Truman Capote, in his novel In Cold Blood, establishes the character of Perry Smith as an archetype of a pathological criminal (as evidenced by the cited psychological study on "murder without apparent motive" (299-302)), communicating the level of complexity of the emotional makeup of criminals. Capote focuses his novel on Perry, detailing his thoughts, past, relationships, and ambitions. Perry reflects as a loner who mistrusts others, including those he wishes to call friends (297), revealing a deeper level of emotion than the cold-blooded acts of murder suggest. In detailing Perry's personal relationships and familial upbringing (or lack thereof), Capote elucidates the importance of love and friendship in the development of a child; Perry had neither, rather suffering racial abuse and public humiliation as a seven year old. Perry's actions are thus perceived as not necessarily being 'his fault', but rather a product of circumstances. Thesis: Capote traces Perry's habits from childhood to adulthood, analyzes Perry's psyche, and chronicles Perry's "friendships" in order to impart the theme that the nurture of love and friendship plays a huge role in the makeup of a person's character.
Capote delineates Perry's attachment to his past while tracing how its tendrils creep into his present habits, formulating the concept that one's past can shape one's future. From the very beginning of the novel and from the reader's first glimpse at Perry, Capote calls attention to Perry's boxes filled with memorabilia that constitute his worldly possessions. In his early thirties, Perry still clings to his childhood dreams of becoming "Perry O'Parsons" and a deep-sea-diver (14). Perry's friendship with Dick depends on him being "totally masculine...
... middle of paper ...
...ip on one's subsequent ability to reciprocate those sentiments.
Capote thus illustrates how Perry's childhood deterred him from realizing his vast potential. By detailing the similarities between Perry's childhood and his subsequent actions, Capote establishes the connection between love and friendship and subsequent attitude and action. Additionally, Capote links Perry's psychological failings to his childhood abuse, proving that on the cognitive level, love and friendship clearly influences one's ability to function in society. Additionally, Capote details Perry's history of failed relationships as evidence to the profound effect of the absence of love and friendship on one's subsequent ability to love and befriend. Thus, Capote conveys the theme that love and friendship the most important things that a man can have, and in their absence, bad things will happen.
In Cold Blood is the true story of a multiple murder that rocked the small town of Holcomb, Kansas and neighboring communities in 1959. It begins by introducing the reader to an ideal, all-American family, the Clutters; Herb (the father), Bonnie (the mother), Nancy (the teenage daughter), and Kenyon (the teenage son). The Clutters were prominent members of their community who gained admiration and respect for their neighborly demeanors.
Capote in his book In Cold Blood set out to create an image of the murders and their motives with the use of rhetorical devices. He uses certain devices, such as diction and syntax to give each character their own distinct personality and also develops their characteristic and tendencies as a person as well. Capote also brings the characters to life with the switching of tone between them and with the things they say about themselves and events going on in the story. Another way Capote develops the reader's perception of the murderers was by the use of imagery to draw the reader a picture in their minds to what the character would look like face to face. With all of these combined he gave each murderer their own personality and views, ultimately
Truman Capote showcases his very distinct style of writing in his true crime novel, In Cold Blood. Capote intentionally frames ruthless murderer Perry Smith as a relatable, well-intentioned human throughout the whole novel, and employs various rhetorical devices to show us that Perry is not just a stone cold killer. Specifically, Capote uses diction comprised of complex words, interviews conducted by Capote personally in which he interacted with the suspects and their loved ones, and sentence structure that came off as very to the point, in order to illustrate Perry’s dynamic and unique personality, opposed to the one dimensional heartless murderer many made him out to be.
Brian Conniff's article, "Psychological Accidents: In Cold Blood and Ritual Sacrifice," explains how Truman Capote's nonfiction novel demonstrates the psychological trauma that the murderers and the townspeople of Holcomb face after the murders of the Clutter family. Conniff begins his article by stating that in the last twenty-five years imprisonment and execution has reached an all-time high level of obsession among the American public. Since this type of violence has been so normalized it is rarely properly understood (1). With this in mind, prison literature has continually suggested that "the most fortified barriers are not the physical walls and fences between the prison, and the outside world; the most fortified barriers are the psychological walls between the preoccupations of everyday life . . .and the conscious realization that punishment is the most self-destructive kind of national addiction" (Conniff 1).
Truman Capote put-to-words a captivating tale of two monsters who committed four murders in cold blood. However, despite their atrocities, Capote still managed to sway his readers into a mood of compassion. Although, his tone may have transformed several times throughout the book, his overall purpose never altered.
Capote's structure in In Cold Blood is a subject that deserves discussion. The book is told from two alternating perspectives, that of the Clutter family who are the victims, and that of the two murderers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. The different perspectives allow the reader to relive both sides of the story; Capote presents them without bias. Capote masterfully utilizes the third person omniscient point of view to express the two perspectives. The non-chronological sequencing of some events emphasizes key scenes.
In the novel Capote dedicated one whole chapter to describe mostly the personality and physical characteristic of Perry and the movie is basically showing Capote and Perry intimate relationship while Capote was getting valuable information from Perry. Capote compared himself with Perry in the movie and paraphrasing what he told his friend and colleague Nellie Harper Lee, he and Perry grew up in the same family, but he chooses the front door while Perry the back door. Another life tragic similarity present in the movie Capote is that both of their mothers had a tragic death. However, as Perry was promoted in Capote’s novel and there are people that demonstrate sympathy and feel sorry for all that went wrong in Perry’s life, the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman also earned people sympathy and the Oscar of best actor in the movie Capote. The movie humanized the journalist Capote that in the novel was only seen as an invisible professional, subjectively guided for the impartiality and objectivity of the facts. The actor Philip S. Hoffman showed that behind the professional journalist Truman Capote, subsist a controversial and confused human being that assumed a variety of personalities from sensitive to a cold capitalist man during these six years that he spent to write his
Truman Capote finds different ways to humanize the killers throughout his novel In Cold Blood. He begins this novel by explaining the town of Holcomb and the Clutter family. He makes them an honest, loving, wholesome family that play a central role in the town. They play a prominent role in everyone’s lives to create better well-being and opportunity. Capote ends his beginning explanation of the plot by saying, “The suffering. The horror. They were dead. A whole family. Gentle, kindly people, people I knew --- murdered. You had to believe it, because it was really true” (Capote 66). Despite their kindness to the town, someone had the mental drive to murder them. Only a monster could do such a thing --- a mindless beast. However,
Perry Smith did not live the happy childhood that he deserved, abandoned by his family at a young age he was forced to live at a terrible orphanage. “The one where Black Widows were always at me. Hitting me. Because of wetting the bed...They hated me, too.” (Capote 132). In this specific orphanage, Perry was beaten by the nuns that own the place. The short sentences within this quote truly emphasize the dramatic and horrible conditions that Perry had to live with in the orphanage. Sympathy is created ...
Through the course of the book, Capote uses vivid descriptions to his advantage in order to place emphasis on more noteworthy parts of the story. Capote’s choice of imagery characterizes Perry as a person and gives an idea to who he is. Perry’s life prior to crime was normal for awhile, until his family situation crumbled: “in the ring, a lean Cherokee girl rode a wild horse, a ‘bucking bronc,’ and her loosened hair whipped back and forth, flew about like a flamenco dancer’s. Her name was Flo Buckskin, and she was a professional rodeo performer, a ‘champion bronc-rider.’ So was her husband, Tex John Smith; it was while touring the Western rodeo circuit that the handsome Indian girl and the homely-handsome Irish cowboy had met, married, and had the four children sitting in the grandstand. (And Perry could remember many another rodeo spectacle--see again his father skipping inside a circle of spinning lassos, or his mother, with silver and turquoise bangles jangling on her wrists, trick-riding at a desperado speed that thrilled her youngest child and caused crowds in towns from Texas to Oregon to ‘stand up and clap.’)” Perry’s troubles after his parents separation may very well have contributed to his becoming a murderer later on down the road. The abrupt change in his life at such a young age, clearly had a lasting impact on him and his lifestyle. His past altered the way he thought and the type of person he was. Capote quotes,
In Cold Blood is a true account of a multiple murder case that took place in Holcomb, Kansas in 1959, written by Truman Capote. Capote’s attention to detail causes the reader to gain an extreme interest in the Clutter family even though they were an ordinary family. The suspense that is a result of minimal facts and descriptive settings was an elaborate stylistic technique that gave effective results throughout the book. His ability to make this account of a horrid crime more than just a newspaper description was a great success as a base of his many literary devices, not just is great focus to small details.
In the book “In Cold Blood” we meet Perry Edward Smith one of the men accused of killing the Clutter family. Perry is a unique man for how he see the world and how the world sees him. Although the townspeople and those who had heard of the murder only saw Parry as a murder. There is however one man who sees Perry more than he appeared to be and that man was Truman Capote. Perry had an interesting life from how he was raised, becoming friends with Richard Eugene Hickock, to the murder of the Clutter family, all the way to Capote writing about him and the trail he and Dick must face. It was Capote who brought the idea that Perry was not a bad person persa but rather he made a mistake that has caused him to spend the rest of his life behind the bars of a jail.
In Truman Capote’s famous non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood, there is evidence that supports the injustices of the trial: death penalty. The final outcome of the trail was never to be any different than death. “Of all the people in all the world, the Clutters were the least likely to be murdered” (Capote 85). We know the two men who killed the Clutter family, Perry Smith and Bill Hickock, preplanned the crime with malice and forethought. Although the actions were crul and grusome, does Death Row fit what they did if their pasts, childhood environments and situation, are bad. Capote shows the effect of childhood on the killers and if the death penalty is fair. Capote gives the killers a voice to show their humanity by giving childhood accounts of their lives. He questions the justice of is the death penalty fair, and if inherent evil is a product of childhood or society. Is it nature or nurture? Capote gives a look into the minds of the killers and the nature vs. nurture theory. The detailed account the killers’ childhoods makes the reader sympathize with the Clutter family’s killers Smith and Hickock. Should they reserve the death penalty? Did Truman Capote take a stand on the death penalty? By giving the readers a detailed accounting of Perry Smith’s and Dick Hickock’s childhood, Capote sets up the reader for nurture vs. nature debate on the death penalty. The question then becomes, do the effects (if any) caused by environment in childhood make for a trained killer or a natural born one?
In Truman Capote’s non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, the Clutter family’s murderers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, are exposed like never before. The novel allows the reader to experience an intimate understanding of the murderer’s pasts, thoughts, and feelings. It goes into great detail of Smith and Hickock’s pasts which helps to explain the path of life they were walking leading up to the murder’s, as well as the thought’s that were running through their minds after the killings.
In the nonfiction novel, “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote, the author tells a story of the murderers and victims of a slaughter case in Holcomb, Kansas. Instead of writing a book on the murder case as a crime report, the author decides to write about the people. The people we learn about are the killers, Dick and Perry, and the murdered family, the Clutters. The author describes how each family was and makes the portrayals of Dick and Perry’s family different from the Clutters.The portrayal of the Clutters and of Dick and Perry’s families, was used to describe what the American Dream was for each character. In the beginning we learn about what type of family the Clutters were and how they represented the American Dream for the people of Holcomb.