Sympathy For Characters In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood Rhetorical Analysis Essay Although Capote conveys the Clutters as a simple mid western family, his primary purpose was to display how pivotal the Clutters were to the flow and function of Holcomb’s community, therefore; Capote asserts that everything in life is a chain reaction, nothing just affects one individual. Though the Clutters are seen to be a typical mid western family, with their traditional values, hard working spirit as well as with their high standards of class and dignity. They are to Holcomb what an engine is for a car. They are essential for the town to run properly. This practically seen through Nancy, arguably the most upstanding of all of the Clutters.

Murder can be defined as “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another”. How then, are others able to make us sympathize with not only murderers, but people who have committed horrendous crimes? For example, the media is constantly attempting to humanize rapists and even terrorists with phrases like “lone wolf” or “alienated and adrift.” Such phrases make some of us want to pity the criminal. This can be seen when we compare Perry Smith and Dick Hickock from Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.

Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood, effectively explores the effects of the Clutter family’s unexpected murder on the small community of Holcomb, Kansas. This unexpected murder had lasting and detrimental effects on the people of the town. Having been in Kansas during the time the trials and court cases had been executed, Capote observed that the murder had destroyed the community’s sense of trust, shattered their image of the American Dream, and prompted them to reevaluate their stance on the death penalty. The sudden murder of the Clutter family played a huge role in shaking the foundation of trust that had been built up throughout the years in the small town of Holcomb.

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.

Contrastingly, the opposite opinion is revealed through the character Alvin Dewey in the book. Capote writes about Dewey’s beliefs on the case: “[The Clutter family] had experienced prolonged terror, they had suffered. And Dewey

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.

He ended up in a series of orphanages where he was severely beat and traumatized for wetting the bed. One nun at the orphanage would “ fill a tub with ice cold water, put me in it, and hold me under until I was blue.” Capote intends to provoke the audience's sympathy for Perry by including his terrible childhood experiences to explain his violent manner as well as provide reasoning to commit the crime he did. Perry has many examples of how his brutal life experiences cause his violent behavior. Perry has many sociopathic characteristics including, lack of moral responsibility or social conscience, erratic behavior, rage and anger, ability form a particular relationship to one person, crimes are usually spontaneous.

Although, Holcomb is written as a picture-esque mid-west utopia in the first chapter of In Cold Blood, Capote uses personification, parallelism, and the inclusion of first hand accounts, to describe its shift from a neighborly society to one of locked doors in order to comment on how one event can completely alter a locations image. Through the use of personification, Capote describes the disillusion in the townspeople of Holcomb, product of the murder of the Clutter family. Capote writes that locks and bolts are the most popular item in a Garden City hardware store, and that the people disregarded brand identity just to have the security of the ownership of a lock. Capote latter writes, “Imagination, of course, can open any door - turn the key and let terror walk right in” (Capote 88), to show how paranoia has consumed the townsfolk are by expressing the false sense of security that a door lock provides. The use of “imagination can open any door”, implies that if someone needed to get through a locked door,

As Dewey arrives into a diner Capote provides insight into what this case is doing to him: “In fact, during the past three weeks Dewey had dropped twenty pounds. His suits fitted as though he had borrowed them from a stout friend, and his face, seldom suggestive of his profession, was now not at all so; it could have been that of an ascetic absorbed in occult pursuits”(Capote 149). Capote provides us with a very vivid representation of Dewey’s figure to indicate that this case is destroying him from the inside out. With this idea of Dewey falling apart readers can draw a parallel between him and Holcomb in the sense that Holcomb is “losing weight”, Holcomb doesn’t fit into its “suit”. This evil has murdered the very idea of a “safe”

Facts and Fiction: A Manipulation of Language in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood English is a fascinating and riveting language. Subtle nuances and adjustments can easily change the understanding of a literary work—a technique many authors employ in order to evoke a desired response from their readers. This method is used especially in In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, a literary work which details a true event about the murders of four members of the Clutter family in the small community of Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959. Although Capote’s 1966 book was a bestseller nonfiction and had successfully garnered acclaim for its author, there is still a great deal of confusion about the distinction between the factual and fictional aspects in the book.

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.

Truman Capote uses variety of language devices to vividly develop Perry Smith in his novel In Cold Blood. These language devices include, diction, similes and symbolism. Throughout the novel diction is used to develop Perry Smith’s character, and suggest reasons for the murder. When Smith explains what happened that night at the Clutter’s family home, he tells agent Alvin Dewey about his moment with Nancy Clutter.

In 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. All throughout the book, Capote illustrated sympathetical emotion towards both types of characters, the protagonists and antagonists; Whereas in this case, Capote expressed the sides of the protagonist and antagonist.

Everybody has desires that constantly weigh over their heads, pushing them to be diligent in all their endeavors, but what would you do if you knew that one day you would no longer have the opportunity to fulfill these desires? Everybody lives their lives so focused on the end goal that they are oblivious to the world around them, and the sad part is that in some cases the end goal is unattainable or never reached because the person dies. In In Cold Blood, Truman Capote utilizes symbolism and descriptive diction to tell his readers Perry’s wants and wishes. Throughout this subchapter the reader is able to learn more about how Perry feels in the moments after the Clutter family murder. The reader learns that Perry wishes he was loved by others

The non-fiction novel ‘In Cold Blood’ interestingly begins as a fiction novel would-with the author setting up the scene of the gruesome quadruple murder about to take place, unbeknownst to the victims. Capote describes the isolated flatlands of rural Kansas, and introduces the victims and their killers as if they were the main characters of a fictional murder mystery. What immediately struck me is how Capote uses literary techniques like the simultaneous narration of the lives of the killers and victims, and the fragmented retelling of the story not specifically in the order of events, which makes the story read more like a work of fiction than of pure journalism. As one gets engrossed in the book, it gets easier to forget that the story is based on truth and is not just a fictional story born in Capote’s head. Capote also demonstrates his mastery over the ‘thriller and suspense’ genre, detailing the Clutter family’s everyday lives, emotions and experiences but with progressively higher levels of anticipation as the pages go by, employing versions of the omnipresent phrase, ‘and that was their last’ for dramatic effect.