Devil in the White City Blog 2

The Fair, as described by Larson, was debated for in a great battle between Chicago and New York, both places wanting to host the fair. The entire fairs over zealous size and huge cost can be said to be an exhibition of arrogance stemming its roots beyond just the battle of where to host the fair. The entire time Burnham is constructing the fair behind every building and structure the goal was to be bigger and more extravagant than that of the Paris exhibition fair of 1885. By creating the fair out of a general want to outshine Europe and its extravagant show of pride one can only wonder if this stands as the reason that evil and madness were drawn to the fair. The fair itself, because it was created out of a general want to be superior to the fair Paris held previously, is clearly a parallel to what its true intention was to be due to the fact that it was created out of feelings of inferiority and the desire to achieve architectural greatness higher than that was achieved at the Paris exhibition. Due to this fact I believe that such creative acts automatically engender a darker, destructive parallel.
The belief that the fair was to show that Chicago was not just the “windy city”, nicknamed the Windy City not for the wind but for the politicians and city boosters who were full of "hot air”, but a city that could hold something as unique and extreme as a world’s fair can attribute to the fact that the fair was seen as an act of arrogance and almost a show of the greatest elements to Chicago, its’ engineers and architects. The fair itself, with its monumental sized buildings and structures is a symbol of the American want to out do its predecessors as is a recurring theme within U.S. history either regarding foreign affairs or even outdoing ourselves in matters of education, science or architecture. The fair is not the first sign of America’s want to stiff the competition; other examples include having skyscrapers bigger than any others seen before, the Olympics and our strong need for competition of a U.S. team, etc. The fair may not be the first example of this self competition between the states within America but it does contain all of the elements precedent in this need to be better than everyone and everything else.
Can anything born from arrogance and the desire to beat the competition really result in anything less than destructive? The fair not only holds exhibits of massive proportions and design but one of the archetypical serial killers of the time. But one may wonder if the fair is a breeding ground for the type of crime Holmes commits being that so much death, either from construction, disease or otherwise has been born from this place of majesty? Holmes himself says the devil was born with him and that he could not help his need to kill more than a poet can not help but sing, there is no doubt that the fair, with its grand exhibits and millions of visitors is a perfect habitat for the kind of destruction Holmes inquires.