In Cold Blood Chapter Summary

This excerpt connects Bigger’s fear of being caught for murdering Mary with reality, since the reporters have now found her burned bones. Bigger keeps asking himself what the reporter is doing, when he knows they are finding the bones. Since the fear of being incarcerated is so prevalent on Bigger’s mind, he is trying to convince himself that maybe it is something else they are looking at. In addition, when they are finding the bones, Bigger becomes paranoid and his “muscles twitched” from his fear and anxiousness in the moment. Bigger wanted to see what the man was looking at, but he knows that it will give him away if he seems too interested. Bigger feared it would give him away but he still “wanted to run to the man’s side and see what he

If he seemed too interested in what the man found, Bigger fears he will be suspected of the murder, so he only goes forward slightly. Also, he feels his lungs aren 't getting any air in because of his nervousness and fearfulness towards being arrested since what the man is looking at is pieces of Mary’s burned bones. Bigger thinks of his lungs as a furnace since they both could not get air in. Bigger felt fearful of being incarcerated and felt as though he could not breathe. The furnace in the Dalton’s home also could not get air in it, but it was because Bigger did not want to clean it in fear of finding Mary’s bones. Bigger notices that his loss of breath was like his fear choking him. His fear “was like the fumes of smoke that had belched from the ash bin” since it 's all caused by Mary, and Bigger stuffed her body into the furnace. The similes relating his fear with the furnace is because it is a driving cause of his fear. The man was finding the bones in the furnace, and this trigger Bigger’s fear of being caught. Bigger’s overpowering fear of being incarcerated for Mary’s murder is prevalent in his thoughts and actions as seen by his worry over the man’s actions and his loss of breathe when seeing Mary’s bones displayed in front of