In Cold Blood Essay #2 Although Capote portrays Holcomb as a quiet, safe, little town, he displays that Holcomb was the 7th victim in the murder; therefore he exhibits that even the most safest of places can succumb to evil. Capote employs symbolism amidst the devilish acts committed against the Clutters to establish that not only Clutters fell to evil that night, Holcomb fell at the feet of evil that night as well. As Herb’s past hunting partners send off their friend through the burning of their tainted possessions, Capote goes into depth on the details of the fire: “How was it possible that such effort, such plain virtue, could overnight be reduced to this--smoke, thinning as it rose and was received by the big, annihilating sky”(Capote 79). As the Clutters past possessions are reduced to “thinning” smoke, it represents how Holcomb is also “thinning” due to the wide stretched horror that this evil has brought about. Capote works to emphasize the shift that occurs in Holcomb. It emphasizes that evil has enslaved this perfect town of Holcomb and has …show more content…
As Dewey arrives into a diner Capote provides insight into what this case is doing to him: “In fact, during the past three weeks Dewey had dropped twenty pounds. His suits fitted as though he had borrowed them from a stout friend, and his face, seldom suggestive of his profession, was now not at all so; it could have been that of an ascetic absorbed in occult pursuits”(Capote 149). Capote provides us with a very vivid representation of Dewey’s figure to indicate that this case is destroying him from the inside out. With this idea of Dewey falling apart readers can draw a parallel between him and Holcomb in the sense that Holcomb is “losing weight”, Holcomb doesn’t fit into its “suit”. This evil has murdered the very idea of a “safe”
The book In Cold Blood is written by Truman Capote, an American novelist who wrote about the Clutter’s murder. In Cold Blood is about the murder of the Clutter family in 1959, at Holcomb, Kansas. Although this murder would be an ordinary murder in New York City or a very densely populated city it was very odd in a small town like Holcomb. The Clutter family consisted of Herbert, Bonnie, Nancy, and Kenyon.
Truman Capote in a passage of "in cold blood" describes the town of Holcomb, Kansas. Capotes overall view of the mediocre town is evedent within the first few paragraphs and extends throughout the paper. The town is unfortunatly small and is looked apone in an almost patronising way. The tone, word choice, sentence structure and imagery are all retoricol divces that Capote adopt to convay his point to his reader. The tone of patronization showes up when He reffers to the little town being "a lonesome area", as if the town was so small that it was like you where by yourself.
In the book, “In Cold Blood,” Truman Capote takes us through the lives of the murderers and the murdered in the 1959 Clutter family homicide, which transpires in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas. The first chapter, “The Last to See Them Alive,” vividly illustrates the daily activities of the Clutter family—Herbert, Bonnie, Nancy, and Kenyon—and the scheming plot of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith up to point where the family is found tied up, and brutally murdered. In doing so, he depicts the picture-perfect town of Holcomb with “blue skies and desert clear air”(3) whose safety is threatened when “four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives”(5). Through the eyes of a picture perfect family and criminals with social aspirations, Capote describes the American Dream and introduces his audience to the idea that this ideal was no more than an illusion. Herbert Clutter: the character Capote describes as the epitome of the American Dream.
Murder can be defined as “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another”. How then, are others able to make us sympathize with not only murderers, but people who have committed horrendous crimes? For example, the media is constantly attempting to humanize rapists and even terrorists with phrases like “lone wolf” or “alienated and adrift.” Such phrases make some of us want to pity the criminal. This can be seen when we compare Perry Smith and Dick Hickock from Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.
“He did not smoke, and of course he did not drink; indeed, he had never tasted spirits, and was inclined to avoid people who had—a circumstance that did not shrink his social circle as much as might be supposed, for the center of that circle was supplied by the members of Garden City's First Methodist Church,a congregation totaling seventeen hundred ,most of whom were as abstemious as Mr. Clutter could desire.’’ (10) ( Culture and Community ) Capote used this quote to illustrate the culture of the village of Holcomb, where Mr.Clutter lived and how the social life of a religious family is rooted in their church. This quote represents culture, because is trying to tell us that people in Holcomb should live a life according to their religion ,because their actions affect their social circle and their community.
Capotes creates sympathy for Detective Dewey by allowing the reader to think about what it would be like to have family member who is extremely involved in work about the
Truman Capote’s novel, In Cold Blood epitomizes the shifting sentiments related to the murder of the Clutter family which range from terror, to sorrow, to pride, and all mixed emotions in between. Yet through Capote’s particular descriptions about each character, the connection between their feelings and their actions become further clarified. In effect, the readers experience feelings of sympathy for the victims, their friends and family, the investigators, and even the brutal murders of the innocent family. In order to craft this association, Capote employs a pathos appeal to amplify the audience’s ability to sympathize with each and every character.
Contrastingly, the opposite opinion is revealed through the character Alvin Dewey in the book. Capote writes about Dewey’s beliefs on the case: “[The Clutter family] had experienced prolonged terror, they had suffered. And Dewey
In In Cold Blood, the issue over the death penalty is prominent. Did Perry and Dick deserve to die? Should the severity of one’s crime determine one’s fate? Although Truman Capote writes the novel in a straightforward, “from a distance” way, he conveys, through his characters, theme, and plot development, that the death penalty is an issue that should be looked at from all sides and that the legal system itself is the real issue at hand, and that the death penalty is used as a means to suppress the distress and indignation of the citizens surrounding the case, instead of suppressing the victim himself.
Although, Holcomb is written as a picture-esque mid-west utopia in the first chapter of In Cold Blood, Capote uses personification, parallelism, and the inclusion of first hand accounts, to describe its shift from a neighborly society to one of locked doors in order to comment on how one event can completely alter a locations image. Through the use of personification, Capote describes the disillusion in the townspeople of Holcomb, product of the murder of the Clutter family. Capote writes that locks and bolts are the most popular item in a Garden City hardware store, and that the people disregarded brand identity just to have the security of the ownership of a lock. Capote latter writes, “Imagination, of course, can open any door - turn the key and let terror walk right in” (Capote 88), to show how paranoia has consumed the townsfolk are by expressing the false sense of security that a door lock provides. The use of “imagination can open any door”, implies that if someone needed to get through a locked door,
In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote, is a non-fiction true crime. In Cold Blood is about two murderers, Dick and Perry, who heard a rumor about a household possessing $5,000 and they wanted the money. Little did they know there was not any money and they got caught for murder to get nothing in the end. They ended up serving jail time and sentenced to hang till death.
Facts and Fiction: A Manipulation of Language in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood English is a fascinating and riveting language. Subtle nuances and adjustments can easily change the understanding of a literary work—a technique many authors employ in order to evoke a desired response from their readers. This method is used especially in In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, a literary work which details a true event about the murders of four members of the Clutter family in the small community of Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959. Although Capote’s 1966 book was a bestseller nonfiction and had successfully garnered acclaim for its author, there is still a great deal of confusion about the distinction between the factual and fictional aspects in the book.
In Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, there is no hero. The protagonist is not a hero, nor the law enforcement. Heroism becomes irrelevant when searching for justice following a tragedy such as the one seen on November 15th, 1959 in Holcomb, Kansas. Complexity, next to justice, is primary to put into account during the aftershocks . Perry Smith is the protagonist in the novel, not only due to author’s bias but also due to his sheer dynamic, a man disconnected from word to action.
Truman Capote uses variety of language devices to vividly develop Perry Smith in his novel In Cold Blood. These language devices include, diction, similes and symbolism. Throughout the novel diction is used to develop Perry Smith’s character, and suggest reasons for the murder. When Smith explains what happened that night at the Clutter’s family home, he tells agent Alvin Dewey about his moment with Nancy Clutter.
The novel, In Cold Blood, is an anomaly in the literary paradigm. The author, Truman Capote, designed his novel in a way that made it unique when compared to others. His fundamental purpose was to present the problem of American violence and the fragility of the American Dream and how it can be so easily shattered. In order to portray his purpose, he used many rhetorical devices including syntax, diction, tone, ethos, logos and pathos. These devices allowed Capote’s novel to be different from the spectrum of other non-fiction novels and to support his purpose.