Brian Conniff's article, "Psychological Accidents: In Cold Blood and Ritual Sacrifice," explains how Truman Capote's nonfiction novel demonstrates the psychological trauma that the murderers and the townspeople of Holcomb face after the murders of the Clutter family. Conniff begins his article by stating that in the last twenty-five years imprisonment and execution has reached an all-time high level of obsession among the American public. Since this type of violence has been so normalized it is rarely properly understood (1). With this in mind, prison literature has continually suggested that "the most fortified barriers are not the physical walls and fences between the prison, and the outside world; the most fortified barriers are the psychological walls between the preoccupations of everyday life . . .and the conscious realization that punishment is the most self-destructive kind of national addiction" (Conniff 1).
Conniff believes that these psychological walls are most confronted in and clearly seen in In Cold Blood. When Perry Smith, one of the murderers, confesses to the crime to Agent Alvin Dewey, Agent Dewey is surprisingly disappointed. Agent Dewey discovers that the truth is more disturbing than anything he would have ever imagined. Conniff writes, "The truth, Dewey discovers, is at once more ordinary and more disturbing than anything he has been able to imagine" (2). Smith and Hickock did not murder the Clutters for revenge and they didn't even know their victims. The crime was a virtually impersonal act and Agent Dewey does not want to believe this (2).
At first Capote was not concerned with the capture and punishment of the criminals. Capote underestimated the community's need for retribution and its need to return to normalcy by enacting a violence of its own (2). Before the murders the community lived an unfearful life, no locked doors, no suspicion of one another. This "normalcy" could not be restored until the murderers were caught and punished (2). When the community began to lock its doors at night, it was trying to keep the invader from outside the community out (2). When the Hickock and Smith were finally caught the community categorized them as animals, this "allowed the community to deprive them of their humanity" (2). Conniff goes on to say, "a common normalcy ultimately depends upon the complete exclusion of outsiders, the exorcism of these mysterious animals is just as important as their discovery and capture" (3).
shocked by the randomness and brutality of the act, in much the same way it was
In Cold Blood is the true story of a multiple murder that rocked the small town of Holcomb, Kansas and neighboring communities in 1959. It begins by introducing the reader to an ideal, all-American family, the Clutters; Herb (the father), Bonnie (the mother), Nancy (the teenage daughter), and Kenyon (the teenage son). The Clutters were prominent members of their community who gained admiration and respect for their neighborly demeanors.
In In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, the characters Smith and Hickock, while both criminals involved in the killing of the Clutters, are portrayed quite differently. It is clear that Capote favors Smith. Throughout the book, Smith is written in a way that could incite sympathy within the reader while Hickock is shown to be a remorseless, irredeemable killer. Nevertheless, there are moments in which Smith seems as if he doesn’t deserve sympathy, such as when he shows no remorse for his actions, but overall, Capote spends a majority of the book humanizing him while simultaneously antagonizing Hickock. Some could argue that this story is not established as that of victims and villains but that it focuses more on whatever is relevant to telling the
Madness, madness, madness. It is but a word, yet those who possess it are capable of doing the most amazing or terrible of things. According to the Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, madness is defined as “a state of severe mental illness.” Perry Edward Smith is the best individual that depicts this characteristic. Throughout Truman Capote's novel “In Cold Blood” the main character, Perry Smith, as Dr. Jones says “... shows definite signs of severe mental illness” (Capote 296). There is no coincidence in the definition and Dr. Jones' description because the truth is that Perry is utterly, and unconsciously mad. Perry, in his madness, commits acts so inhumane that chill as well as perplex the reader. However, it is essential to understand what Perry's madness was and how his previous experiences can possibly justify his actions.
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’s non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood, was a breakthrough in literacy in that it was accredited as the first non-fiction novel. There was a lot of controversy when the book was first published because of the incredibility of the work. This could be expected in that time, because people where not familiar with the concept of non-fiction novels yet, but this is where the beauty of this style of writing lies, the recreation of the truth. It would have been impossible for Capote to have documented the occurrence fully, because he only read about the murder after it had happen, after all, this was not what he wanted to do. Capote got a lot of criticism for the book, because of him bending the truth, putting in scenes that never happened and his ways of gathering information, but people still saw the talent that went into creating the non-fiction novel. Truman Capote will forever be recognized for this novel and the contribution he made to literacy. In this essay we will be discussing the strengths and weaknesses of In Cold Blood when it delivers facts and the credibility of the work. We will also be discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the novel when Capote bends reality and ad some parts of fiction.
This passage when Capote begins to introduce Perry more in depth. From his childhood to later on in his life. Perry’s way of life as a child was a tough one, in which his mother put him in a “catholic orphanage. The one where the Black Widows were always at me. Hitting me. Because of wetting the bed…They hated me, too.” Capote’s use of short sentence syntax creates the effect of emphasizing the horrible and dramatic conditions Perry had to live with. Also, the nuns of the orphanage are described as “Black Widows,” a metaphor, to make it seem like it was truly terrible. The color black associates with death and when metaphorically used to describe a nun, it creates sympathy for Perry. Later in the passage, capote creates a short narrative of Perry’s experience in war. “Perry, one balmy evening in wartime 1945…” The storytelling helps understand more about Perry in the way he thinks and acts. The atmosphere of this passage is a sad mood. It talks about the terrible childhood and early life of Perry. It is clear that no one ever cared for Perry and it affected him dramatically.
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,
In Cold Blood is a true account of a multiple murder case that took place in Holcomb, Kansas in 1959, written by Truman Capote. Capote’s attention to detail causes the reader to gain an extreme interest in the Clutter family even though they were an ordinary family. The suspense that is a result of minimal facts and descriptive settings was an elaborate stylistic technique that gave effective results throughout the book. His ability to make this account of a horrid crime more than just a newspaper description was a great success as a base of his many literary devices, not just is great focus to small details.
The disruption of an all-American society plays a key factor in In Cold Blood because of the effect it has on the story. In Holcomb, Kansas, the community’s order is disrupted through the murdering of the Clutter family. “Nevertheless, when the community lost the ...
In Cold Blood tells an exact story of the murder of the clutter family that occurred in Holcomb, Kansas in 1959. It consists of Mr. and Mrs. Clutter and their two teenage children, Kenyon and Nancy, and the events that lead the killers to murder. The family was brutally killed, without any apparent reasons, by Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. The family was found shot to death, with very little items missing from the home. Capote read about the crime in The New York Times real soon after it had happened, and before the killers were caught, he began his work in Kansas, interviewing the people of Holcomb and doing extensive research with the help of his friend Harper Lee. Dick and Perry got away with the murders, because of the lack of clues and no personal connections with the murdered family. Perry Smith is a loner, a psychic cripple, almost from birth an outcast from society. Capote insists the reader’s sympathy for Perry Smith from the outset: Comparing him to wounded animals; described as a frightened “creature” than as a human being responsible for his actions (Hollowell 82). So much suffering could be taken and given by a single youthful human...
On pages 265-266 of Capote’s novel, In Cold Blood, Capote writes about Perry’s imprisonment, more specifically Perry’s mental health, or lack thereof. Capote uses an ominous tone to convey the predicament Perry was in and portray the mental instability possessed by Perry. Capote first discusses a failed escape plan of Perry’s that consisted of throwing a document with a detailed rescue plan down to two men who often gathered below his window, thinking that they were there for him. However, as soon as he created the document, the men stopped coming. The strangeness of this scenario pushed Perry to question his sanity. Regarding this, Capote says, “a notion that he ‘might not be normal, maybe insane’ troubled him” (Capote 265). When Capote says that these issues
The detailed account of the killers’ childhoods makes the reader sympathize with the Clutter family’s killers Smith and Hickock. Should they reserve the death penalty? Did Truman Capote take a stand on the death penalty? By giving the reader a detailed account of Perry Smith’s and Dick Hickock’s childhood, Capote sets up the reader for a nurture vs. nature debate on the death penalty. The question then becomes, do the effects (if any) caused by environment in childhood make for a trained killer or a natural born one?
In Truman Capote’s non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, the Clutter family’s murderers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, are exposed like never before. The novel allows the reader to experience an intimate understanding of the murderer’s pasts, thoughts, and feelings. It goes into great detail of Smith and Hickock’s pasts which helps to explain the path of life they were walking leading up to the murder’s, as well as the thought’s that were running through their minds after the killings.
In the nonfiction novel, “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote, the author tells a story of the murderers and victims of a slaughter case in Holcomb, Kansas. Instead of writing a book on the murder case as a crime report, the author decides to write about the people. The people we learn about are the killers, Dick and Perry, and the murdered family, the Clutters. The author describes how each family was and makes the portrayals of Dick and Perry’s family different from the Clutters.The portrayal of the Clutters and of Dick and Perry’s families, was used to describe what the American Dream was for each character. In the beginning we learn about what type of family the Clutters were and how they represented the American Dream for the people of Holcomb.