, things could not be going better it seems and I hope that continues for him.