Rhetorical Devices In Cold Blood

“Alvin, are you lighting another cigarette? Honestly, Alvin, can’t you at least try to sleep?”
He was too tense to sleep, even if the telephone could be silenced—too fretful, and frustrated. None of his “leads” had led anywhere, except, perhaps, down a blind alley toward the blankest of walls. Bobby Rupp? The polygraph machine had eliminated Bobby. And Mr. Smith, the farmer who tied rope knots identical with those used by the murderer—he, too, was a discarded suspect, having established that on the night of the crime he’d been “off in Oklahoma.” Which left the Johns, father and son, but they had also submitted provable alibis. “So,” to quote Harold Nye, “it all adds up to a nice round number. Zero.” Even the hunt for the grave of Nancy’s cat

had come to nothing.
Nevertheless, there had been one or two meaningful developments. First, while sorting Nancy’s clothes, Mrs. Elaine Selsor, her aunt, had found tucked in the toe of a shoe a gold wristwatch. Second, accompanied by a K.B.I. agent, Mrs. Helm had explored every room at River Valley Farm, toured the house in the expectation that she might notice something awry or absent, and she had. It happened in Kenyon’s room. Mrs. Helm looked and looked, paced round and round the room with pursed lips, touching this and that—Kenyon’s old baseball mitt, Kenyon’s mud-spattered work boots, his pathetic abandoned spectacles. All the while she kept whispering, “Something here is wrong, I feel it, I know it, but I don’t know what it is.” And then she did know. “It’s the radio! Where is Kenyon’s little radio?”
Taken together, these discoveries forced Dewey to consider again the possibility of “plain robbery” as a motive. Surely that watch had not tumbled into Nancy’s shoe by accident? She must, lying in the dark, have heard sounds—footfalls, perhaps voices— that led her to suppose thieves were in the house, and so believing must have hurriedly hidden the watch, a gift from her father that she treasured. As for the radio, a gray portable made by Zenith—no doubt about it, the radio was gone. All the same, Dewey could not accept the theory that the family had been slaughtered for paltry profit—” a few dollars and a radio.” To accept it would obliterate his image of the killer—or, rather, killers. He and his associates had definitely decided to pluralize the term. The expert execution of the crimes was proof enough that at least one of the pair commanded an immoderate amount of coolheaded slyness, and was—must be—a person too clever to have done such a deed without calculated motive. Then, too, Dewey had become aware of several particulars that reinforced his conviction that at least one of the murderers was emotionally involved with the victims, and felt for them, even as he destroyed them, a certain twisted tenderness. How else explain the mattress box?
The business of the mattress box was one of the things that most tantalized Dewey. Why had the murderers taken the trouble to move the box from the far end of the basement room and lay it on the floor in front of the furnace, unless the intention had been to make Mr. Clutter more comfortable—to provide him, with a couch less rigid than cold cement? And in studying the death-scene photographs Dewey had distinguished other details that seemed to support his notion of a murderer now and again moved by considerate impulses. “Or”—he could never quite find the word he wanted—” something fussy. And soft. Those bedcovers. Now, what kind of person would do that—tie up two woman, the way Bonnie and the girl were tied, and then draw up the bedcovers, tuck them in, like sweet dreams and good night? Or the pillow under Kenyon’s head. At first I thought maybe the pillow was put there to make his head a simpler target. Now I think, No, it was done for the same reason the mattress box spread on the floor—to make the victim more comfortable.”
II.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote was a murder case that left readers captivated. The passage that had been selected, ran from pages 121-123. The author had used several textual features in order to portray a feeling and message upon the reader. In this passage, the reader can see the realization that Dewey’s had faced, between the conceptions between good vs. evil. This concept had been clearly brought to the light of the reader in this passage. The author’s tone makes the readers feel empathetic for the inevitable downward spiral of a morally good man due to harsh circumstance, conditions, and experiences. The mood set by the author in the passage displays that it is the last major act Perry will deliver to be seen as someone who is not entirely a bad person. Therefore, Capote further deepens our sincerity and empathy felt towards Perry. Dewey comes to this conclusion when they realize the Kenyon’s radio was missing so this was not just a “plain

robbery”
In this passage the author had stated that the radio had gone missing which imples to the reader that this may not be something the killer would steal during a murder spree. Besides that, the bodies that were murdered were laid down in a comfortable postions so they can die peacefully. The aurthor had included this in the passage because he wanted to show the readers that this was a twisted tenderness which was two of the major themes, good vs. evil and nurture vs nature. In this case Dick was a charcater who was naturally a horrible person. That was his nature, the way he was born. Perry on the other hand, had become evil along the years. There was a bit of goodness in him, until he met Dick, which ultimately who caused his downfall.
This passage not only spoke about the insights of the characters personalites, but it also helped the reader sympathize with the charaacters. We can ultimaley forgive the evilness of Perry’s characteristics due to his past early childhood. This passage was the point where we see where Perry’s life had truely went wrong. It helped the reader obtain a full understanding about the conflict that had occured in the novel and why.
III.

In my opinion, although the book was not as exciting as I would have hoped for it to be, I do recommend this book to peers. It has a variety of thought provoking questions and had many forms of symbolism that I believe are important questions and concepts to think about. Although, Perry and Dick were murderers and that in itself is extremely ill-willed, throughout the novel the reader can see, more specifically, in Perry that maybe he was not as bad as a person as one would think. The contrast between good vs. evil can be seen in the main characters, Perry and Dick. I can connect with this novel and Perry, although I have not taken those extremes, I feel as if we are very similar. Constant contemplation, self doubt, and being unable to succeed are all aspects that both Perry and I have in common. It is apparent that throughout the novel that Perry comtemplates between what is moral and what is not, however he let his greed and pain take over him. Through the symbolism of the yellow bird, we see from a dream Perry has that he is misguided and miserable in with his current state. “Another method of escape, suicide, replaced them in his musings...One night he dreamed that he’d unscrewed the bulb, broken it, and with the broken glass cut his wrists and ankles. ‘I felt all breath and light leaving me,’ he said, in subsequent description of his sensations, ‘The walls of the cell fell away, the sky came down, I saw the big yellow bird,’” The yellow bird, is in fact the very

thing that saves him, which in this case I believe his yellow bird was Dick. With this Perry felt as if Dick was his savior from his miserable being. However, Dick was not the right type of influence and I believe deep down Perry knew that as well, but he did not trust his morals and ultimately caved in and decided that this crime was how he was going to change his life.
I do not believe that I am a part of the target audience, however that does not make a difference. Anyone who can see the underlying cause for Perry and Dick and understand the failed concept in their case between nurture vs. nature to commit such heinous crimes can come to realize that this book, is a good one.