Harper Lee & In Cold Blood
This lesson will examine the impact of Harper Lee on Truman Capote 's true-crime novel, 'In Cold Blood. ' Lee helped her childhood friend with much of the research for the book, although she was not credited when the book was published.
In many ways, writers Harper Lee and Truman Capote made an odd couple. She was shy and reclusive and only wrote two novels in her lifetime. He was a prolific writer who embraced his celebrity status and lived a life of jet-setting glamour. Yet the two were good friends for years, having met at age 5 as neighbors in Monroeville, Alabama. Lee would prove indispensable to Capote in the research of his most famous book, In Cold Blood. Despite her help, however, Capote gave her no credit
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However, it was his old buddy Harper who helped him make this idea work. Let 's take a look at the role Lee played in shaping this classic work.
Wooing the Locals
In Cold Blood might have been a nonstarter if not for Lee 's ability to convince the locals to take her friend seriously. Truman Capote did not make a great first impression on the conservative Kansan townsfolk. The prosecutor from the Clutter case, Duane West, remembers him as an 'oddball ' who was 'hard to take. ' Capote cut an eccentric figure, with his high-pitched voice and flamboyant clothes. He was openly homosexual, a lifestyle that was not tolerated in such a conservative Midwestern town.
Enter Lee. She had an easy way with the locals and an understanding of farmers and small-town Americans. She did much of the legwork, knocking on doors and stopping people out and about, asking if they would be willing to talk about the Clutter case. Once she won the people over, they were willing to give Capote a second chance. Thanks to Lee 's persistence and relatability, Capote was able to get important interviews from the people most affected by the Clutter
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Lee traveled with Capote to Kansas and helped get the locals to open up to him. She sat in on interviews and hearings, took 150 pages of notes, and also provided moral support to her friend. Despite this, Capote downplayed her contributions, and relegated her to the dedication page on his finished novel. Lee 's feelings were hurt, and as time went on, she and Capote grew apart. Recent evidence of Lee 's loyalty to Capote has surfaced with the discovery of an article on the Clutter piece that she wrote five years before In Cold Blood was published. In order not to step on Capote 's toes, Lee published the article
And finally, as the story concludes, you feel through Capote's careful presentation of the facts, that we are participants of the trial ourselves. We experience the witnesses testimony only when the jurors and spectators do so themselves. Having the author reserve vital information so that we learn only what the community learns, when they learn it, offers the opportunity for us to experience genuine emotions as the events unfold.
Capote in his book In Cold Blood set out to create an image of the murders and their motives with the use of rhetorical devices. He uses certain devices, such as diction and syntax to give each character their own distinct personality and also develops their characteristic and tendencies as a person as well. Capote also brings the characters to life with the switching of tone between them and with the things they say about themselves and events going on in the story. Another way Capote develops the reader's perception of the murderers was by the use of imagery to draw the reader a picture in their minds to what the character would look like face to face. With all of these combined he gave each murderer their own personality and views, ultimately
Truman Capote put-to-words a captivating tale of two monsters who committed four murders in cold blood. However, despite their atrocities, Capote still managed to sway his readers into a mood of compassion. Although, his tone may have transformed several times throughout the book, his overall purpose never altered.
The film Capote, based on the how the writer of “In Cold Blood” did his research to write his book, a masterpiece of literature, has portrayed Capote’s behavior during his research vividly. Capote’s behavior during the years Perry waits on death row in order to get personal testimony of the night of killings is a controversial topic. Some argue that what Capote did was absolutely necessary for an ambitious writer to create such a master piece while other argue that human ethics is more important than the creation of an ideal “non-fiction noble” and the paths he took to get there are morally ambiguous. Even though he gave the world a milestone in literature, his behaviors seem unethical because he lied, pretended to be a friend of an accused murderer who was in a death row, and did not have any empathy to him.
There are multiple speculations about why the two drifted apart. When Harper Lee published To Kill a Mockingbird, there were rumours that Capote had wrote part, or all of it himself (Harper). These rumors were put to rest when a letter written by Capote to his aunt said he had read the draft of the story and enjoyed it, but made no mention of contributing to the writing (Block). It was also theorized that Lee may have been upset with the little credit she got for In Cold Blood, but after they became famous, their friendship was not as strong as before (Block). While Lee rejected her fame, Capote welcomed it, this division could also factor into their dispute. It was possible that Capote became jealous of Harper Lee, or just misunderstood her private lifestyle. Though, despite all the tension in their friendship, Truman Capote still largely impacted Harper Lee. In To Kill a Mockingbird Lee based some of her characters on people she knew, for example, Atticus, the protagonist, has been thought to be similar to her father. One character in the story, Dill, is said to be based on Truman Capote. In the book, Dill is the friend of Scout, the young girl narrator, similar to Capote and Lee as children
The book was based on the story, and the movie In Cold Blood was based on the book, the movie Capote on the other side, it 's the story about the author Truman Capote and his
In Cold Blood, a non-fiction book written by Truman Capote and published in 1966, describes profoundly the terrifying murders of the Clutter family in the city of Holcomb, Kansas. Through several years of research, Truman Capote was able to gather enough information about the murder that took place in 1959 to recreate the murder itself with a different standpoint. With no notes taken or recorded interviews, Capote was capable of retelling this event through the use of his memory only, which in his time and still today, generates some questions about whether the story can be considered to be true or not.
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, an American novelist, scriptwriter, and dramatist, is one of the most fascinating literary figures in the 20th century. Beginning with Truman Capote’s childhood, his literary works, his perhaps most prominent novel, In Cold Blood, he was and will always be remembered as a remarkable individual.
In 1965, Truman Capote created the infamous tale known as “In Cold Blood”. The book created the illusion of fantasy while based on reality. Many people were floored at the brilliance Capote demonstrated within the pages. The book took the literary concept of a novel with the literary elements of designed scenes, characters, a story formed with an introduction, rising action, climax and resolution to the real events surrounding the murder of the Clutter family.
In the novel, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, Capote uses literary devices to describe many characters. One character that is described thoroughly is the main investigator Alvin Dewey.
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.
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.
Michael J. Fox, a famous American actor, once said, “Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.” This quote connects with the non-fiction novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote perfectly, because family has a major role in this novel. Capote’s novel is a true account about the murderers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. They murdered the Clutters, a Kansas family of four. The novel takes the reader for a play-by-play account from the murderers running, all the way to the detectives catching them, and then ends with Hickock and Smith’s executions. In the novel, In Cold Blood the reader can automatically tell that family matters in each character’s life, it shapes them into the kind of person they are and how that character handles certain situations.