The World s Columbian Exposition - 1944 Words

The World’s Columbian Exposition, a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World, occupied the streets of Chicago in 1893. With the crowding of people, tourists have a high demand for a place to stay during their visit. A young man by the name of H.H. Holmes decides to open up a large hotel during the Columbian Exposition to bring in extra money. Little did his customers know that the man they are staying with would soon become one of the first documented serial killers. Many aspects throughout Holmes’s life formed him into the kind of person he turned out to be. Influences from his childhood, his greed for money and power, and his intelligence gave him the ability to construct his â€Å"Murder†¦show more content†¦Knowing that the first five years of life are the most important in shaping the personality and interests of people, the isolation, violence, and deaths Holmes experienced as a young child had a great effect on his later life. Holmes started school at the age of six, but this was not an easy experience for him. Constantly bullied by the older kids who were jealous of his great intelligence, Holmes began to shy away from many people. He came to feel worthless and that he did not belong because of the combination of violence at home and harassment at school. One day, his bullies made him touch a real skeleton his school owned. Scared at first, Holmes finally gave in to the bullies. He recalled feeling very fascinated as his hand was caressing the skeleton. This spark in Holmes led to the fire that was going to explode inside of him in the years to come. Having this close contact with a dead body is a foreshadow to the murders he would commit later in his life. After the encounter with the skeleton, he started to become more and more obsessed with death and dead things. Holmes was known to dissect dead, and even alive, animals as a hobby. As he grew into his teens, he became a bully, too. Younger children were afraid of him, but Holmes saw his actions almost as payback for what he had to endure as a young child. Some could say that these encounters with dead animals, bullying classmates, and his obsession with death should have been