Skyscrapers
Throughout the book, imagery is used to describe Chicago’s skyscrapers to make them seem majestic and ethereal. "The shared color, or more accurately the shared absence of color, produced an especially alluring range of effects as the sun traveled the sky. In the early morning, when Burnham conducted his inspections, the buildings were pale blue and seemed to float on a ghostly cushion of ground mist. Each evening the sun colored the buildings ochre and lit the motes of dust raised the breeze until the air itself became a soft orange veil" (Part III). This imagery uses color to appeal to the sense of sight, and puts the reader in the shoes of the architects in the story by helping them to see the beauty of the buildings.
Light
Descriptions of the White City use light to convey a sense of wonder. The fact that it is called the ‘White’ City is what first brings this imagery into play. Many of the buildings on the fairgrounds are described as white, and great emphasis is put on the many new electric lighting fixtures lighting the biggest exhibitions and streets of the fair. This imagery connects to the symbolism of the fair representing hope and new beginnings for Chicago.
Blue Eyes
Many of the main characters in the story are described as having bright blue eyes, like Burnham and Holmes. Larson says “he has striking blue eyes” (35) when describing Holmes, and says that “Burnham was handsome, tall, and strong, with vivid blue eyes” (26). This visual imagery connects the characters and reveals the idea that there are many similarities between the good and bad characters.
The Stockyards
Imagery is used to appeal to both the sense of sight and smell when talking about the stockyards throughout the book. The “stench of rotting offal from the Union Yards” (45) fills the air of Chicago. When Nannie visits Chicago, she “watched as hog after hog was upended and whisked screaming down the cable into the butchering chambers below, some still alive, were dipped next in a vat of boiling water, then scraped clean of bristle—the bristle saved in bins below the scraping tables. Each steaming hog then passed from station to station, where knifemen drenched in blood made the same few incisions time after time until, as the hog advanced, slabs of meat began thudding wetly onto the tables” (265). This creates the image of the ‘Black City’ of old Chicago, where the stockyards were the biggest attraction before the World’s Fair.
