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An Analysis Of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

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"I promise you, honey, we'll blast hair all over them walls." (22). This statement made by Dick Hickock, once the meaning is grasped, makes any reader repulsed and sick to the stomach. Even more repulsive however, is when Dick and his accomplice Perry Smith go to the house of an innocent four-person family, and fulfill Dick's promise. The murderous duo that the novel In Cold Blood is centered around are guilty of horrible thoughts and deeds, and the author Truman Capote establishes early on that the two men are evil. Yet by the end of the novel, these men seem more as complicated human characters then ruthless killers, and readers almost find themselves dreading the killers' inevitable and well-deserved execution. Capote is able to make readers …show more content…

This appeals to the reader's sense of ethos. The more human the killers become, the more we can see ourselves in them. Because of this, we can almost understand how their minds went down the path to the dark place they arrived. On top of this, Capote goes into great depth analyzing the morality of the death sentence that the murderers were charged with. He does this mostly through dialogue and through information given about the law system and the nature of the death sentence. ""...I sure as hell never murdered four people in cold blood." "Yeah and how about hanging the bastard? That's pretty goddam cold-blooded too."" (306). Statements like this, paired with other devices, cause the reader to question how ethical it was for these men to be …show more content…

After all, they did both participate in the murder of an innocent family. If you dig deeper however, you can find many emotional aspects that Capote has tucked into all corners of the novel that sympathise with the murderers. The most effective of these is the description of their pasts. I believe this is the main reason that Perry seems a more likable character than Dick. Though he was responsible for pulling the trigger of the shotgun all four times, the story of his tormented childhood (having his parents split, being beaten by nuns, and having his father take advantage of his ignorance) pull at the heartstrings of the reader, despite the terrible acts he goes on to

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In the novel, many people feel that the death penalty should be inflicted on Dick and Perry because they fear for their safety, “I feel that due to the violence of the crime and apparent utter lack of mercy shown the victims, the only way the public can be absolutely protected is to have the death penalty set against these defendants. This is especially true since in Kansas there is no such thing as life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Persons sentenced to life imprisonment actually serve, on the average, less than fifteen years.” (Capote 257-258). Because of the possibility that Dick and Perry could be released from prison, many people felt threatened.

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Perry and Dick get picked up by a man named Mr. Bell; who they have the intentions of killing, so they can steal his car. They end up not killing him because the man picks up another hitchhiker. While Capote talked with Perry, he told Capote, he regretted one thing about Mr. Bell: “Perry, as he later recalled, thought, Five kids–well, too bad” (Capote 173). Capote exposes Perry’s ruthlessness of a killer and how he does not care that the man has five children. Perry despises those who have what he has always wanted: family.

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He befriends two cons who the killers re based on and learns their story. He shows the story in a different order than most stories are told. At the beginning, he shows the ending of the story, and then he recreates how it came to be. His unique way of telling the story makes it intriguing for the reader. Capote uses different techniques to tell the story of a real murder.

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Capote portrays only one of these two seemingly distinct characters (Perry) in a way that the reader feels the need to relate to and even sympathize with him. One can be taken aback by such an attachment to a murderer. This is not surprising as the author uses his compassionate diction to manipulate the reader’s emotions with a use of pathos, the appeal to emotions. At one point Capote goes as far as to write that “Smith’s life had been no bed of roses,” (Capote 245) attempting to have the readers relate to Perry. On the other hand, Capote has Dick say this about himself: “Deal me out, baby, I’m a normal” (Capote 116).

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In Cold Blood, written by Truman Capote in 1966 tells the story of the murder of a prominent family in 60’s Kansas. Capote traveled to the small town of Holcomb, and befriended many of the townsfolk and the detectives involved in the trial to tell the story of a violent event that shaped this community for the decade until the eventual conviction and execution of the killers. Because of information being told, Capote makes the choice of writing his novel as if it were a news report. This journalistic structure and word choice helps to establish the serious and dark tone of the novel.

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In In Cold Blood, the issue over the death penalty is prominent. Did Perry and Dick deserve to die? Should the severity of one’s crime determine one’s fate? Although Truman Capote writes the novel in a straightforward, “from a distance” way, he conveys, through his characters, theme, and plot development, that the death penalty is an issue that should be looked at from all sides and that the legal system itself is the real issue at hand, and that the death penalty is used as a means to suppress the distress and indignation of the citizens surrounding the case, instead of suppressing the victim himself.

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In doing so Capote invents a new genre of literature by telling the story through a new perspective. Capote as a writer chooses to put most of the focus of the book on the criminals, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, particularly Smith. He follows Smith’s life story, and explains that Smith was abused as a child, and the reader is to infer that as a result he seeks approval from others. This approval is what leads him to kill, and invent stories about killing, as he wants Dick to think of him as macho. Capote provides a plethora of evidence to support this reasoning, “He was seven years old, a hated, hating half-breed child living in a California orphanage run by nuns- shrouded disciplinarians who whipped him for wetting his bed,” (93).

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How 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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Facts 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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Everybody has desires that constantly weigh over their heads, pushing them to be diligent in all their endeavors, but what would you do if you knew that one day you would no longer have the opportunity to fulfill these desires? Everybody lives their lives so focused on the end goal that they are oblivious to the world around them, and the sad part is that in some cases the end goal is unattainable or never reached because the person dies. In In Cold Blood, Truman Capote utilizes symbolism and descriptive diction to tell his readers Perry’s wants and wishes. Throughout this subchapter the reader is able to learn more about how Perry feels in the moments after the Clutter family murder. The reader learns that Perry wishes he was loved by others

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Dewey closed his eyes; “ he kept them shut until he heard the thud-snap that announces a rope-broken neck” (McClain). In addition to this, Capote mentions that Dewey could find it “ possible to look at [Perry] beside him without anger,with, rather, a measure of sympathy” (Capote 246). Dewey didn’t feel that way towards Dick even though he didn 't commit the murders. Capote’s bias makes the audience feel more sympathetic towards Perry and more hatred towards Dick, even though Perry is the killer. Another reason why readers believed that Perry shouldn’t have received capital punishment is because he has a mental illness.

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