Essay on Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

While reading Truman Capote's novel,"In Cold Blood ", I spent more than one night lying awake in my bed, frightened by Capote's presentation of the facts surrounding the murder of an obscure Kansas farmer and three of his family members. Several times, I caught myself wondering why this book

because the novel provides accurate description of what took place during and after the trials, and how the townsfolk of Holcomb, Kansas reacted to the murder of the beloved Clutters. It is assumed that the townsfolk’s reaction to the murders was pretty accurate, giving the fact that Capote traveled to Holcomb shortly after the murders were reported in the New York Times.

What stands out from the beginning is that although he, Mr. Clutter owned his property and had recently taken out a large insurance policy he really was not as wealthy as depicted in the story. The two committed the murder of the Clutter Family for no particular reason. After several years on the run Hickock and Smith are captured, found guilty and sent to prison. “After a total of five years Dick and Perry are hanged on April 15, 1965. Capote, “was accused of getting the story wrong by Esquire magazine writer Philip K. Tompkins in a June 1966 piece titled “In Cold Fact.” Capote, exaggerate many of the facts, in an attempt to reach a larger audience. Gerald Clarke, author of “his sympathetic 1988 book, Capote: A Biography” states “Since events had not provided him with a happy scene, he was forced to make one up.” Truman Capote, felt the need to interject a happier version to the story, that is one of the reasons many myths were added to the

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

Truman Capote includes finite details such as Perry’s middle name, and goes down to even the name of the county that Perry was born and grew up in to appeal to his audience’s logic. By giving more detail to Perry’s past life, the audience is able to better grasp the image of Perry, which humanizes the murderer, and is more likely to create an emotion of sympathy towards the criminal and alter the audience’s view on capital punishment. This information is irrelevant to the plot, however, is very strong in supporting Capote’s argument.

Truman Capote’s narrative choice in “In Cold Blood” is one factor which contributed to the novel’s success. Capote avoids inserting himself into the story by using a third person omniscient narrator and attempts to tell the story without personal biases or beliefs. In an attempt to achieve a balance, Capote tells the story from the viewpoints of a number of different people. He was particularly cognizant of not wanting to appear to show bias in favor of the killers. However, it is evident that Capote is able to manipulate the reader through his choice of what information to include and its placement. He clearly creates sympathy for Perry by including scenes of Perry exhibiting remorse as well as extensive personal background information. It

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.

3. In “In Cold Blood”(1965), a nonfiction novel, Truman Capote accounts for the murder of the Clutter family, residing in Holcomb, Kansas, and the events that followed. The mode of development includes Gothic themes and motifs to make the audience question the roles of the protagonists and the antagonists, “Uh-huh. But you’ll have to kill me first”, said Perry to Dick when he proposed to rape Nancy Clutter; Capote also juxtaposes between different time periods to make the audience question what had really happened in the Clutter household. This work of “new-age journalism” continually asserts that Perry killed the Clutters, although scant evidence is produced. Capote’s target audience is the people who are part of the criminal justice system and psychologists. Capote is trying to prove that all people are inherently benevolent, but when they have had traumatic events occur in their past, they have injured psyches, thus attempting to explain the formerly inexplicable murders.

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.

Capote wrote about real people and those real people have to live with the backlash that Capote’s work brewed up through its years of fame. The Clutters, their friends, the agents, and even the murderers were all real people with real feelings, not a character in a book. In a true fiction, a writer can twist and mold their characters into whoever they like. They can make things up about them without consequences because they aren’t real. However, Capote didn’t write a fiction novel; he wrote a “nonfiction” novel. Characters that he wrongly portrayed left a lasting scar on the memory of the real person. The two surviving daughters of Herd and Bonnie Clutter were furious with the portrayal of their mother as an invalid and Rev. James Post told

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

The captivating story of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a beautifully written piece describing the unveiling of a family murder. This investigative, fast-paced and straightforward documentary provides a commentary of such violence and examines the details of the motiveless murders of four members of the Clutter family and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers. As this twisted novel unravels, Capote defines the themes of childhood influences relevant to the adulthood of the murderers, opposite personalities, and nature versus nurture.

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.

It is impossible to follow every guideline for a police procedural novel when writing on a true event. Features considered important to the police procedural sub-genre may not be present within the real life crime, and adding details for the procedural sub-genre VIOLATES/TARNISHES the credibility of the true crime aspects of the novel. Despite the difficulties of blending a true crime and a crime fiction sub-genre, with some compromise on the guidelines of both genres, Capote completed In Cold Blood, a well-balanced novel that describes a true crime event from a police procedural standpoint.