Morgan Carr, Sophia Chiarello, Mina Gabehart, Becca Taylor
March 30, 2023 The closer a person gets to someone else, the harder it is to let them go. In life, it is easy for someone to learn this lesson because it is a general fact of life: The more a person learns about someone, the closer they get and as a result, it becomes harder to let them leave that person’s life. In the book, In Cold Blood, the author, Truman Capote, utilizes this life lesson as a technique in order to create a special connection between the reader and the members of the Clutter family. Truman Capote’s use of precise details when developing these individuals results in feelings of sympathy and remorse from the reader for these characters, making it harder to
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The word choice technique further creates a sympathetic feel for her character after she was murdered by emphasizing what was left that she had to live for. After being in a play, Capote explains that her parents “had been proud of Nancy” and describes their satisfaction by saying “She had done so well, remembering all her lines” (Capote 8). The word choice that Capote uses when describing the Clutter’s satisfaction with their daughter’s performance depicts that of a parent giving congratulations to a very young child, not exactly that of a 16-year-old girl in high school. Also when Nancy receives a call, Capote describes her movement to the phone by saying “Barefoot, pajama-clad, Nancy scampered down the stairs” (Capote 17). By phrasing it as such, Capote is displaying Nancy as younger than she is because by using words such as “scampered,” the reader is forced to think of an excited little child running down the stairs on Christmas morning. And by just using a word or two every so often when describing Nancy, Capote is able to emphasize these characteristics and capture a child-like aspect of Nancy’s character. Nancy embodies characteristics of innocence and purity and by emphasizing these aspects of her character, the reader is more easily able to create an attachment to her. This is because it is an attachment to a young and innocent little girl rather than a rebellious teenager. And it is this technique that builds an even stronger connection between Nancy’s character and the reader by emphasizing the point that she was a sweet and innocent girl with her whole life still ahead of her. This is the ultimate reason why when she, along with the rest of the Clutter family was murdered, the reader feels a very strong feeling of pity and remorse, particularly for Nancy because of the life she could have