Garden City Chapter Summaries

Although, Capote writes about a monumental murder he focuses in on how graceful Holcomb is before the murder; therefore, Capote verbalizes even if a town is safe it can be threatening anywhere.

In the opening of In Cold Blood, Trueman Capote presents a picture of the town of Holcomb. Capote uses a sense of condescending tone, sterling imagery and superb selection of detail when describing Holcomb. He creates a picture of an old style town that is all run down and has one or two positive things. Capote uses condescending tone; sterling imagery and superb selection of detail, he uses these rhetorical devices to express his view of a Holcomb in a negative viewpoint.

The passage begins with Capote describing what the town looks like and how many people could interpret it. It makes the reader believe that the town could be considered a ghost town, but it takes a turn that you wouldn’t expect. The author writes about the school and how much they care about their education system. As I said above, you can feel an immediate change in the tone when Capote says “Until one morning in mid-November of 1959, a few Americans - in fact, few Kansans- had ever heard of Holcomb.” Capote is foreshadowing to what’s about to happen later on in the book that isn't present in the passage. The way the

Once again, Perry’s unexpected compassion juxtaposes the harsh and cruel life that he lives. This is again demonstrated when Perry intervenes when Dick begins to make advances on Nancy. Even in the wake of the horror that unfolded in the Clutter household, it was important to Perry to leave the family with their

The town had trouble understanding who would perform such a crime, and why they would do that to a family that represented everything that people respect. Everyone that surrounded the Clutters becomes a suspect including the unlikely Bobby Rupp. A thorough murder investigation takes place where the Police believed that robbery was the motive. As the townspeople continue their “Christian Duty” of cleaning up after the crime, Capote transitions to Perry’s journey the Mexico. Perry struggles with his role in the murder saying that “There’s got to be something wrong with somebody who’d do a thing like that” (p.131). He mentions that he still thinks of the killings, and is trying to distance himself from the crime. Dick’s thoughts, on the the other hand, don't change; he thinks of himself as a totally normal person. This chapter shows that Dick, Perry, and the town of Holcomb are all affected by the loss is the Holcomb family in different ways. Immediate effects of the murder were shown and the psychological trauma is experienced by several characters.

In this analogy, it is comparing the loss of the Clutters and how Holcomb was basically stripped of their dignity. The only way that it can be restored is through justice; justice upon those that brought harm and disturbed the community of Holcomb. Through the deaths of the entire family, emotions of the community soon became clear: that they wanted to avenge the Clutter’s deaths. After the murders, “according to the proprietor of one Garden City hardware store, ‘locks and bolts are the fastest-going item. Folks ain't particular what brand they buy; they just want them to hold.’...In almost every house, and in brightly lit rooms, fully clothed people, even entire families, who had sat the whole night wide awake, watchful, listening. Of what were they frightened? ‘It might happen again’” (Capote 88). The effects of the murder had a tremendous rippling psychological affect on townspeople, that they were scared for their lives. After seeing the gruesome deaths of the Clutters, they feared that they might share the same fate as the Clutters. This cause of hysteria only fueled for the need to bring the perpetrators to justice. After the murders of the family, many in the Holcomb community prior to the murder never needed to lock their door, now began to look an their neighbor with distrust and suspicion (Capote 5). Now not only was the community scared, they became weary. In a

Capote uses transition sentences and structure sets Mr. Clutter, the epitome of goodness and the people of Holcomb side by side with Perry to push aside his monstrous ways and portray him as just a person. While introducing the murderers, Dick and Perry, he compares Perry to Herb Clutter, ¨Like Mr. Clutter, the young man breakfasting in a café called the Little Jewel never drank coffee¨ (Capote 14). This sentence directly following a passage concerned with Herb Clutter's daily routine. By comparing Perry to Holcomb´s most honorable man, this speaks very highly of Perry. Explaining Mr. Clutter's whole day illuminates that they are both just ordinary people, and are actually quite similar. Capote demonstrates how, although Perry murdered Herb Clutter and his family, he can also be put side by side with them. Truman Capote also compares Perry to the frantic and hectic people of Holcomb. After the murders, the interviews and explanations are short and frenetic. There is no mention of the murderers, just a long description of the repercussions because of the loss of an influential family. Finally, on page 73 it finally gives light to Dick and Perry and their whereabouts. Just as the sections after the murder, Perry's section of text is quick, while the remainder of the paragraph talks about Dicks relaxing life at home. From strenuous and hectic and melancholy writing to leisurely, serene, collected sentences. Perry is just as frantic as the distraught people in the town of Holcomb. Proving Perry can feel emotions such as depression, sympathy, and regret. The people of the small, safe town are compared to the man who disrupted it. By comparing these exceptional people to Perry, it proves Perry could have some redeeming qualities.

The murders changed everything. They consumed the town, obliterated everything known, burning the familiarity and safety that existed in the tight knit community. When cleaning up the Clutter house, everything that was familiar in their house was burned, eliminated: “They acquired additional fuel for the impending fire--blood-soiled bedclothes, matresses, a bedside rug, a Teddy-bear doll” (Capote 78). The fire is a metaphor for the town. The town is being destroyed,

Capote Although Capote portrays stolen innocence in the death of the Clutter family, he also uses effective language tools for the purpose of additionally depicting Perry’s stolen innocence, therefore Capote encourages humans to grasp sorrow for the unknown, the people with a questionable background, that may feel more pain if they do not commit the painful. After the town of Maycomb had time to grieve, the cleaning processes resumed, beginning with the destruction of the Clutters’ bloodiest belongings through fire. However, their belongings were not the only thing destructed in the blazing fire.

Capote’s use of description to illustrate Alvin Dewey’s final part with the Clutter family as well as Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, again add well-needed and greatly included closure to the Clutter case that gripped the community of Holcomb, Kansas.

This quote builds a mysterious, suspenseful tone that circulates throughout the entire book. It shows how the atmosphere of the town is about to change and that death is amongst them. This rhetorical device creates dramatic irony. Capote uses dramatic irony as he constantly shifts the scenes from the investigation to the lives’ of the killers within the book. The reader knows what will happen to the Clutter family while the characters are clueless. Mr. Johnson tells Mr. Clutter, "And from the looks of you, from what the medical reports tell us, we're likely to have you around a couple of weeks more," (47). Johnson tells Clutter this not long before he is killed. This quote used by Capote gives the reader chills as they know Mr. Clutter won’t be alive that long. Capote uses this statement to show how other characters in the book weren’t aware of what was bound to happen. Truman Capote uses flashbacks to characterize the killers and show their pasts. This rhetorical choice allows the reader to connect with the killers, understanding their motives and how their lives were leading up to the killing. Capote characterizes Dick when he states “Inez was a

Simultaneously, in Garden City, the county near the Clutter home in Holcomb, Mr. Clutter generously gives Mrs. Hideo Ashida, the wife of a Japanese farmer, and her four children a ride home. Mrs. Ashida says to Herb in a fit of ironic foreshadowing “I can't imagine you afraid. No matter what happened, you'd talk yourself out of it" (16). Perry and Dick park the car outside of a Catholic hospital. While Dick talked to the nuns, the reader learns Perry's real reason for agreeing to rob the Clutters. Perry wanted to meet up with his friend Willy Jay, a prison chaplain's clerk. However, when Perry reached Kansas City, Willie-Jay had already been released from prison and was gone, so Perry decides to continue on with Dick's “score”. Herb Clutter, ironically on the last day of his life, bought a life insurance policy for forty thousand dollars, with double indemnity. Back in Holcomb, Nancy Clutter's the last of the family to go to bed writes in her diary, says her prayers, and goes off to sleep. The next morning, November 15, Nancy Ewalt, a classmate of Nancy Clutter, is being dropped off at the Clutter house by her father, Clarence, to go to church with the

The Clutters are considered an ideal and innocent American family and are popular throughout the town of Holcomb. Herbert Clutter has a good upbringing and is dedicated to succeeding, he “graduated from Kansas State University, where he had majored in agriculture” and later becomes a well revered agriculturalist (Capote 6). He instills this same drive to succeed in his children as well. Beverly Clutter moves to Kansas City and is studying to become a nurse, and Eveanna moves to Illinois to start a family. Two other children of Herb, Nancy and Kenyon, are also aspiring to become caring and motivated just like their father. His wife, Bonnie Clutter, is the only exception to this energetic and seemingly perfect family because of her mental disability. However, despite her condition she does everything she can to help her children. This perfect life that the Clutters lived is what partly motivates Smith and Hickock to murder them. Furthermore, not only did the Clutters care for each other, but

In this chapter, Capote includes anecdotes and quotes that suggest the murders were plagued by inconsistencies and contradictions. As a result, the outcome of the crime was doomed, as were the lives of its perpetrators. First, the crime itself was conceptualized in prison, becoming a collaboration between individuals, who, by virtue of their previous actions, were untrustworthy. Based on recollections of a fellow inmate, Floyd Wells, Dick learned about the Clutter family and its affluence. Floyd described a safe in the house that contained cash. Robbing the Clutters, taking their cash and destroying witnesses became the essence of Dick and (later) Perry’s plan.

Truman Capote’s recordation of the historic murders of the Clutter family, challenges the boundaries of nonfiction, thus creating a nonfiction novel and being credited with having created the original crime novel. In In Cold Blood Capote uses imagery, and flashbacks to get a look in the mind’s of Richard Hickock and Perry Smith. 107-113 Capote was truly an artist with his words.