Passengers In The Garden Of Good And Evil Reimagined
About This BookIn The Devilin the White City, Erik Larson takes readers into a richly complex moment inAmerican history, a moment that would draw together the best and worst of theGilded Age, the grandeur and triumph of the human imagination, and the poverty,violence, and depravity that surrounded it.The book's two most powerful figures, the great architect Daniel Burnham andthe psychopathic killer, Henry H. Holmes, in many ways embody the opposingforces of the age. Burnham was responsible for building the White City,overcoming a series of crushing professional obstacles and personal tragedies tomake the Fair the magical, awe-inspiring event that it was. He brought togethersome of the greatest architects of the dayCharles McKim, George Post, RichardHunt, Frederick Law Olmsted, and othersconvinced them of the importance ofthe Fair, and somehow got them to work together to achieve what many consideredto be an impossible project in an astonishingly brief amount of time.Simultaneously, in the shadow of the White City, Henry H. Holmes set up his ownWorld's Fair Hotel to take advantage of naive young single women arriving inChicago from surrounding small towns. Using his mesmerizing charm and an uncannyability to fend off creditors and police, Holmes bent his victims to his willand committed a series of murders as cold-blooded as any in American history.But The Devil in the White City is about more than just two men. It isabout America on the threshold of the twentieth centurya time of widespreadviolence, fantastic wealth, growing labor unrest, and financial panic; a timewhen Buffalo Bill could take a bow to Susan B.
Anthony; and a time when men andwomen as diverse as Jane Addams, Theodore Dreiser, Thomas Edison, Samuel Gompers,and Frank Lloyd Wrightcould all gaze in wonder at the magnificence of theWhite City.Reading Guide. In the note 'Evils Imminent,' Erik Larson writes 'Beneath the goreand smoke and loam, this book is about the evanescence of life, and why some menchoose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others inthe manufacture of sorrow' xi. What does the book reveal about 'theineluctable conflict between good and evil'? What is the essential differencebetween men like Daniel Burnham and Henry H. Are they alike in any way?. At the end of The Devil in the White City, in Notes and Sources,Larson writes 'The thing that entranced me about Chicago in the Gilded Age wasthe city's willingness to take on the impossible in the name of civic honor, aconcept so removed from the modern psyche that two wise readers of early draftsof this book wondered why Chicago was so avid to win the world's fair in thefirst place' p. What motives, in addition to 'civic honor,' droveChicago to build the Fair?
In what ways might the desire to 'out-EiffelEiffel' and to show New York that Chicago was more than a meat-packingbackwater be seen as problematic?. The White City is repeatedly referred to as a dream. The young poet EdgarLee Masters called the Court of Honor 'an inexhaustible dream of beauty' p.252; Dora Root wrote 'I think I should never willingly cease drifting in thatdreamland' p. 253; Theodore Dreiser said he had been swept 'into a dreamfrom which I did not recover for months' p. 306; and columnist Teresa Deanfound it 'cruel. To let us dream and drift through heaven for six months,and then to take it out of our lives' p.
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- “Rule number one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.” ― John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
What accounts for thedreamlike quality of the White City? What are the positive and negative aspectsof this dream?. In what ways does the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 change America? Whatlasting inventions and ideas did it introduce into American culture? Whatimportant figures were critically influenced by the Fair?. At the end of the book, Larson suggests that 'Exactly what motivatedHolmes may never be known' p.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a 1997 American crime drama film based on John Berendt's 1994 novel of the same name, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Kevin Spacey and John Cusack. It follows the story of an antiques dealer on trial for the murder of a male prostitute.
What possible motives are exposed in TheDevil in the White City? Why is it important to try to understand themotives of a person like Holmes?.
After the Fair ended, Ray Stannard Baker noted 'What a human downfallafter the magnificence and prodigality of the World's Fair which has sorecently closed its doors! Heights of splendor, pride, exaltation in one month:depths of wretchedness, suffering, hunger, cold, in the next' p. Whatis the relationship between the opulence and grandeur of the Fair and thepoverty and degradation that surrounded it? In what ways does the Fair bringinto focus the extreme contrasts of the Gilded Age? What narrative techniquesdoes Larson use to create suspense in the book? How does he end sections andchapters of the book in a manner that makes' the reader anxious to find outwhat happens next?. Larson writes, 'The juxtaposition of pride and unfathomed evil struck meas offering powerful insights into the nature of men and their ambitions' p.393.
What such insights does the book offer? What more recent stories of pride,ambition, and evil parallel those described in The Devil in the White City?. What does The Devil in the White City add to our knowledge aboutFrederick Law Olmsted and Daniel Burnham? What are the most admirable traits ofthese two men?
What are their most important aesthetic principles?. In his speech before his wheel took on its first passengers, George Ferris'happily assured the audience that the man condemned for having wheels inhis head' had gotten them out of his head and into the heart of the MidwayPlaisance' p.
Passengers In The Garden Of Good And Evil Reimagined Movie
In what way is the entire Fair an example of the power ofhuman ingenuity, of the ability to realize the dreams of imagination?. How was Holmes able to exert such power over his victims? What weaknessesdid he prey upon? Why wasn't he caught earlier? In what ways does his story 'illustrate the end of the century' p. 370 as the Chicago Times-Heraldwrote?. What satisfaction can be derived from a nonfiction book like The Devilin the White City that cannot be found in novels?
In what ways is the booklike a novel?. In describing the collapse of the roof of Manufacturers and Liberal ArtsBuilding, Larson writes 'In a great blur of snow and silvery glass thebuilding's roofthat marvel of late nineteenth-century hubris, enclosing thegreatest volume of unobstructed space in historycollapsed to the floorbelow' p. Was the entire Fair, in its extravagant size and cost,an exhibition of arrogance? Do such creative acts automatically engender adarker, destructive parallel? Can Holmes be seen as the natural darker side ofthe Fair's glory?. What is the total picture of late nineteenth-century America that emergesfrom The Devil in the White City? How is that time both like and unlikecontemporary America?
What are the most significant differences? In what waysdoes that time mirror the present?Suggested ReadingJohn Berendt, Midnightin the Garden of Good and Evil; E. Doctorow, World's Fair;Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie; Eric W. Hickey, Serial Murderers andTheir Victims; Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air; Upton Sinclair, TheJungle; Mark Twain, The Gilded Age; Edith Wharton, The House ofMirth.Copyright Vintage Publishing.Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Vintage.Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.