In Cold Blood

First, Capote involves his reader. "This immediacy, this spellbinding 'you-are-there' effect, comes less from the sensational facts (which are underplayed) than from the 'fictive' techniques Capote employs" (Hollowell 82). Capote takes historical facts and brings in scenes, dialogue, and point of view to help draw the reader in (Hollowell 82).

Capote goes to great efforts to show the admiration which the community held for the Clutter family, one of the elements which made the murders so shocking. Everybody socialized with the Clutter family. For example, Mr. Clutter's friend Mrs. Ashida felt comfortable telling Mr. Clutter her conflict with her husband regarding the Ashida family's possible move, confiding that people like his family are the reason she wishes to stay in Holcomb.

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

In Truman Capote’s captivating nonfiction, In Cold Blood, Capote ventures through the journey and lives of both the killed and the killers all while analyzing the point in which they crossed paths. From the days before the four Clutters were murdered to the last moments of the two killers’ lives, Capote takes into account each and every aspect that creates the ‘famous’ Clutter Case with an in depth look of just how and why these strange and unforeseeable events occurred. What was originally supposed to only be an article in a newspaper turned into an entire book with Capote analyzing both how and why a murder comes to be through the use of pathos, juxtaposition, and foreshadowing.

Conflict, in the beginning of the book Capote starts sympathizing with the Clutter’s family last day alive. Capote used a strong sentence to give us a point of where we are in the book. In the book it says, “Then, touching the brim of his cap, he headed for home and the day’s work, unaware that it would be his last.”(15) He tells us who the family was murdered. In the beginning of the book it is easy to confuse that Mr. Clutter was the murderer. Then, In Cold Blood the author, Capote, uses many foreshadowing in his book. One in specific is a extremely strong foreshadowing. In the text, “Four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives.”(5) American Novelist, Capote, exploits foreshadowing in his book. He takes

Capote starts his novel describing the small town of Holcomb, setting the stage for how the murders will change the town. Capote wants to make the readers understand that the small town

The life of crime is not for everyone but some people are just thrown into it and cannot really control it. On just a regular day back in 1959, the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas were murdered in cold blood by 2 men: Dick Hickcok and Perry Smith. Truman Capote heard about this and decided to learn more about it and once hearing about it more he decided to combine this real life event and a little bit of his own creativity to create this masterpiece. The established author Truman Capote wrote the fictionalized crime novel “In Cold Blood” and by using pathos, imagery, and ethos, he is able to convey his purpose of letting the people know that he can basically change the game of “non fiction” writing and create the first real life fictional crime novel.

He described in great detail the murders and emotion of each family member, the background of the murderers, and the heartbroken town of Holcomb, Kansas. He gathered the information from his experience while investigating the crime with the police. He had questioned members of the community and the murderers. Capote was a credible source that captured and revealed the truth and emotion of the Clutter case in his non-fiction book. He wrote and structured the book with great detail and syntax to appeal to the reader. He contained his own opinions on the death penalty and connection between Hickock and Smith. Capote truly wrote an amazing novel based on a true murder case. His life was forever changed after launching this best-selling book full of secrets and

Many people say the documentation of the murder of the Clutter family is Truman Capote’s best work. It started out as an article for The New Yorker, and evolved into the non-fiction novel; the first of its kind. Capote traveled to Kansas with friend Harper Lee to research the killings. In the course of six years bringing this narrative together, Capote began taking drugs and drinking heavily due to the dark nature of the book. Truman Capote tells the true story of a family murdered in In Cold Blood, through character analysis and symbolism to prove nature is a stronger force than nature in shaping a person’s character.

The second most important rhetorical strategy Capote used is logos. Many people probably think that logos is the most important rhetorical strategy- but I disagree. You need logos to accurately tell all sides of the story, yes, but you need pathos to make it truly worth reading, in my opinion. Pathos is what makes it interesting, it draws out your emotions, leaves you hanging on every word, making you never want to put down the book. Logos is extremely important,

Throughout part I of his alluring novel, Capote continually foreshadowed the events that are to come. Combined with the reader’s knowledge of what has happened, a unrest, suspenseful feeling consumes the reader. Capote hints at the timeline of the murders by alluding to the fact that you are reading the events of the Clutters’ last day. “Then, touching the brim of his cap, he headed for home and the day’s work, unaware that it would be his last.” (13) This foreshadowing is also the same for Dick and Perry. Every time Capote switched narratives from the murdered to the murderers, he gives the criminals location, showing advancement in their journey to commit their sin, further igniting the suspense within the reader as their imminent arrival and

part of the movie moved a little slowly, but I think this was necessary to show

Capote begins his novel with a conventional narrative structure choice: describing the setting. He spends several pages familiarizing the reader with the town of Holcomb, Kansas. This move is crucial, especially when contrasted with his unconventional choices for the traditional narrative timeline as the book progresses. As Capote introduces the reader to the Clutter family, with a particular focus on Herb, he sets the groundwork for the conflict. With necessary background information in mind, the reader first confronts the conflict with the words, “...he headed for home and the day’s work, unaware that it would be his last” (13). It is this moment, that the reader experiences the first sense of satisfaction. This is the

In conducting his research for the novel, Capote managed to make friends and sources of the relatives and neighbors of the Clutters and the killers, the lawyers, the police, and Dick Hickock and Perry Smith (33). He did not use a tape recorder or a notebook when speaking with his sources, but relied on his memory to keep the facts straight.

Through his numerous short stories, fiction novels, and even nonfiction novels, Truman Capote has notably been considered one of America’s most prominent literary writers of the twentieth century. The numerous conflicts in which Capote dealt with in the earlier parts of his life led him to procure solace in writing (McMillan). Emerging as a prolific author who was commonly known for his excellent usage of prose, Capote came to publish the notorious nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood, in 1966. During Capote’s era, Southern Gothicism, a literary genre associated with dark and grotesque themes, increasingly prevailed (Bjerre). Capote’s novel became an atypical work in the genre, though, as he transformed a work of literary nonfiction into what seemed as though a “factional” piece-- a true novel in which incorporated fictional elements of Southern Gothicism (“Slouching Toward Popularity). Within the novel, Capote intricately details the Clutter family murder executed by Richard Hickock and Perry Smith. By doing so, he was able to successfully incorporate elements of Southern gothicism within the novel. Through the analysis of the damaged characters within the novel, the criminality involved in the Clutter murder, and the violence of the murder itself, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood not only fit the Southern Gothic genre, but ultimately came to revolutionize the nonfiction novel, thus proving its deserved standing in the literary canon.