Foil

Character Role Analysis

Burnham and Holmes

The Devil in the White City isn't about the gray moral ambiguity of human nature. Nope: it's about the highest highs of human ingenuity and the lowest lows of psychopathic depravity.

On the one hand, people can be like Burnham—creative talents who create a magical White City that lives on for eternity. On the other hand, people can be like Holmes—cunning, manipulative, and capable of killing for pleasure.

By placing Burnham and Holmes side by side, Larson is essentially presenting us with the extremes of the good-to-evil spectrum. It's not subtle…but then again, it doesn't have to be. It's fact.