The Clutter Family In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

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.

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.

In the book, Capote wrote about Holcomb, and its inhabitants, but the ends did not justify the means. In Holcomb, before the murders, people were naive and innocent about what could happen. No one locked their doors, and people would just let anyone in. After the murders, the people in Holcomb got locks, and people were more reclusive and suspicious of other townspeople. So when Truman Capote showed up and asked people to

In the non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote (1965) gives his own narrative of the Holcomb tragedy in which a family of four living out on a secluded farm were slaughtered with a shotgun by the collaboration of two individuals for a seemingly few dollars. In this novel, Capote gives a thorough character description of the two murderers, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, as he recreates their experience (much as he sees it as it would be from

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.

Truman Capote starts off his true crime book, In Cold Blood with “Not a soul in sleeping Holcomb heard-four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives”(Capote 5). This book examines the case of the Holcomb family that was brutally murdered. Two themes that become apparent throughout this case while reading In Cold Blood is good vs. evil and also how tragedy affects the innocent because of the guilty. These are both caused by the decisions that Perry Smith and Dick Hickock make that effect the good Clutter family.

The small population of Holcomb, Kansas was struck with tragedy when the Clutter family was brutally murdered in their home by two unknown suspects. Capote wrote the first ever non-fiction novel, “In Cold Blood.” Truman Capote tells a timeline of events as he learned them, from before, during, and after the killings of the Clutter family by using imagery, foreshadowing, and pathos to continue the plot and to make it more interesting to the reader.

In the book, “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote he describes to us all the events that took place before, during, and after a murder that happened in Holcomb, Kansas. Mr. Clutter, who was the owner of River Valley Farm and husband to Bonnie Clutter, and the father of four children, two whom had survived due to them not living at the Clutter residence anymore. The fatal event of the family hit the whole town hard which led one man, detective Alvin Dewey, determined to find and take whoever did such actions to trial to be sentenced.

In his 1965 novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote chronicles the murder of the wealthy Clutter family and the subsequent capture and trial of their killers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. The events of the book play out over a period of nearly six years, from the crime’s conception to the execution of the murderers, supplemented by Capote’s numerous interviews with living members of the Clutter family, their neighbors, their murderers, and the detectives on the case. It is widely regarded as the first non-fiction novel, and explores the motives and consequences in a horrendous murder case from many perspectives. In order to question commonly held moral absolutes, Capote adds dimension to the standard murder trial narrative and forces the audience to understand the nuances and intricacies of an unfathomable situation by humanizing both the victims and perpetrators of a hideous crime.

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood was created after the death of the Clutter family which took place in Holcomb, Kansas. Like every author, Capote incorporates his own style of writing in his book, such as adding details like imagery, using specific tones for instance happiness and liveliness, and even giving a point-of-view to a few of the characters. Capote’s style of writing allows the audience to find out the central claim of the passage which is to show how the murder of the Clutter’s affected those who knew them like the Dewey’s, who the intended audience is such as detectives, the purpose of the passage which gives a voice to other characters, and lastly what strategies were used to convey the message such as using a specific tone for instance loneliness and imagery. For example, the passage states

In In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, the author recreates the murders of the Clutter family. Capote starts this novel by describing the town of Holcomb which is very significant way to start, “The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there’”(1). While reading this quote I imagined a very small town where everybody knows everything and there is no secrets. Small towns like this means that if you’re new in town people will notice. In knowing everybody because of the small town, you come to trust everybody and you will not feel the need to lock the doors. But after the murders of the Clutter family happened people did not know who to trust, “But afterward the townspeople, theretofore sufficiently unfearful of each other to seldom trouble to lock their doors...those somber explosions that stimulated fires of mistrust in the glare of which many old neighbors viewed each other strangely, and as strangers”(5). After the murders happened, the people of Holcomb saw each other as the enemy and started to not trust each other because they would have never expected this to happen. The Clutter family went on with their day as if it were normal, just like everybody else, they did not think any of this was ever going to happen in a small town like Holcomb. The Clutter family was always being described as a nice family and I found it very odd that Dick and Perry would choose that family to kill, “‘You were lovely,

Based on this, Capote made a mistake in describing Holcomb from the eyes of a visitor. Because the book was based on the murders of a family in this town, the depiction should have been from the point of view of a Holcomb citizen. Many people see good things about their hometown, as it carries a special place in their heart, and Capote does not show this in the way that he almost arrogantly presents

In the quiet town of Holcomb was the death of the “perfect” family, how could this happen? In In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, the Clutters were a loving religious family well-liked by the people of Holcomb. Although they were a wealthy family, everybody knew Mr. Clutter never carried cash, he wrote checks for everything. Dick and Perry un-aware of this information plan to rob and kill the Clutters. The innocent family had no idea, no one ever thought that this would happen to them in a million years. The Clutters were always so idolized in the town, and no one would ever think to do anything to harm them. Capote uses Irony, allusion and imagery to demonstrate how life is not guaranteed and could un-expectantly come to an end.

Capote selects words such as “lonesome”, “melancholy”, “aimless” and “falling apart” to reflect the haphazardness of the town, as well as the dismal state of it (Capote). These words come together with the rest of the passage to present the distress of Holcomb, and how it was,

Truman Capote's, In Cold Blood is an account of the murder of the Clutter's family; who had not done anything wrong to their murderers, had never met their murderers and whose deaths came unexpectedly. Capote analyzes the reason of the killings and reenacts the crime. He starts from the beginning of everyday life of the Clutters and ends with the hanging of Perry and Dick. Capote's illustration of the uses of metaphors, imageries and flashbacks gives him the opportunity to get into the character's heads and learn why the Clutter family was murdered.