The Lackluster Town of Holcomb

In the non-fiction novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, four horrific murders shock the small, innocent town of Holcomb, Kansas, the murders all occur on one night killing an entire family. Before the killings, the town felt like a family. The citizens of Holcomb were seen as good people, innocent and free of worry. However, after the Clutter murders take place, a community that seems so tightly knit quickly dissipates. The murder

Truman Capote characterizes Holcomb as a innocent and peaceful farm town with a small population of people and a few rundown buildings. As he describes the town of Holcomb he paints a picture that not a lot happens in the town and that the surrounding towns do not pay attention to Holcomb or even know that the small town exists. Capote describes the town as being melancholy, lonesome and unknown he describes the town like this so that when a crime happens in this town it has a greater impact on the people. In order to convey these ideas Capote uses a great deal of imagery and has a good use of diction that is easy to understand so that his ideas come across clear and he is able to paint the picture he wants to paint.

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

On page four when Holcomb is introduced Capote uses imagery to give us a image in our mind of what Holcomb looks like. Throughout part one he gives us an image that sticks on his view of Holcomb. Holcomb, Kansas stands on the high wheat plains of Western, Kansas. The town of Holcomb is made up of old buildings and the land there is flat. The school of Holcomb is the only good establishment in the town. It states that on Page four “ Holcomb, like the rest of Kansas, is dry”. When he talks about Holcomb being dry he means that Holcomb is one of those towns that are in the dark until something serious happens, like the murder of the four Clutters. The murder of the four Clutters is what got everyone’s attention about Holcomb because like the book stated, “Holcomb was dry”.

Capote uses literary devices such as anaphora to describe the town Holcomb to give readers a comprehension on how Holcomb acted before the chaos began. In the beginning of the book Capote reports Holcomb town as, “Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, has never stopped there” (Capote 5). Life in Holcomb was as if the town had its own little world and nothing from the outside mattered. Holcomb was just a small, quiet town in the middle of nowhere. Capote wants people to know how separated Holcomb town was and how one big murder could matter so much.

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.

In the intriguing novel, In cold Blood , written by Truman Capote one can see the different ways he uses rhetorical strategies. In the beginning of the novel Capote uses very detailed imagery to describe the village of Holcomb Kansas. He starts off by describing the area as "... Hard blue skies and desert clear air… The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain…" (3) Capote wanted his readers to imagine what the area would look like if they were there in the time period of mid-1950s.

In Truman Capote’s book In Cold Blood, Capote takes readers to the town of Holcomb, Kansas. As someone who has always lived in large cities, such as New Orleans, Louisiana or New York City, Truman Capote was a complete outsider to this town. His interest in traveling to this town came as a surprise to his publishers, it was so tremendously unusually for his character. Capote’s depiction of Holcomb, Kansas from an outsider's point of view, was that of a small country town in the middle of nowhere, which Capote has characterized using rhetorical devices such as imagery, diction, and Syntax.

Although Capote constructs Holcomb as an idyllic, blissful place, there is a shift from the safe, untroubled town to a paranoid untrusting society; therefore, conveying the idea that events such as murders can disrupt even the most serene of places.

Throughout In Cold Blood, Truman Capote writes on the events directly before, during, and the happenings after the brutal murdering of the Clutter family in the quaint town of Holcomb, Kansas. The actions Dick Hickock and Perry Smith attracted Capote and led him to ultimately report on the entire ordeal. Throughout Capote’s masterpiece, In Cold Blood, Hickock and Smith’s deranged and psychotic actions directly correlate to a deep psychosis they both suffered for multiple years.

One of the most noticeable rhetorical devices used throughout “In Cold Blood” was Capote’s use of imagery. An example of Imagery being used in this novel was Capote’s description of the weather at the time in Holcomb. Capote called “apple-eating weather” because the “... whitest sunset descended from the purest sky, and an easterly wind rustled, without ripping loose, the last of the leaves on that the Chinese elms.” (10) This in depth description of the weather was added to give the reader a good idea of what time of the year it was to give the reader a better and more detailed mental picture of Holcomb at the time of the murders. Also noticed in Capote’s novel was very descriptive would be Capote’s description of the Clutter crime scene. Capote describes the scene in Nancy Clutter’s room where she was found, stating, “ She was lying on her side, facing the wall, and the wall was covered with blood. The bedcovers were drawn up to her shoulders.” (62) Another description of the crime scene was how Kenyon was found, Capote stated, “

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,

Capote’s word choice, instead of painting a quaint little town, illustrates a “falling apart” and “ramshackle” town that one likely wouldn’t want to live. This could very well be because of how used to city life Capote is. Capote sees Holcomb as “dry.” “Not that there

The excerpt from the opening of In Cold Blood written by Truman Capote, he talked about the desert-like town of Holcomb, Kansas. Truman capitalizes on many rhetorical effects such as imagery and alliteration. He uses imagery to show the type of town that Holcomb is; small, boring, and “out there.”

Truman Capote describes a town that I can easily picture, because he uses a lot detail and imagery in his opening of In Cold Blood that allows me to envision a small town very similar to the town I live in. Although our town isn’t that well known it still receives some attention and our school system wouldn’t be described as Capote describes Holcomb’s school. His structure and tone builds the town as boring, empty, and alone. Until the end when he describes their school. A complete juxtaposition to the rest of the town.