A majority of the population has or will gain a bias towards or against a person, place, object, or concept, an example of one of these people is Truman Capote, a successful homosexual writer. He grew up as a openly feminine, gay man, who was neglected by his parent. As his father abandoned him for being different and his mother, an alcoholic, left him with relatives for many years. From this neglect he turned to writing. Wanting to create an interesting new book, he found a news clipping relating to the unsolved murder of the Clutter family. With his interest peaked, he left for Kansas to search for information to figure out the mystery. Using the information he gained from questioning the townspeople and even the murderers themselves, he …show more content…
Although Capote claims that he used only facts in this novel what he writes often goes against the crime reports and writes with a biased towards Smith; this goes directly against what a non-fiction story making this murder mystery novel more of a historical fiction piece. This is due to Capote writing about the historic murder mystery of the all American Clutter family, though the novel is based on accounts of what happened to the clutters he does insert dialog that never occurred, an extreme bias to Perry Smith to make the confirmed murderer a passive lonely man who is merely a tool to a more dominated man, Dick Hickock, and creates scenes that completely contradict the written police reports. So Capote uses various false occurrences to make his creation a hit novel among the population as he claims the “non-fiction” murder novel his creation. With this said there are people who would claim that he did write mostly the truth according to his many sources with the exception of the Clutter’s dialog. Even if the novel was written purely on the resources he had he would of still have access to the police reports and he had years to speak with the two criminals, but he still wrote false realties and a bias to the sociopath
In the novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, the author skillfully orders information and articulates his word choice in order to successfully tell the story. Capote chooses to include certain events before others to show the reader the development of the case caused a change in the overall feelings of characters such as Alvin Dewey. Alvin, the detective who desperately searched for the Clutter killers reads, “on the first page of the Kansas City Star, a headline he had long awaited: Die On Rope For Bloody Crime,” which portrays to the reader that he was relieved after months to know that they were sentenced to death. (337) By including the word choice “he had long awaited” the reader may assume that he is pleased by this outcome. (337) However,
Capote tells the story in a way that makes you feel you are being told about the characters by a close acquaintance of each individual character. When you aren't hearing the voices of the characters as they tell their own stories, we hear, not the voice of an author, but the voice of a friend who knew the characters well. (Before saying her prayers, she always recorded in a diary a few occurrences... Perry didn't care what he drank... etc.)
In this story he gives the murderers their own sense of self and showed how they choose to deal with their lives. This also lets readers know that each person was different and that neither of them truly knew how to “be normal”, as most people would say, and live their own lives without causing trouble. Pushing the reader to form an opinion, biased or not, with the information that was given about each character by Capote. Capote through this all, did a great job of bringing the murderers to life for his reader and sharing the stories of each person that may not have been said by the media or anything else that gives people information about the world that is around them. Giving these characters lives and experiences were great parts to the story and is what ultimately gave the book its
Truman Capote establishes respect and trust in what he writes from with audience, ethos, through the use of an extensive variety of facts and statistics, logos. Capote uses so many dates, times, and other facts about the crime committed in the book and the subsequent investigation that the reader has to believe what the author is writing. The use of all these facts shows that Capote did his research and he interviewed, questioned, and obtained the opinions of every person that even slightly important to crime itself and the investigation/trial. The author is obviously very meticulous when it comes to dates and times; every important event in the book has a date and sometimes even a time of day to go with it. Some examples of dates included were the day of the murders (November 15th, 1959), dates of when Perry and Dick were here or there (December 31th, 1959- a small restaurant in Texas or noon on December 25th, 1959- beach in Miami Florida), date when the two criminals were apprehended (January 1st, 1960), dates when they were brought from this prison to that one and finally when they were brought to death’s row (April, 1960). Other small facts are also used by the author, like facts about the criminal’s early lives or experiences that they had, which could only have been obtained through extensive interviews with Perry and Dick. The use of all these logos by Capote establishes strong ethos, showing the reader that the author did more than enough research to show that he has the knowledge to write a whole book on the subject.
Even though Capote’s book is a master piece of non-fiction novel, his behaviors during his research to write the book are not ethical. He has crossed the line by lying others, pretending to be someone’s friend, and doing some inhuman behavior while Perry waits on death row in order to get a personal testimony of the night of the killings.
Almost two decades after his initial exposure to Capote's novel, Swanson discovered it was still a "brilliant study of crime and punishment" being more "haunting than ever" (32). When Swanson first read the novel, he was more impressed with Capote's "audacity" and stylistic techniques than with story (32).
Capote's structure in In Cold Blood is a subject that deserves discussion. The book is told from two alternating perspectives, that of the Clutter family who are the victims, and that of the two murderers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. The different perspectives allow the reader to relive both sides of the story; Capote presents them without bias. Capote masterfully utilizes the third person omniscient point of view to express the two perspectives. The non-chronological sequencing of some events emphasizes key scenes.
Truman Capote finds different ways to humanize the killers throughout his novel In Cold Blood. He begins this novel by explaining the town of Holcomb and the Clutter family. He makes them an honest, loving, wholesome family that play a central role in the town. They play a prominent role in everyone’s lives to create better well-being and opportunity. Capote ends his beginning explanation of the plot by saying, “The suffering. The horror. They were dead. A whole family. Gentle, kindly people, people I knew --- murdered. You had to believe it, because it was really true” (Capote 66). Despite their kindness to the town, someone had the mental drive to murder them. Only a monster could do such a thing --- a mindless beast. However,
Same sex marriage has been a controversial issue since homosexual couples started to petition for their civil and marital rights. Even though homosexuality existed long before our society labeled it, it is still not socially accepted by many groups as well as individuals. As a result, people tend to be biased when reporting facts concerning homosexual marriage. Biases can be hidden in many literature works like books, journals, magazines, and articles. Through these documents writers try to provoke an emotional response from their readers in order to influence their view of a usually highly debated matter. An example of this would be three articles through which the rhetors dissimilarly influence the opinion of their audience by omitting or emphasizing certain facts about the legalization of gay marriage in New York State.
Capote’s structure throughout the entire book created an excellent backbone to tell the two alternating perspectives of the book that is of the victims; the clutter family and the murders; Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. This allowed Capote to not have a bias towards the accounts being told. The pattern of victims then the murderers causes an attractive puzzle where the reader collects an amount of information leading to the climax of the actual slaughter. He actually contin...
In the book “In Cold Blood” we meet Perry Edward Smith one of the men accused of killing the Clutter family. Perry is a unique man for how he see the world and how the world sees him. Although the townspeople and those who had heard of the murder only saw Parry as a murder. There is however one man who sees Perry more than he appeared to be and that man was Truman Capote. Perry had an interesting life from how he was raised, becoming friends with Richard Eugene Hickock, to the murder of the Clutter family, all the way to Capote writing about him and the trail he and Dick must face. It was Capote who brought the idea that Perry was not a bad person persa but rather he made a mistake that has caused him to spend the rest of his life behind the bars of a jail.
1. “Then, touching the brim of his cap, he headed for home and the day’s work, unaware that it would be his last.” (page 15, paragraph 1)
Capote uses different voices to tell the story, creating an intimacy between the readers and the murders, the readers and the victims, and all the other players in this event—townspeople, investigators, friends of the family. This intimacy leads to sympathy, which can sometimes be disturbing.... ... middle of paper ... ... Capote developed a close relationship with Smith during his time on Death Row, making his unbiased writing biased.
The main purpose of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is to offer insight into the minds of the murderers of the Clutter family, Dick and Perry. However, asking an audience to be open-minded about men who have committed such heinous crimes is no easy task. Capote instead methodically and rather artfully combines imagery, parallel structure, and perspective in two separate passages found between pages 107-113 to contribute to his characterization of Perry and Dick where the former is deserving of sympathy and the latter, disgust.
and at one point, had a gun pointed to his head. Also there appears to be