Analysis Of Capital Punishment In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

With the many events that take place through the course of the novel ‘In Cold Blood’ written by Truman Capote, Capote evidently emphasises the themes throughout the novel, however you have to look past the miniscule image he is trying to illustrate to the reader, thus making it effortless for the reader to find the hidden implied meaning. Imprisonment is not detected as one of the main themes of the novel; however there is clear evidence of the theme of imprisonment throughout the novel. Imprisonment firstly begins to make an appearance in the first chapter ‘The Last to See Them Alive’. During this chapter we are introduced to the Clutter family, Dick and Perry. ‘She was "nervous," she suffered "little spells"…..

Truman Capote on In Cold Blood, uses a suspense tone and a warm tone. Capote narrates a negro’s assassination, that took place in Las Vegas during a summer, who Perry was responsible for. The trial later was taken care of during November around Thanksgiving, when the days are clear and pure. The detail arises the tone of suspense when Perry and Dick’s actions are not bright.

Truman Capote expressed the events that occurred in real life in a haunting and horrifying way illustrating how scary the world really is. The book discusses two people who were both sane but hated the world with such a fiery passion that they murdered the Clutter family for pure joy. They hated the world so much that they wanted everyone else to hate it as well and consequently committed a crime so evil and full of hate. In the book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, the author expresses how inhuman some people in the world are and how someone's ego drastically changes the way they view the world.

Capote’s way of making the reader question the criminal justice system and the death penalty is bizarre. Capote makes us feel pathos for Perry Smith and builds tension and uniquely uses imagery and detailed exploration of the characters to make us understand. It’s like we’re overseers and we experience what Dick and Perry’s journey was like on the run. To feel what they felt, to understand why they were treated so poorly and why they shouldn’t have been hung. That maybe deep down there was a chance these two could have been redeemed as human beings again and that they overuse the death penalty instead of trying to help the criminals reform

He wants to believe that a dangerous, mentally ill and disturbed man committed these atrocities in cold blood. With the change up in the events, Truman Capote is forced to venture deeper into the rabbit hole that is the US citizen psyche. Capote was in person, present when the murderers were brought back to Kansas for their trial. Capote describes it in detail as he describes the onlookers, "the crowd fell silent at the sight of them as if they were surprised to see them humanly

Through similar tactics Capote allows the reader to feel sorry for Dewey, even though he is the man who catches the killing pair. Detective Dewey is first introduced in part two of In Cold Blood, where the readers learn that this would not be an easy case and the Dewey would be the head detective, even though he had personal ties with the Clutter family. The reader would automatically feel sorry for Detective Dewey because he was going to do heavy investigating on a murder of a family he knew and there was very little time to mourn the deaths. Detective Dewey spent countless hours trying to chase down every lead that popped up, taking family time away, which wears on all family members. The reader feels sympathy for Dewey as he loses time with his family around the holiday time because he has become so involved in the case.

Truman Capote’s novel, In Cold Blood epitomizes the shifting sentiments related to the murder of the Clutter family which range from terror, to sorrow, to pride, and all mixed emotions in between. Yet through Capote’s particular descriptions about each character, the connection between their feelings and their actions become further clarified. In effect, the readers experience feelings of sympathy for the victims, their friends and family, the investigators, and even the brutal murders of the innocent family. In order to craft this association, Capote employs a pathos appeal to amplify the audience’s ability to sympathize with each and every character.

Because of the arguments hinted at by Truman Capote in In Cold Blood, there will always be debate on whether capital punishment should be used for certain crimes. One can never be sure if a punishment, whether as mild as jail time or as severe as the death penalty, is justified for the crime

In In Cold Blood, the issue over the death penalty is prominent. Did Perry and Dick deserve to die? Should the severity of one’s crime determine one’s fate? Although Truman Capote writes the novel in a straightforward, “from a distance” way, he conveys, through his characters, theme, and plot development, that the death penalty is an issue that should be looked at from all sides and that the legal system itself is the real issue at hand, and that the death penalty is used as a means to suppress the distress and indignation of the citizens surrounding the case, instead of suppressing the victim himself.

How crazy would it be to interview criminals who murdered 4 people in cold blood? Well that’s exactly what Truman Capote did in this chilling book. In the novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote used different rhetorical strategies to create sympathy and influence the idea that there are always two sides to every story. Some of the mainly used rhetorical strategies throughout the novel were imagery, diction, tone, and pathos. Furthermore, Capote also illustrated sympathetical emotion towards both types of characters, the protagonists and antagonists.

Growing up a Sociopath; Born a Psychopath In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a true story of a quadruple homicide in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas that greatly impacted the community in 1959. Capote begins his novel by introducing a prominent, well respected family in the community, the Clutters. The Clutters lived average everyday lives until they were abruptly ended at the mercy of a 12 gauge shotgun. The killers were two men unknown to the Clutters, who had two completely different backgrounds and personalities. By choosing to include details about each of the killers, Capote delineates the differences between psychopaths and sociopaths and suggests that the combination of the two personality disorders creates the environment for horrific

In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote, is a non-fiction true crime. In Cold Blood is about two murderers, Dick and Perry, who heard a rumor about a household possessing $5,000 and they wanted the money. Little did they know there was not any money and they got caught for murder to get nothing in the end. They ended up serving jail time and sentenced to hang till death.

Although Perry is responsible for the murder of four innocent people, Perry’s actions do not reflect on who he is as a person because he is easily influenced, therefore; showing how easily people can be pressured into doing something they would not typically do. Dick, a violent, cold-hearted, manipulator, has molded Perry into the person he is today. As Perry is a follower, Dick has taken advantage of that by turning Perry into the cold-blooded killer he is today. Capote displays Dick’s manipulation of Perry through symbolism to make evident that while Perry did pull the trigger on four innocent people, although the fault does not entirely lay on him, as he was taken advantage of by Dick.

In Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, there is no hero. The protagonist is not a hero, nor the law enforcement. Heroism becomes irrelevant when searching for justice following a tragedy such as the one seen on November 15th, 1959 in Holcomb, Kansas. Complexity, next to justice, is primary to put into account during the aftershocks . Perry Smith is the protagonist in the novel, not only due to author’s bias but also due to his sheer dynamic, a man disconnected from word to action.

Capote immerses readers in a quotidian world by engulfing each line with minutiae such as the idiosyncrasy each antagonist possesses, the Clutter family’s German beginnings, and a comprehensive description of Bonnie’s “little spells.” In Cold Blood begins as an annal of the illustrious, a narrative emanating from the premise that fact is more compelling than fiction. Through a genre of his own, Truman Capote amalgamates his predilections into truthful text despite an attempt to remain distant from the book in order