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In cold blood analysis
In the cold blood analysis
Analysis of cold blood
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I do not think In Cold Blood is just journalism. I agree that this book is a creative work. Capote considers his work as a nonfiction novel which is a style of writing based on true story with additional dramatic techniques. I have read the real case that was written by the police department ("Clutter Family Murders."). It is so similar to In Cold Blood, that I even thought it was a summary of the book. It is apparent that Capote added some additional stories especially the part when Dick and Perry are planned to be executed. This addition was meant to tell the readers the hypocrisy of death penalty but other than that I thought Capote got easy credit for just re-writing the real crime. Obviously, the book concentrates a lot on the neighbors
and Dick’s and Perry’s personal stories as well. Unlike journalism, which tells only the fact, this book has emotion into it from other people’s perspective, such as the neighbors. Also, Capote included his personal thoughts to convey them to the readers; journalism cannot include any of the author’s personal perspective. I think all these additions are included in the book to make In Cold Blood more emotional, dramatic and sympathetic. I think Capote wrote far more than just a new journalism with his creative ideas.
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 this day and age the term “murder” is coined as a word used in everyday language, albeit fifty years ago in the [rural] heartland of America, that word evoked emotion out of the entire town’s population. Prior to writing In Cold Blood, Truman Capote had written several pieces that lead him to writing a piece of literature that would infuse fiction and nonfiction, thus In Cold Blood was created, albeit after six years of research (“Truman” 84). "Truman Capote is one of the more fascinating figures on the American literary landscape, being one of the country's few writers to cross the border between celebrity and literary acclaim…He contributed both to fiction and nonfiction literary genres and redefined what it meant to join the otherwise separate realms of reporting and literature." ___ In Cold Blood takes place in the rural heartland in America, capturing the lives of the Clutter family in the days preceding their murder. The story shifts to the murderers, Dick Hickock, Perry Smith, and the lives of the men prior to the events that ultimately unfold in the murder of the Clutters, although the actual events of the murder are not revealed until later in the story through Perry’s flashbacks. At this point of the story the narration switches between the fugitives and the investigation lead by Detective Alvin Dewey of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. Truman Capote's novel In Cold Blood delineates justice in order to depict the disruption of an all-American society.
This passage when Capote begins to introduce Perry more in depth. From his childhood to later on in his life. Perry’s way of life as a child was a tough one, in which his mother put him in a “catholic orphanage. The one where the Black Widows were always at me. Hitting me. Because of wetting the bed…They hated me, too.” Capote’s use of short sentence syntax creates the effect of emphasizing the horrible and dramatic conditions Perry had to live with. Also, the nuns of the orphanage are described as “Black Widows,” a metaphor, to make it seem like it was truly terrible. The color black associates with death and when metaphorically used to describe a nun, it creates sympathy for Perry. Later in the passage, capote creates a short narrative of Perry’s experience in war. “Perry, one balmy evening in wartime 1945…” The storytelling helps understand more about Perry in the way he thinks and acts. The atmosphere of this passage is a sad mood. It talks about the terrible childhood and early life of Perry. It is clear that no one ever cared for Perry and it affected him dramatically.
and at one point, had a gun pointed to his head. Also there appears to be
In Cold Blood, a novel written by Truman Capote and published in 1966, is, though written like fiction, a true account of the murder of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas in 1959. This evocative story illuminates new insights into the minds of criminals, and how society tends to act as a whole, and achieves its purpose by utilizing many of the techniques presented in Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor. In In Cold Blood, Capote uses symbols of escape and American values, and recurring themes of egotism and family to provide a new perspective on crime and illustrate an in-depth look at why people do the things they do.
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,
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.
He lied to Perry Smith and the police for his benefits. He lied to police because he said he would writing about how the murder had impacted the community, but he was writing about how the Clutter family was killed. Capote bribed a prison warren to attain access to Perry, a man involved in the Clutter family murder case. Moreover, Capote was writing a book with getting substantial information from the two men who were accused of brutal murder of an entire family at night, but he was hiding the title from the two killers. He wanted to make them believe that his writing was about their unjust trail. In a program, he said about the title of his book was “In Cold Blood” however when Perry asked him about it, he answered that he had to come up with the title and he gave it as a title, but that was not the real title. It seems clear that Capote’s behavior was questionable on how he attained access to Perry and how he lied to h...
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.
Capote never intended for In Cold Blood to be a documentary of the multiple murder that happened in the small town of Holcomb. When Capote published his novel, people where not familiar with non-fiction novels. People knew of the murders that had happened and started criticizing the book for not being truthful to what had really happened. This novel can not be looked at as journalism, which is often the mistake people made and still make today. Although there are many facts within the novel, the story that is being told is not always credible. Capote has also been criticized for his method of gathering information, because he did not take notes or record his interviews. Capote said that he had tested himself and that he had a 95% memory recall, but this was not always trusted by critics.Capote had made a mistake by telling the public that every word in the novel was true, this just opened him up for critics and journalists to challenge his bold statement.
In 1966, Truman Capote published the novel In Cold Blood that pierced the boundaries of literary genres, as he narrated the events of the 1959 Clutter family massacre in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas and the quest that took place afterwards through the perspectives both the murderers and those looking for them. As Capote bends these genre normalities, he ventures with the killers and the detectives and describes the murderers’ lives in-depth to further characterize Dick Hickock and Perry Smith--their psychological states and the possible contributing factors to their undeniable personality disorders. The two killers are ultimately diagnosed by a mental health professional with mental illnesses rather than chronic personality disorders,
One of the first things a journalism student learns is to attribute anything that is not known fact. With the publishing of In Cold Blood, Capote was lauded for his, " . . . meticulous accuracy and total recall, which obviated the need for not taking notes" ("In"). Capote used his journalistic skills, and, because he didn't attribute anything to anyone, the story became fiction.