Figurative Language In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

Although in In Cold Blood, Truman Capote is illustrating the points of view of Holcomb, Dick, and Perry after the murder of the Clutter family, his prime motive is to exonerate Perry from blame for what he did; therefore he asserts that outside forces such as other people, the future, and the universe shape a person and their actions.

When telling a story, other elements like plot, setting, characterization, symbol, similes and metaphor also play a significant role. In this excerpt, the writer showed the plot and setting of painful condition of a dying soldier, who was injured in the civil war. She uses various similes and lyrical metaphors. For example, “Every breath he draws is like a stab.” Here by using metaphor “like a stab’, she succeeded to showed the real picture of a dying soldier to her readers. Once again, she uses another simile saying, “gathering the bent head in my arms as freely as if he had been a little child”. This example conveys the picture of John as a young child rests in his mother’s lap. Regarding characterization, by implementing analogies, she displays the altruistic mindset of the brave soldier, who joined the army for her mother and for his country. For instance, when she asked him. “Do you regret coming here”, he was positive at all and replied “I didn't want the glory or the pay; I wanted the right thing done, and people kept saying the men who were in earnest ought to fight. I was in earnest, the Lord knows! but I held off as long as I could, not knowing which was my duty; mother saw the case, gave me her ring to keep me steady”. Even when he is on

For centuries, men and women have murdered each other for greed, lust, revenge, etc. However, in 1959, Truman Capote traveled to Holcomb, Kansas to discover the other side of murder. Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood, offers a close examination of the horrid murder of the Clutter family. He explored how two men of different backgrounds, ethnicities, and personalities joined together to kill an innocent family for riches. Capote provides different points of view through each of his character’s eyes for his readers’ better understanding of the murderers. The use of juxtaposition compares and contrasts Dick to Perry, the murders. Capote succeeds with using juxtaposition to reveal the murderer's how he perceived them.

Capote uses the flashbacks to venture into the characters’ past, which helps reader to understand better their background and where the characters are coming from. Along with the flashback, Capote also supported them with journal entries and letters of correspondence to help better understand and support the characters with personal facts. One important flashback is one of Capote’s longest chapters involving Perry. The reader learns more about the reasons for Perry becoming the criminal and evokes sympathy for the character. Perry first looks at a letter his father writes that highlights many events in his life. By reading the letter, Perry flashbacks into his past and the reader learns about how abused he was by nuns and that he grew up with an alcoholic mother and an abusive father. Perry has had a very traumatic life and brought up without the love and care he needs. Thus, by including this information, a reader can change their perspective and understand Perry’s criminal behavior stems from simply being a product of his bad environment. He also gets a letter from his only surviving sister as his other two siblings had died from suicide whom he loathes and she as well seems, too. This demonstrates how lonely Perry is even his father abandoned. Perry is a truly tragic character.

Set in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, In Cold Blood recounts the real-life murder of the Clutter family, following the last moments of the four victims, investigation, court and trial, and the execution of the two convicted, Perry Edward Smith and Richard Eugene Hickock.

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.

In addition, Capote depicts hypersensitive pathos to draw out the compassion of the readers because he wants them to understand the complex layers that make up Perry’s brain. Perry is not a simple murderer. He has

Truman Capote wrote In Cold Blood, a true story about a brutal murder. However, his creative spin on the factual story makes the reader an investigator while reading the novel. While Capote’s opinions and judgments are not overtly stated in the book, he does exaggerate at times. This way, the author forces the readers to discover the truth, and to piece together the story to self interpret . Even though In Cold Blood is filled with real life accounts of the events of a tragic murder, Capote also includes more traditional stereotypes in his descriptions, not only the female gender role, but the the long-established look on religion too.

Aren’t we all a bit crazy at times? In Truman Capote’s rhetorical masterpiece, In Cold Blood, is about a murder that actually occurred in a small town in Kansas. Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, also known as Dick and Perry, are the criminal minds behind the murder. Capote’s work is regarded to as a masterpiece because he uses many rhetorical devices to convey his message. He uses rhetorical devices such as diction, imagery and pathos. Capote’s purpose for writing the book is to show the insights of what goes on in these two’s criminal minds and to humanize Perry.

In the first chapter of “In Cold Blood”, Truman Capote switches between stories of the Clutter family, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. This transition allows Capote to focus on multiple accounts at once, and to connect the lives of the Clutter family to their killers. Dick and Perry are two essential characters in the first chapter as the beginning is told from Perry’s view. Dick Hickock is an uneducated somewhat charming man who didn't regret killing the Clutters. His “friendship” with Perry is mostly based on the lie that Perry killed someone with a bicycle chain. Perry could be described as relaxed and mild in temperament. Although he isn't well educated, he wants to gain knowledge. Dick

The use of imagery allows the reader to picture the long-lasting emotions gripping the narrator. Being a concrete representation of an object or sensory experience (myLearning), imagery permits the reader to visualize what the narrator is experiencing. One example of imagery is used in line 5 “I'm stone. I'm flesh.” The narrator is using metaphoric and literal imagery describing his body. The reader can visualize the attempt to harden the body against the onslaught of emotion, and the reflection of the vulnerable flesh body in the granite wall. Another example of imagery can be found in lines 22 through 24 “Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's / wings cutting across my stare. / The sky. A plane in the sky." Here the realistic memories of war involuntarily flash through the narrator’s mind.

Truman Capote pulls us into a small, lonesome town named Holcomb in his novel In Cold Blood. Throughout this excerpt, Capote brings a sense of imagery and figurative language to audience and expresses it wholeheartedly. He continues to describe the prairies extending endlessly for miles into nothingness, and the local town’s buildings in their degrading state. His tone for the majority of this excerpt shows melancholy and sorrowful until he starts to describe the school. The school seems to brighten up the mood of the entire story while still applying to the saddened tone.

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.

One of the most interesting passages in In Cold Blood is when Perry describes to us a dream he had when he was younger. It starts off with Perry talking to Dick about his recurring dream he has, “Since I was a kid, I’ve had this same dream.” (Capote 92). Perry goes on to explain the dream, which involves him on Africa with a tree and a snake trying to swallow him “feet first” (Capote 92). However, Dick seems uninterested as he says, “So? The snake swallows you? Or what?” (Capote 92). This agitates Perry as he goes on to say, “Never mind. Its not important” (Capote 92). On the other hand, Dick’s response affects Perry as after he tells him it wasn’t important he says, “But it was! The finale was of great importance” This is just one example of why this scene is important because it shows us that Perry doesn’t feel he can really trust Dick with this side of him like he could trust his friend Wille- Jay.

A “ramshackled” and “melancholy” town, Holcomb, Kansas is mysteriously portrayed by Truman Capote throughout this excerpt of In Cold Blood. Using vivid imagery,contrasting tone and elaborate syntax, Capote more than adequately portrays his detached view of Holcomb as well as setting the story up for a major shift. While writing In Cold Blood, Capote uses many forms of vivid imagery to describe Holcomb in different stages: the scenery, the people, and the buildings. The scenery is illustrated first, locating it “out there” at “seventy miles east of the Colorado border” with “its hard, blue skys and desert-clean air.” The useage of minuscule, concise detail, as well as stating it as a “haphazard hamlet” allows Capote to portray the town as