The Humanization Of Duality In Truman Capote's Duality

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.

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.

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 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.

Truman Capote used many rhetorical elements like foreshadowing,flashbacks and inner or internal discourse to effectively keep the readers engaged and reveal the disposition of each character. One way Capote used internal discourse to give readers a perspective and understanding of Dick and Perry, was when the funeral for the Clutters took place. While on the run Perry was reading the Kansas Star Paper and giving his thoughts about the funeral. Perry said, “a thousand people, he wondered how much the funeral had cost” (96). Even Though that was just one small part of what was going through Perry’s mind ,Capote used that piece to make the readers feel like Perry himself told them what was going through his mind at the time. By adding that small insight on Perry’s mindset after the crime, it get’s the readers to think like why is he thinking about the amount of people at the funeral service than what hen did to the Clutters. Therefore that keeps the readers engaged and sets up Capote’s other rhetorical element foreshadowing.

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood is a masterfully crafted book, often acclaimed for it’s unique style. Accordingly, readers mustn’t look very far before they find a plethora of rhetoric. Capote is often credited with having created the original crime novel, and he didn’t get this distinction by writing like everyone else. He used his interesting writing style to make his readers feel as though they were actually in the book, but not just as an onlooker. He allowed them to get inside the character’s heads and really know them, glimpsing flash backs into the character’s pasts, while also foreshadowing events to come. He wrote with a very intricate style, but also one that ended up being incredibly effective.

Throughout Truman Capote’s narrative novel, In Cold Blood, Capote uses many different rhetorical strategies to illustrate an attitude that he has towards the character in his book. Specifically, amid the passage from pages 132 and 133, Capote writes about Perry’s life prior to committing the mass murder of the Clutter family. Capote, through his sympathetic tone, shows the readers that although Perry participated in a terrible act, the struggles during his early life should lessen the responsibility of Perry himself. Throughout this passage, Capote uses many different techniques and styles of rhetoric to show his elegiac and sympathetic attitude towards Perry Smith.

Capote explains Perry’s naivety, despite the hideous crime in order to extract pity for Perry from the

Although Dick and Perry killed the Clutters, Capote's true intent is to demonstrate the effects the murder had on the town as well as Dick and Perry; therefore people's actions can affect another's destiny. Dicks actions of manipulation combined with Perry's mental illness creates a lack of self-awareness. Capote uses utilizes anecdote when describing the night of the slaughtering to imply that Perry wasn’t aware of his wrongdoings while under the control of Dicks manipulation and mental eclipse. Capote states, "When Smith attacked Mr. Clutter he was under a mental eclipse, deep inside a schizophrenic darkness"(338). Perry's mental illness demonstrates that he had no control, similar to Perry having no control over Dicks manipulation.

Dick, on the other hand, is seen as ruthless and seems to not have a care in the world about what took place. Capote is able to show the close relationship between Dick and Perry, but also their problems with the each other. The way he uses the separate thoughts of the vulnerable Perry and

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.

Truman Capote’s rhetorical choices in his novel In Cold Blood captivates the reader’s attention, allowing them to connect with the plot. He uses rhetorical strategies to sympathize the murders of the Clutter family and create vivid images of how the murders were conducted. His authorial style of using disturbing images within the book allows the reader to feel as if they are an eyewitness to every investigation, scene, and event that occurred before and after the night at the Clutter house. Capote arranges the details and events in the book in a weird sequence that also allows the reader to be involved in every scene while also confusing them in a way. Capote's tone is evidently empathetic and fatalistic tone as he feels for the murderers’ mental state

Since Capote establishes this sympathy for Perry, as well as an understanding of his

By allowing the reader a glimpse into each character’s past, the reader was able to establish a stronger bond to each character. However, Capote also used this strategy to disclose more and more information about the murders, an event that the reader knows happened, but not how or why. On page 108, Capote used a flashback when Dick is thinking about whether or not Perry is “a normal.” Dick thinks back to “Last Spring, when [they] had lived together at Kansas State Penitentiary” and how “Perry could be ‘such a kid,’ always wetting his bed and crying in his sleep.” This flashback allows the reader to see Perry’s tortured soul, and hints at some mental instability.

Even though the character of Perry Smith is depicted as a passive and intelligent individual he was still one of the two murderers in the Clutter family murders. Characterization of the murderers stays possible through Truman Capote’s selective language while Miller shows it through his actors. Capote could have easily just characterized Perry Smith as a dead-beat murderer who did not have much to live for, but he does the complete opposite. Truman Capote decides to pick out a positive trait of Perry Smith, his intelligence, and use it towards his audience to give them a deeper bonding to this character and provoke