Truman Capote Writing Style Analysis
Many contemporary authors attempt with varying amounts of success to emulate the captivating style of Truman Capote. Through a complex and fine balance between bleak melodrama and noir suspense, Capote’s voice is particularly well captured in his 1966 crime fiction, In Cold Blood. Within the first 5 paragraphs of the work, Truman Capote firmly establishes a notable distaste yet careful curiosity for Holcomb, Kansas - the novel’s primary setting - by utilizing an apathetically negative tone and long-winded syntax sprinkled with vivid imagery of the town’s worst features. Capote’s primary strategy for conveying his point of view on the town is his detached yet empirically negative tone. He displays a lack of attachment for the town, reporting …show more content…
A majority of the opening paragraphs consist of long sentences composed of many short clauses. Truman utilizes these long sentences with particular effectiveness when describing the town 's population: “The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, a ranch hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high heeled boots with pointed toes.” This diction is quite obvious when attention is called to it, but serves a subtle purpose in the context of the work: it slows the reader’s pace. The short clauses and abundant commas force the reader to adopt a slow rhythm while reading the sentences, paralleling Truman’s view on the daily uneventful lives of the townsfolk. In addition, it allows him to to call attention to the imagery of the denizens. Through this structure, he paints a picture of Holcomb as a tired and worn-out village, where life plays out at a predictable pace. The question remains, why does Truman put in so much effort to paint such a bleak image of his setting? By adopting such a disinterested distaste for the town, the author is able to subvert expectations as complications begin in the town. The plot of the novel revolves around the murder of a prolific family in the town, an event that shocks a populous that rarely experiences any significant event at
Sympathy For In Cold Blood
515 Words | 3 PagesIn Cold Blood, by Truman Capote, was a non-fictional novel published in 1965. Written in four parts, Capote meticulously details the brutal 1959 murders of the recognized farmer Herbert Clutter, Bonie Clutter, Nancy Clutter and Kenyon Clutter in the small, once peaceful, city of Holcomb, Kansas. Throughout the book, while Capote sympathetically depicts the murders of the Clutter family, we also realize that the author has a strong sympathy for one of the murders called Perry Edward Smith. Although the novel was intended to be written in a journalistic form, Capote seems to fictionalize much of the information used to write the novel in order to add suspense and certain reactions from the readers. Truman Capote’s new literary form of “the non-fictional novel” leaves the readers feeling conflicting emotions
Debra Marguert Debra Marguart Analysis
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A Rhetorical Analysis Of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood
1254 Words | 6 PagesIn Cold Blood Rhetorical Analysis Typically upon hearing about a murder, especially a brutal and unwarranted one, we find ourselves feeling a great sense of disgust for the murderer or murderers who committed these crimes; however, in Truman Capote’s novel In Cold Blood, the lives and experiences of the murderers, particularly Perry Smith, are displayed in a way the makes you feel pity for him as well as the victims. When comparing Capote’s Novel to a typical news article on a similar topic it is easy to see the that Capote's style varies from typical journalism. An article written by Frances Robles and Nikita Stewart titled “Dylan Roof’s Past Reveals Trouble at Home and School,” discusses the childhood and background of Dylann Roof, a twenty-one
How Did In Cold Blood Affect Journalism
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Rhetorical Analysis Of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood
539 Words | 3 PagesHow crazy would it be to interview criminals who murdered 4 people in cold blood? Well that’s exactly what Truman Capote did in this chilling book. In the novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote used different rhetorical strategies to create sympathy and influence the idea that there are always two sides to every story. Some of the mainly used rhetorical strategies throughout the novel were imagery, diction, tone, and pathos. Furthermore, Capote also illustrated sympathetical emotion towards both types of characters, the protagonists and antagonists.
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Manipulation Of Language In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood
1177 Words | 5 PagesFacts and Fiction: A Manipulation of Language in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood English is a fascinating and riveting language. Subtle nuances and adjustments can easily change the understanding of a literary work—a technique many authors employ in order to evoke a desired response from their readers. This method is used especially in In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, a literary work which details a true event about the murders of four members of the Clutter family in the small community of Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959. Although Capote’s 1966 book was a bestseller nonfiction and had successfully garnered acclaim for its author, there is still a great deal of confusion about the distinction between the factual and fictional aspects in the book.
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