Opposing Forces

I can’t help it, and I’m sorry in advance, but this blog is going to be about contrasts seen throughout the novel. While I was reading, I couldn’t get past the sheer amount of conflict. It seems like every page explains a situation, a character, a setting, or an idea, that opposes another. As I was reading, I couldn’t get past these conflicting ideals. I think that what makes them stand out so much is their description. Not only are the contrasts described in great detail, but they also appear together, or close enough, so that the reader (or maybe just someone like me) would notice the oppositions:

• The destruction that fire caused to the city vs. the rebuild and expansion of Chicago (skyscrapers etc)
•  The work of Daniel Burnham (progress, world’s fair CREATION) vs. Holmes (murderer, sadist, creep etc DESTRUCTION)
• The swampy un-industrialized area of Chicago vs. the booming city
• The World’s Fair being a means of celebration (Columbus’ discovery of America) vs. its purpose as a Competition in which America has to beat France’s World Fair, and the grandeur of the Eiffel Tower.
• The power of males vs. innocence of females (seen in how Holmes gained a drugstore, and lured innocent women who were visiting the World’s Fair to their deaths)
• The relationship between Holmes and his wife (Holmes convinces his girlfriend to elope while they are young so that they could have sex, then he leaves her shortly after) vs. Burnham and his wife (met her through her father, courted, married, standard procedure for courtship / relationships etc)

These opposing items are crucial to the entire work of Devil in The White City. This book is a testament to the fact that human nature can be both good and evil. It also deals with the complexity that good and evil can coexist, as seen in Chicago’s World Fair. This idea of contrasts is important to the plot of book itself, as it parallels the incongruity of the two stories of the book itself – the story of the creation of the World’s Fair, and the murderer who used the fair to lure his victims. In fact, the book being portioned into two sections shows that although they exist within the same setting, the stories of Holmes and Burnham are polar opposites.