The Devil in the White City Question 3

Question 3: What is the most important event or passage in the text? Why?
This story depicts the lives of Holmes and Burnham throughout the Worlds Fair in 1893. However, most of Holmes' story involves him building a "castle" which he names the World's Fair Hotel. He planed on building the hotel to lure young women to stay there during the fair. Throughout most of the book, it becomes evident that Holmes is murdering these young women with the motivation of having them fall in love with him so that when they are killed, he can cease their assets through the use of aliases. However, due to his wit, Holmes is able to outsmart the police and gets away with the murders. It is not until 1895 that he is finally caught and reveled.

While being held by Philadelphia Police, the story leaves Burnham and turns to a secondary protagonist, Geyer, a detective who begins to investigate Holmes. During this part of the story, the mood turns into suspense as the detectives eventually investigate Holmes' "castle." Upon reaching the basement the passage became lifelike; "The eeriest phase of the investigation began when the police, holding their flickering lanterns high, entered the hotel basement, a cavern of brick and timber measuring 50 by 165 feet. The discoveries came quickly: a vat of acid with eight ribs and part of a skull settled at the bottom; mounds of quicklime; a large kiln; a dissection table stained with blood" (Larson 364). This passage was crucial to the novel because it finally revealed that Holmes was a murderer and had been outwitting the police and other companies, all in the pursuit of money.