Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

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Truman Capote wrote In Cold Blood with the intention of creating a new non-fiction genre, a creative spin on a newspaper article with the author, and his opinions and judgments completely absent from the text, leaving only the truth for the reader to interpret. The pages of In Cold Blood are filled with facts and first-hand accounts of the events surrounding the brutal murder of a wealthy unsuspecting family in Holcomb, Kansas. Author Truman Capote interviewed countless individuals to get an accurate depiction of every one affected by and every side of the murder. Although he declares himself an unbiased and opinion-free author, based on the extensive descriptions of one of the murderers, Perry Smith, there is much debate about this declaration. Capote provides expansive knowledge of Perry’s life and family, including one person in particular, Willie-Jay. While some critics argue the significance of Willie-Jay’s character does not extend further than to demonstrate a more sensitive, and perhaps homosexual, side of Perry, as the novel progresses, it becomes evident that Capote uses him as an outlet to express his opinion that Perry, although superior to others, was defeated by constant rejection and his unfortunate fate, not only causing him to commit the murders, but also providing him with justification for committing the murders.

It is arguable that Truman Capote relies on Willie-Jay’s accounts to generate sympathetic feelings for Perry and project his opinion about the reasons for the murder. Although he is never physically present in the story, Willie-Jay is frequently alluded to from Perry’s prison memories, to his dream, all the way to the trial. To ensure his readers will regard Willie-Jay’s ideas as true, Capote has Perr...

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...roughout the novel it becomes increasingly more evident that his personal opinions of Perry Smith seeped out in the never-really-present-character of Willie-Jay. While IN COLD BLOOD is, in fact, a non-fiction novel filled with fact and real-life quotes from residents of Holcomb, Kansas, Capote uses Willie-Jay’s examinations of Perry as the primary description of his character. Willie-Jay’s version of Perry appeals emotionally to readers by depicting him as an extraordinarily misunderstood and superior person whose life influences and fate caused him to lash out violently. It seems impossible that an “absent” and “unbiased” author could have illustrated a murderer in a way that subconsciously forces readers to empathize with him and justify the brutal murder of an entire family in cold blood.

Works Cited

Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood. Random House. New York. 1965.

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