When classifying someone as evil, one may only look at the act of the person but not their mental state. In the essence of this topic, the nonfiction novel by Truman Capote, In Cold Blood, references the idea of people being either pure evil or not. One of the murderers, Perry Smith, is an example of this idea, even though he murdered an entire family. By reading the story, we learn that Perry Smith is not inherently evil from specific points made within the novel. Truman Capote’s use of diction, tone and flashback help convey the idea of the character, Perry Edward Smith, as not inherently evil instead having evil tendencies.
The diction used, in the novel, helps readers to comprehend how Perry Smith is not naturally evil. For example, when
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Perry was describing his encounter with Nancy that night, of the murder, he asserts that he, “roped her feet together and tied her hands behind her back. Then pulled up the covers, tucked her in till just her head showed. There was a little easy chair near the bed…She told me quite a lot about herself. About school, and how she was going to go to a university to study music and art” (Capote, 242). This characterization of Perry illustrates how gentle and attentive Perry is by the way he treated his hostage. When tying up Nancy Clutter, he learned about her plans for the future. Truman Capote, in In Cold Blood, uses descriptive notions to show Perry’s consideration. With phrases like “pulled up the covers”, “tucked her in”, and “little easy chair” suggest that Perry is relaxed with Nancy, and he had no objective of killing her that night (Capote, 242). It turns out that the author portrays Perry Smith as an abandoned, complex child, which gains him pity and empathy from the readers even in his final minutes. Truman Capote, in In Cold Blood, uses diction to express the character’s softer side. Using diction to help convey Perry as not being inherently evil, complies with the tone he is given that adds to his characterization. Another literary device that Capote utilizes is tone, and he uses tone to help give readers a different perspective on criminals.
This sympathetic tone is shown when Perry states, “By now, over the years, that was all I had left me. Jimmy a suicide. Fern out the window. My mother dead. Been dead eight years. Everybody was gone but Dad and Barbara” (Capote, 134). This sympathy that the reader receives from Perry’s story affects how one previously perceived him, and it makes you have care for Perry. Truman Capote, in In Cold Blood, uses a sentimental tone to help readers understand why Perry Smith feels alone in the world. The novel states, “It would be meaningless to apologize for what I did. Even inappropriate. But I do. I apologize” (Capote, 340). Capote shows the readers Perry’s passionate side with a gentle tone in subjective narration, however, the objective narration creates the shift to a factual tone. These last words by Perry Smith show how truly remorseful he is of his actions. The fact that he regrets what he has done generates readers to empathize, even though he still must be executed. Truman Capote, in In Cold Blood, uses a factual tone to help produce the nonfiction of the novel by making it realistic as a true account. Other than using tone, the author adds in flashbacks of Perry’s past to build the reader’s understanding of his struggle and how his actions are influenced by what he went through as a
child. The flashbacks that Capote uses, of Perry’s childhood, applies to his behavior and actions. When Perry discusses his parent’s relationship, he remembers the time Tex Smith beat his mother. How he thought his father was going to hurt him (Capote, 129). He convincingly portrays Tex Smith’s temper to make it seem as if Perry’s father was abusive to him. Truman Capote, in In Cold Blood, uses flashbacks as a sociology reason for Perry’s actions in the murder. Truman Capote highlights another incident in Perry’s childhood with the nun saying, “There was this one nurse, she used to call me ‘nigger’ and say there wasn’t any difference between niggers and Indians…what she used to do, she’d fill a tub with ice cold water, put me in it, and hold me under until I was blue” (Capote, 132). This shows how Perry is physically and emotionally damaged by his childhood. This physical abuse that he received, in the orphanages, augments readers concern of Perry mental state. Due to the actions of the nun, the readers become more sympathetic towards Perry. Truman Capote, in In Cold Blood, uses flashbacks to make Perry gain more compassion from the readers. The background stories of Perry Smith not only made people feel for him but made him seem less likely to want to do evil. Even if he had a motive. To conclude, the idea of Perry Edward Smith not being inherently evil is proven through the author’s use of literary elements. Truman Capote uses a lot of emotional past times, significant notices and phrases to appeal to readers to make Perry not be seen as an evil person. The reader’s perspective of Perry Edward Smith is swayed by the author’s writing technique and choices on how he wanted to depict Perry Smith.
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 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.
In the novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, the author skillfully orders information and articulates his word choice in order to successfully tell the story. Capote chooses to include certain events before others to show the reader the development of the case caused a change in the overall feelings of characters such as Alvin Dewey. Alvin, the detective who desperately searched for the Clutter killers reads, “on the first page of the Kansas City Star, a headline he had long awaited: Die On Rope For Bloody Crime,” which portrays to the reader that he was relieved after months to know that they were sentenced to death. (337) By including the word choice “he had long awaited” the reader may assume that he is pleased by this outcome. (337) However,
In In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, the characters Smith and Hickock, while both criminals involved in the killing of the Clutters, are portrayed quite differently. It is clear that Capote favors Smith. Throughout the book, Smith is written in a way that could incite sympathy within the reader while Hickock is shown to be a remorseless, irredeemable killer. Nevertheless, there are moments in which Smith seems as if he doesn’t deserve sympathy, such as when he shows no remorse for his actions, but overall, Capote spends a majority of the book humanizing him while simultaneously antagonizing Hickock. Some could argue that this story is not established as that of victims and villains but that it focuses more on whatever is relevant to telling the
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 ...
Richard Mulcaster, a British instructor of English, once wrote, “Nature makes the boy toward, nurture sees him forward.” Mulcaster recognizes that both genetic and environmental factors determine the type of a person one becomes. Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood gives the reader an opportunity to see prime examples of how nature and nurture influence one’s character. Capote’s novel, In Cold Blood introduces the reader to two men; Richard Eugene Hickock known as Dick throughout the novel, and Perry Edward Smith whose lives of crime are almost identical; although both Perry and Richard come from very humble backgrounds, their childhood particularly their family life, has very little in common. It is not until later in their lives that we begin to see similarities between the two men. Despite their differences, Perry’s upbringing and Dick’s genetic disposition allow both men to share a disregard for life, which becomes apparent on the night they gruesomely burglarized and murdered four innocent members of the Clutter family.
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.
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.
These two men, both coming from different backgrounds, joined together and carried out a terrible choice that rendered consequences far worse than they imagined. Living under abuse, Perry Smith never obtained the necessary integrity to be able to pause and consider how his actions might affect other people. He matured into a man who acts before he thinks, all due to the suffering he endured as a child. Exposed to a violent father who did not instill basic teachings of life, Smith knew nothing but anger and misconduct as a means of responding to the world. He knew no other life. Without exposure to proper behavior or responsible conduct, he turned into a monster capable of killing an entire family without a blink of remorse. In the heat of the moment, Perry Smith slaughtered the Clutter family and barely stopped to take a breath. What could drive a man to do this in such cold blood? The answer lies within his upbringing, and how his childhood experiences shaped him to become the murderer of a small family in Holcomb, Kansas. ¨The hypothesis of unconscious motivation explains why the murderers perceived innocuous and relatively unknown victims as provocative and thereby suitable targets for aggression.¨ (Capote 191). ¨But it is Dr. Statten´s contention that only the first murder matters psychologically, and that when
...ionship with Smith during his time on Death Row, making his unbiased writing biased. By the time Smith and Hickock are hanged Smith is portrayed in the role of misunderstood good guy in the good-guy/bad-guy literary device. Capote was not apposed the death penalty, he used the double handing as the dramatic ending to In Cold Blood. Thought out the third section of In Cold Blood whenever Hickock is contemplating or in gagging in a sexual act Smith reacts in an angry or jealous way. Capote repeatedly interprets Smith’s actions towards Hickock as showing his morality, where Hickock is voiced has having none. Capote voices that Smith prevents the rape of Nancy Clutter on Moral grounds. Capote shows this again in the scene in which Hickock has a prosttsuite in the room during their time in Mexico.
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,
The film Capote, based on the how the writer of “In Cold Blood” did his research to write his book, a masterpiece of literature, has portrayed Capote’s behavior during his research vividly. Capote’s behavior during the years Perry waits on death row in order to get personal testimony of the night of killings is a controversial topic. Some argue that what Capote did was absolutely necessary for an ambitious writer to create such a master piece while other argue that human ethics is more important than the creation of an ideal “non-fiction noble” and the paths he took to get there are morally ambiguous. Even though he gave the world a milestone in literature, his behaviors seem unethical because he lied, pretended to be a friend of an accused murderer who was in a death row, and did not have any empathy to him.
To establish the idea of an impressionable Perry, Capote needs an example of Perry conforming to Dick’s values. This opportunity arises when Dick questions the validity of Perry’s past killing. Perry has described that he had, “picked up this bike chain… hit him across the face… kept right on… left him there” (Capote 112). Vulnerability is exemplified by Perry’s anecdote, because he, “was not a gifted liar, or a prolific one” heavily implying that Perry has not killed before the recent murders (Capote 112). Capote’s inclusion of this fallacious anecdote reveals the truth about Perry’s moral obligations, namely that he has none. Perry simply grasps the moral values which appear closest at hand and clings on to them for dear life. In this case Perry’s true morals are synthesized into Dick’s, proving how evil can infest mentally defenseless people.
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.
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.