Themes
One of the themes in The Devil In The White City is man vs nature. Burnham had difficulties with the nature in Jackson Park for the fair. There were many problems in creating the fair. One difficulty was the soil, “Other barriers remained, however, the most elemental of which was the bedeviling character of Chicago’s soil, which prompted one engineer to describe the challenge of laying the foundations in Chicago as ‘probably not equaled for perverseness anywhere in the world.’ Bedrock lay 125 feet below grade, too deep for workers to reach with any degree of economy or safety using the construction methods available in the 1800s.” (Larson 23). The landscape of Jackson Park was not very appealing to the eye, “Jackson Park was one square mile of desolation, mostly treeless, save for pockets of various kinds of oak-burr, pin, and scarlet-rising from a tangled undergrowth of elder, wild plum, and willow. In most exposed portions there was only sand tufted with marine and prairie grasses. One writer called the park ‘remote and repulsive’; another, a ‘sandy waste of unredeemed and desert land.’ It was ugly, a landscape of last resort.” (Larson 95). In fact, the site was even worse than it appeared, “Many of the oak were dead. Given the season, the dead were hard to distinguish from the living. The root systems of others were badly damaged. Test boring showed that the earth within the park consisted of a top layer of black soil about one foot thick, followed by two feet of sand, then eleven feet of sand so saturated with water.” (Larson 95). Another problem was the changing levels of water the lake had, “ They collected an additional four thousand crates of pond lily roots, which Olmsted’s men quickly planted, only to watch most of the roots succumb to the ever-changing levels of the lake.” (Larson 132). Not to mention the crazy winter storms Chicago had to endured, “Eighteen ninety-two broke cold, with six inches of snow on the ground and temperatures falling to ten degrees below zero, certainly not the coldest weather Chicago had ever experienced but cold enough..” (Larson 153). There were several storms and the weather didn’t cooperate, “In the first week of May a powerful storm dropped an ocean of rain on Chicago and again caused the Chicago River to reverse flow.” (Larson 175). Another storm that disrupted the construction of the fair shortly happen in June, “On the night of June 13, just after nine o’clock, another abrupt storm had struck the fairgrounds, and this one also seemed to single out the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. A large portion of the building’s north end collapsed, which in turn caused the failure of an elevated gallery designed to ring the interior of the building.” (Larson 177). Olmsted had difficulties planting flowers and lawn grass for “Time was short, the weather terrible.” (Larson 196). Also, when the snow fell it caused many delays. Not to mention the extreme cold increased the threat of fire. As you can see nature wasn’t very cooperative. Man vs nature is just one of the themes in the book The Devil In The White City.
Another theme in the book is sane versus insanity. Although in the surface it seems as though there is one good man and one evil man, it is their desires that are seen portrayed in the book as sane or insane. Burnham’s motivation to built a giant exposition that would cause the fair in Paris pale in comparison within less than two and a half years makes him obsessed with his plan. H. H. Holmes, on the other hand, is obsessed with murdering his victims and builds an entire castle for the sole purpose of killing his victims. Larson’s book, The Devil in the White City, captures the strong desires of the two main characters and shows the readers how their impulses reach ludicrous heights. Burnham’s fair is everything to him. His lust for fame and high reputation through the White City propels him to ignore his morality as he fires inefficient workers left and right. “The dismissed men, Burnham knew, faces homelessness and Poverty; their families confronted the real prospect of starvation. But the fair came first,” (Larson 155). In Burnham’s eyes the fair always comes first. The fair comes before the weak and helpless and that is what made his desire so unhealthy and insane. He no longer cares about the outcomes of the workers either. “A man named Mueller at the Mines Building, Dead of a fractured skull. Three other deaths followed in short order: Jensen, Fractured skull, Electricity Building; Allard, fractures skull, Electricity Building; Algeer, stunned to oblivion by a new phenomenon, electric shock, at the Mines Building,” (Larson 145). Even after these deaths and dozens more, Burnham still responded with, “a pose of confidence and optimism,” (Larson 145). This quote proves to be another profound example of how Burnham only looks forward to the completion of the fair that is holding his reputation. Holmes has a similar mindset as Burnham in the sense that he also is motivated to execute his plans no matter what obstacles lie ahead of him. “He bought [Emeline] flowers and took her to the Timmerman Opera House down the block. He gave her a bicycle,” (Larson 163). This shows an example of how Holmes is committed to his schemes. He does whatever he can to comfort and please the people around him so that he can stab them in the back when they least expect it, literally. “Holmes deploys his tools of seduction, his soothing voice and frank blue gaze,” on women so that he can gain their trust, (Larson 163). He sees his exterior warm personality as nothing more than a tool to reel in his victims in order to satisfy his desire. The theme of sane versus insanity is very present in both of the main characters of Larson’s The Devil in the White City.