In Cold Blood Rhetorical Analysis

Throughout the novel, In Cold Blood, Truman Capote utilizes elements of the physical characteristics of Dick and Perry to contrast their physical appearances which in effect creates a contrast between their characters. Another way Capote characterizes Dick and Perry through the basis of their physical appearance, takes place by associating a physical trait with a psychological trait through the Dick and Perry’s tattoos, how Dick’s face is “halved like an apple” and Dick’s eyes. Capote provides a contrast between the physical qualities of Dick and Perry when their tattoos are described in vivid detail. The contrast transpires when Capote narrates “While he had fewer tattoos than his companion, they were more elaborate - not the self-inflicted

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.

The FBI estimates that 1.2 million violent crimes occur in 2016. However, a copious amount of these crimes go uninvestigated or unpromulgated. When two strangers brutally assassinate four members of a family in a small Kansas town, Holcomb, a daily newspaper publishes a minuscule article about it. An author, Truman Capote, finds the news story intriguing, so he travels to Kansas in an attempt to solve the case. In Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock pursue a robbery of the Clutter household but execute four murders instead. Throughout the novel, Perry’s past life and hardships are discussed more than those of Dick. The specific narratives Capote uses build pity for Perry, while Dick’s character is less explained and remains superficially detailed. Capote uses pathos to create a greater amount of emotional and sympathetic bias toward Perry than Dick in an attempt to make the reader feel pity for him because it is God’s will.

Although Dick and Perry may both be killers, Capote uses language to portray Perry as a victim of Dick;therefore, Perry is seen through the eyes of the reader as an innocent man who was simply taken advantage of and molded into a killer by Dick.

When we hear about a killing on the news, our natural instincts are to immediately antagonize the killers. More likely than not, we hate the killers, and hope they get a vengeful prison sentence. In Truman Capote’s true crime non-fiction book, In Cold Blood, we learn about the murders that took place in Holcomb. The story is about much more than the slaying of a respectful family, its focus is on the killers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. One of Capote’s main purposes in the book is to convey the multiple perspectives of a crime in order for the readers to view the killers as more than just the bad guys, and he achieves his purpose primarily through the use of pathos, anecdotes, and his chosen narrative.

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 purpose for Truman Capote's writing of his book, In Cold Blood was to take literary definitions to a whole new level. He used them in ways that people were able to relate to them personally. He did this by using several different types of literary devices. Nancy's diary for instance, is used to symbolize the impossible future that will never happen for her. The purpose of Nancy's diary is for her to collect all of the things that she had gone through each day, so that someday, when things were looking up for her, she would be able to go back and read all of the hard times that she had once gone through. This never happens, as we know, due to her death. But coincidentally, the last entry that Nancy ever makes, sadly, is about how she had yet another boring, uneventful day, but she also involuntarily wrote about how when you have no life, and no hope, that even the last night of your life, no future is boring. Capote's clever thought out analogy for Nancy's consisted of something that many adults are able to

motor company, "when I [Dick] had an automobile wreck with a company car. I was in the hospital several days with extensive head injuries" (Capote 278). The car accident caused his face to be slightly maligned, and, as concluded by Dr. Jones, caused residual brain damage and instability in his personality (Capote 286). Dick's father also confirmed that Dick had changed after the crash, expressing that "He just wasn't the same boy" (Capote 255). After experiencing the crash, many parts of Dick's life began to go downhill. His marital life twisted woefully, and when all was said and done, he had gone through 2 marriages. He did not have a steady job anymore, and he began to commit petty crimes, such as writing bad checks and stealing. The latter resulted in him being in jail, where he had met Perry, who was behind bars for burglary as well, among other charges. Dick and Perry had both agreed to kill the Clutters, however when the time came, Dick showed signs of doubt and lingered, while Perry had almost no hesitation. This seems to point back to each man's past, where Perry, who had a rougher childhood, did not seem to think twice about killing the family. His scarred adolescence points to a more cold-hearted, bitter, and lonely person, while Dick's more favorable youth showed signs of mercy and conscience.

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.

These emotions could go one of two ways- the first would be to feel pity for his parents, while seeing Dick in a slightly more pitiful light, rather than not even seeing him as human. Or it go go the second way, you feel pity for his parents, and begin to hate Dick even more for, not only what he did to the Clutter family, but also what he did to his parents. He not only ruined the Clutter family’s lives, he also ruined his life, his parents’ life, and even Perry’s life, even though he willingly participated in the murder. Capote’s use of pathos really humanizes the Clutter family murders, but also makes them more pitiful. They had a chance at a good life, Dick’s father even said that he used to be a good kid, but they threw it all away, robbing and killing an innocent family. Capote does a very good job of depicting Dick and Perry, creating a good balance between despicable and pitiful, while sharing their side of the story in a very accurate, yet interesting, way.

In the novel, “In Cold Blood”, there are many ways you can portray the motives of the murderers. Capote uses quite a few strategies to analyze his feelings about the murderers and the reason this had to happen. Strategies such as tone, imagery, sound devices, syntax, and selection of detail are all ones that Capote uses to prove his reasoning. The use of these strategies will allow us to dissect the reasoning.

At the beginning of the story, Dick explained that he thought Perry would be the perfect partner for the Clutter crime because he killed a black guy for no reason in Las Vegas. In this section of the book, Perry confesses to Capote that he lied about killing the man. The only reason Perry told this story was that he thought he had to lie in order for Dick to like him. “When he’d told Dick that story, it was because he’d wanted Dick to ‘respect’ him, think him ‘hard,’

“In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote is a nonfiction book based on a real crime happened in the peaceful town of Holcomb, Kansas. Capote wrote from both victim and criminal side to show both thoughts and point of view of the story to avoid the one-sided account. In the book, Truman Capote, a former journalist and the author of “In Cold Blood” is making readers feel sympathy for Perry since Capote befriended with Perry while interviewing him. Capote uses of pathos and strong diction effectively in order to evoke sympathy for Perry’s childhood environment and deleterious effect it had on Perry’s mind. To begin with, Capote uses emotional appeal in order to illustrate Perry’s devastating past.

Truman Capote, in his critically acclaimed novel, In Cold Blood, masterfully recounts the murders of the Clutter family while experimenting with a new style called non-fiction. Some critics have called Capote out, saying that his claims about his novel being 100% factual are false. Capote’s purpose was to write a nonfiction novel based on the facts and witness accounts to describe the murder of a family. Truman Capote strategically uses various literary devices to keep his readers engaged while staying informed about the murders of Clutter family in 1959.

The passage begins with the phrase, “Mountains. Hawks wheeling in a white sky”(pg. 108), This phrase starts the passage with a neutral tone before diving into the heavy, cold mess within Dick’s head. When digging into the passage, it begins with Perry telling Dick that there must be something wrong with them for murdering the Clutters, in response, Dick states, “Deal me out baby, I’m a normal” (pg. 108). With this, Capote exemplifies how Dick is oblivious to the fact that he is mentally ill for committing such a crime, and it also reveals that he feels very little emotions after such an event. It also supports that Dick sets aside his true feelings for the wrongs that he has committed over the years. As the reader gets deeper into the text, he discusses his true feelings for