Jessica Chan Summer Assignment The Devil in the White City (1) Copy a short passage that you found to be interesting and explain why you found it interesting/why it is an example of good writing. “Later he recalled, ‘I told her I thought he was a bad lot and that she had better have little to do with him and get away from him as soon as possible.’ For the time being, at least, she ignored his advice” (Larson 164). The short passage given was when Ned Conner returned to discuss a mortgage problem with Henry H, Holmes. Conner used to live in Holmes’s building to work at the jewelry counter at Holmes’s pharmacy. He had a terrible history with Holmes, since Holmes seduced both Conner’s wife Julia and his sister Gertrude. In the quote, Conner claimed that he warned Emeline, Holmes’s stenographer, to stay away from Holmes. However, she refused to follow his warning. I found this short passage to be interesting because of how …show more content…
For example, Holmes clearly had different sides to him. He would approach women as a gentleman in the beginning. However, once Holmes got bored of them, he either left them or murdered them. The same concept applies to the 1893 Chicago World Fair. One can look at the perspective of the tourists of the fair, while another can look at the perspective of the creators of the fair. Olmsted, one of the creators of the fair, went through a lot for the fair’s success. “His insomnia and pain, the crushing workload, and his mounting frustration all tore at his spirit until by the end of March he felt himself on the verge of physical and emotional collapse” (Larson 169). John Root died of pneumonia before the fair started construction. Burnham had to continue on without the companionship of his partner. Larson’s readers also realize the positive and negative aspects about the fair. The fair posed as inspiration for people while it also was corrupted by people like
REAL ESTATE BROKERS AND SALES AGENTS. The foreclosure of the properties from defaulted mortgages from clients that are unhappy and unwilling to follow legal proceedings. This problem connects to the theme of the story The Devil and Tom Walker because if you get a loan to buy a house then it shows competance to pay the loan back without valunable to foreclosure for your family so not as when Tom did not make solid ethical choices for himself and his wife when he refused to comply with her to pursue rich of their life and let her go to the swamp by herself as in the story "The next evening she set off again for the swamp, with her apron heavily laden.
In _The White Scourge_, Neil Foley uses a wealth of archival materials and oral histories to illuminate the construction and reconstruction of whiteness and the connection of this whiteness to power. Focusing largely on cotton culture in central Texas, Foley 's book deconstructs whiteness through a new and detailed analysis of race, class, and gender. The most intriguing aspect of this book is its comparison of the impact of whiteness on various ethno-racial classes and how each struggled in relation to the other to develop a meaningful existence. _
Nick got invited to have dinner with Tom and Daisy Buchanan. As Nick drove over to their house he said “Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay.” (6). As Nick is being led by Tom through his house he explained what the house looks like “We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end.”
The Chicago World’s Fair was an opportunity for the city to come together and create event so spectacular to shock the world. However, as Chicago prepared to awe people with this extravagant fair the city faced skepticism on weather or not issues of urbanization, sanitation, and crime would be fixed in time for the World’s Fair. In beginning of the novel, Larson takes the reader back to the start before Chicago wins the bid for the World’s fair to be held in Chicago. The idea of the World’s Fair in the United
The Devil in the White City Rhetorical Analysis Essay The Chicago World’s Fair, one of America’s most compelling historical events, spurred an era of innovative discoveries and life-changing inventions. The fair brought forward a bright and hopeful future for America; however, there is just as much darkness as there is light and wonder. In the non-fiction novel, The Devil in the White City, architect Daniel Burnham and serial killer H. H. Holmes are the perfect representation of the light and dark displayed in Chicago. Erik Larson uses positive and negative tone, juxtaposition, and imagery to express that despite the brightness and newfound wonder brought on by the fair, darkness lurks around the city in the form of murder, which at first, went unnoticed.
The book follows his struggle and work to put this huge fair together, and also make it a huge profiting attraction. He faces many obstacles and internal conflict while doing so. The second is H. H. Holmes, an insane serial killer who was active during the existence of the fair. He had different businesses and practices he would use to lure women, in order to kill them and sometimes the women in their families. The book takes place in Chicago during the early 1890s, as
After reading the first chapter, writing with Style, from “Thinking Well”, by John R. Trimble, he made it seem as if he was writing about my writing when he explained a novice writer. Trimble explains how a novice writer would write by giving examples of how their style of writing looks like. For example, Trimble explains how new writers unconsciously write and how they are not aware of their egocentrism. He states what a novice would have to achieve objectivity, empathy, courtesy and social sensitivity in order for him to have a readable style. Trimble then discusses what makes a veteran writer and how their thinking process reflects their writing situation.
Erik Larson writes “Beneath the gore and smoke and loom, this book is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging in the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow”(Larson xi). In the book The Devil and the White City, Erik Larson tells a story of 2 very determined men, Daniel Burnham and H. Holmes, using their talents and determination to create good results, but also bad results; one being a very successful and good spirited architect, the other being a witty evil serial killer. It reveals how in every good act or intention, there is some kind of evil, and also the other way around. Erik Larson explores the underlying difference between good and evil, while telling 2 tales of Daniel Burnham, and Henry H. Holmes Daniel Burnham and Henry H. Holmes are alike in many ways, as explored throughout the novel. Both of these men used their determination and skills to accomplish many things, good or bad.
In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness there are many ways for a character to lose their mind. That’s why it’s so surprising when it doesn’t happen to Marlow. Marlow, having endured a world’s worth of hardship and pain through the eyes of Africa, really only reaches his breaking point at one moment within the text. This is after his helmsman dies at his feet. His encounter with the uncanny goes on to not only show the slow degeneration of Marlow’s conscious, but to show him as a receptive, fallible, character.
The people around us and our surroundings shouldn’t change who we are because we all have our own personalities and our own ways of doing things. David Foster Wallace, author of “Ticket to the Fair,” grew up a couple of hours from down state Springfield but moved to the east coast is writing a articles on the Illinois state fair. As he goes through the days of the fair he realizes thing are different from the East Coast, and that the people are not what he expected. The way people treat David makes him act different toward people. “Lacking a real journalist’s killer instinct, I’ve been jostled way to the back, and my view is observed by the towering hair of Ms. Illinois country fair, whose function here is unclear.”
Holmes hired his workers, but then fired them before he had to pay them. Many sought their money, however Holmes had used a fake name when he built his hotel so nobody got their money. Not paying is something that should be considered bad. Finally choosing where the fair was going to be is something good that happened during the
A beautiful portrait of the fair is built with Larson’s detailed depictions of “the buildings, waterways, and scenery” (Larson 274) within this spectacle. The clear pictures painted in the reader’s mind transports them to this wonder-filled attraction. However, more disturbing images are depicted in subtle ways, like the fact that Holmes “often smelled vaguely of chemicals” (Larson 46.) An image of horror conjures within the mind of the reader at this seemingly minuscule detail.
Gitta Sereny's book "Into That Darkness" illustrated a disturbing perspective into the life of Franz Stangl, a former police officer of Schloss Hartheim which was part of the Nazi's Tiergartenstrasse 4 (T4 program) of murdering individuals with disabilities, he was also a former SS commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka camps. Stangl was held accountable for the deaths of thousands of Jewish people and other minorities during the Holocaust, with this, Sereny sought to understand how a seemingly average and intelligent individual such as Stangl could take part in participating in genocide. Stangl attempts to resolve his cognitive dissonance through the rationalization of his actions, manipulating his memory of events through selective attention,
She shares with Holmes a complex and subtle intellect with a deep understanding of human behavior, enabling them to create schemes to influence people to end up with the desired outcome. Alder uses her beauty and charm to disarm men and manipulate them for her purposes. She thinks several moves ahead in the game, often setting the stage to embarrass men by showing herself to be superior to them . Irene employs many tactics and schemes similar to Holmes’, including being a master of disguise. For example, one evening, Irene wears a disguise going undetected by Holmes when she walks by him, dressed as a "slim youth in [a cloak]," and bids him “good evening” in a low tone of voice, (p. 17).
The class struggle between the aristocracy and the peasantry was a big issue during this time, and if you think about it, that issue still remains even up to this present day. This struggle has been worldwide and the root of it is selfishness. Selfish individuals think about what’s best for them, or what they can enhance from. If people would think a little less about themselves and more about the community and helping others less fortunate, the world would be a better place. In A Tale Of Two Cities we find three main reasons this time was so broken by examining the author’s background and by exploring his protrails of a cruel aristocracy and an oppressed peasantry.