Capital Punishment Exposed In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" is the story of Perry and Dick and the night of November 15, 1959. This investigative, fast-paced and straightforward documentary provides a commentary on the nature of American violence and examines the details of  the motiveless murders of four members of the Clutter family and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers.

The book, “In Cold Blood”, is a nonfiction story by Truman Capote. This book presents one of the worst murders in history. It was a best seller worldwide, and turned into a successful movie. As usual the movie does not stand up to the book. If you want more knowledge of the townspeople, victims and more insight into the trial, more background details of the murders, you should read the book. If you are interested in history and a good murder mystery all in the confines of a book cover, read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.

Truman Capote wrote In Cold Blood with the intention of creating a new non-fiction genre, a creative spin on a newspaper article with the author, and his opinions and judgments completely absent from the text, leaving only the truth for the reader to interpret. The pages of In Cold Blood are filled with facts and first-hand accounts of the events surrounding the brutal murder of a wealthy unsuspecting family in Holcomb, Kansas. Author Truman Capote interviewed countless individuals to get an accurate depiction of every one affected by and every side of the murder. Although he declares himself an unbiased and opinion-free author, based on the extensive descriptions of one of the murderers, Perry Smith, there is much debate about this

The next sentence is structured to show how the government is hypocritical as it murders people even though it is against the law. This shows how the system of murder is against the law, it shows how punishment is not legally justified. The system of murder does not give mercy as described later on and does the opposite. The parallelism of the word mercy shows how the system of murder is an ineffective form of punishment as it does not give mercy but instead seeks revenge by killing someone. Through syntax, Dick describes his ideas on capital punishment. Capote states that all the government wants is revenge by stating that ”They’re mad ‘cause they’re not getting what they want revenge. I believe in hanging. Just so long as I’m not the one being hanged”(336). The informal tone is broken with the hyphen that makes the word revenge stand out. The tone is said with more emphasis and it becomes very serious. Thus, the capital punishment did not provide justice but instead only focused on revenge rather than improving a person's mental state.

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.

3. In “In Cold Blood”(1965), a nonfiction novel, Truman Capote accounts for the murder of the Clutter family, residing in Holcomb, Kansas, and the events that followed. The mode of development includes Gothic themes and motifs to make the audience question the roles of the protagonists and the antagonists, “Uh-huh. But you’ll have to kill me first”, said Perry to Dick when he proposed to rape Nancy Clutter; Capote also juxtaposes between different time periods to make the audience question what had really happened in the Clutter household. This work of “new-age journalism” continually asserts that Perry killed the Clutters, although scant evidence is produced. Capote’s target audience is the people who are part of the criminal justice system and psychologists. Capote is trying to prove that all people are inherently benevolent, but when they have had traumatic events occur in their past, they have injured psyches, thus attempting to explain the formerly inexplicable murders.

Truman Capote writes a genius book about a real murder that happened and he tore the case apart to find out every detail that happened in the crime. In Cold Blood is about two men who almost get away with a hostile murder of a family. How a lead detective on the case gets so pressured about finding these men. It is also about the anxiety that these murders put on the killers because one of them is afraid they are going to get caught. The town that turns on each other and locks their doors at night and prays no one comes in. Capote’s purpose in this book was sympathizing with the killer and all the other people in the book, also in the book he presents foreshadowing, and Pathos, he has many other Rhetorical Strategies but these are the important Strategies.

1: What is the central argument the writer makes in your book? For example: “[Author name] argues that . . . because . . .”

The best novels are the ones that connects with the reader and just toys with their emotions, as if they too were also in the story by using pathos, the most powerful appeal. This holds true with Truman Capote’s, In Cold Blood and his writing appealing to the reader’s emotions in the portrayal of Perry Edward Smith and Richard “Dick” Eugene Hickock, the two murders with an addition of Capote showing a great deal of favoritism to Perry over Dick. Throughout the novel, Capote uses tone and diction to allure the reader into the novel’s world and into every character’s life, just as if we knew their whole backstory.

Written by Truman Capote, In Cold Blood is a riveting narrative that documents a historical American crime. Written seven years following the murder of the Clutter Family, Capote was able to produce such a unique novel that reflects the countless hours that he had spent obtaining information. The extensive amount of interviews and reports add a great amount of depth to the storytelling. The abundance of vivid perspectives captivates the audience and leads them to delve into the inner workings of the character’s actions and thought processes. Resulting in the unveiling of psychological conflicts that raise the question of morality. Capote believes that it is

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

In the Truman Capote’s famous novel that is non-fictional, In Cold Blood, there is a lot of support of evidence that Cold Blood prove for injustice of the trial,death penalty. The outcome of this trial would of never to be different than death. It was the worst thing ever to have heard about the Clutter family was the last family to be killed.(Capote 85) It was known that it was two men who killed the Clutter family, their names were Perry Smith and Bill Hancock, they both planned the crime scene with full intent and thoughts. Although what was told was cruel and heartbreaking,did the crime scene really have to be so cruel where the childhood and environment and situation are bad. Truman Capote expresses the the effect that the childhood

In the final months of 1959, the Clutter family was brutally murdered in their Holcomb, Kansas, home. Reports of their murders made national news. One of these headlines captured the attention of Truman Capote who chose to pursue the story further; eventually, after years of research and thousands of pages of notes, he penned In Cold Blood. It was first published in 1966, and it found immediate success. Capote’s original storytelling methods combined with the sensationalism of the crime was instrumental in creating, at the very least, popularizing a new genre: creative nonfiction. Utilizing unique narrative structure and author-tainted character development, Capote weaves a tale that questions the authenticity, the intent, and the meaning of justice.

The captivating story of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a beautifully written piece describing the unveiling of a family murder. This investigative, fast-paced and straightforward documentary provides a commentary of such violence and examines the details of the motiveless murders of four members of the Clutter family and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers. As this twisted novel unravels, Capote defines the themes of childhood influences relevant to the adulthood of the murderers, opposite personalities, and nature versus nurture.

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood is a famous example of “creative nonfiction” because during the time he wrote In Cold Blood, this style of writing had not been formed yet. Capote labeled his work as a “nonfiction novel” which gained him attention and praise from many however, critics have dug deeper into his work. Since Capote claimed that every word of his novel based on the killing of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas was completely true, his work had been subject to much evaluation. In Sophia Leonard’s article “Journalism as Artistic Expression: The Critical Response to Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood,” Tulane Undergraduate Research Journal, Leonard explored the literary elements found by critics that showed how Capote’s novel changed American journalism.