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Characterization And Symbolism In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

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Imagine you are living in a small town everything is ok until one night a local family is murdered mand know one know who did it. Would this scenario horrify you would you panic or would you look for answers well this scenario is exactly what happened in the book “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote.This book starts out with the lives of the Clutter family and Dick and Perry.It then goes on to tell the story that Dick and Perry killed the Clutter family. Eventually near the end of the book Dick and Perry confessed to the murder. Throughout this book truman capote develops a main theme that no matter what actions always have consequences be those consequences good or bad. The author uses the literary devices of conflict characterization and symbolism to show this theme. …show more content…

Conflict is the resistens or force acting against the protagonists attempts to reach there hopes and dreams. The first piece of contextual evidence from the book to support that capote uses conflict to reinforce the theme is the quote from page 185 “They shared a doom against which virtue was no defense." This quote shows that know matter what Dick and Perry do acting with virtue will not save them and their actions will catch up with them.
Another literary device that truman capote uses to develop a strong theme is characterization.characterization is when the author uses details direct or indirect to develop a character. A piece of evidence from the book to support this can be found on page 302 when capote writes “When Smith attacked Mr. Clutter he was under a mental eclipse, deep inside a schizophrenic darkness.” this shows that perry wasn't fully thinking of right mind when he committed the murder. This also shows that he was not mentally well when he acted and because of this he did something that he would probably not

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