Imagery In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

In Capote’s true novel, In Cold Blood, based on the 1959 Holcomb, Kansas murders, the Clutters live a normal calm life not knowing what is about to take place in the Clutter home. There are four people within the Clutter family. There is the father Mr. Herb Clutter, the mother Mrs. Bonnie Clutter, the town sweetheart Nancy Clutter, and her brother Kenyon Clutter.

In his nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood, Truman Capote describes Mr. Clutter as a very active member of the community who “never sought to associate” with the upper-class men in his society. Capote’s purpose in writing this passage describing Mr. Clutter is to enable the audience to visualize and sympathize with the father of the family described in Part I of In Cold Blood in order to evoke a stronger emotional response from the audience when Dick and Perry murder the Clutter family. He develops this purpose by using elaborate diction and portraying Mr. Clutter as kind through Mr. Clutter’s own words.

Truman Capote, in his critically acclaimed novel, In Cold Blood, masterfully recounts the murders of the Clutter family while experimenting with a new style called non-fiction. Some critics have called Capote out, saying that his claims about his novel being 100% factual are false. Capote’s purpose was to write a nonfiction novel based on the facts and witness accounts to describe the murder of a family. Truman Capote strategically uses various literary devices to keep his readers engaged while staying informed about the murders of Clutter family in 1959.

If you ever had the chance to kill someone you hate, would you do it? Even if you would get caught, seems like it would be a bad idea. Well, two beings in this story thought otherwise. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, this book starts with the lives of the Clutters. Then it hits with the climax and reveals the deaths of the Clutter family, ending with review and ending of Dick and Perry. Truman Capote develops the theme what's done cannot be undone using suspense, conflict, and foreshadowing.

In the passage, In Cold Blood Truman Capote utilizes Syntax, Diction and Imagery to convey the mood of the novel and its setting. Capote’s sentence structure causes tension, hooking the reader to continue reading, “Unless you include, as one must, the Holcomb School, a good-looking establishment”. He creates a tone of extreme caution at the end of the opening passage with his diction, for example: somber, explosions, strangers, mistrust. Capote begins with a detailed description of the setting, “seventy miles east of Colorado border, the country side” allowing the reader to visualize the area in which he is describing.

In Truman Capote’s captivating nonfiction, In Cold Blood, Capote ventures through the journey and lives of both the killed and the killers all while analyzing the point in which they crossed paths. From the days before the four Clutters were murdered to the last moments of the two killers’ lives, Capote takes into account each and every aspect that creates the ‘famous’ Clutter Case with an in depth look of just how and why these strange and unforeseeable events occurred. What was originally supposed to only be an article in a newspaper turned into an entire book with Capote analyzing both how and why a murder comes to be through the use of pathos, juxtaposition, and foreshadowing.

The murders changed everything. They consumed the town, obliterated everything known, burning the familiarity and safety that existed in the tight knit community. When cleaning up the Clutter house, everything that was familiar in their house was burned, eliminated: “They acquired additional fuel for the impending fire--blood-soiled bedclothes, matresses, a bedside rug, a Teddy-bear doll” (Capote 78). The fire is a metaphor for the town. The town is being destroyed,

Truman Capote's In Cold Blood is a nonfiction novel that is renowned for Capote’s use of intertwining the facts of a Kansas tragedy with various literary techniques such as his creative structure, flashback, tone and foreshadowing to transform this crime into an entrapping work of art. Capote also weaves in many important issues such as a look into the minds of criminals, the value of the death penalty, and a commentary on social divisions, which he uses the literary techniques to bring our attention and examine.

The captivating story of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a beautifully written piece describing the unveiling of a family murder. This investigative, fast-paced and straightforward documentary provides a commentary of such violence and examines the details of the motiveless murders of four members of the Clutter family and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers. As this twisted novel unravels, Capote defines the themes of childhood influences relevant to the adulthood of the murderers, opposite personalities, and nature versus nurture.

Capote begins his novel with a conventional narrative structure choice: describing the setting. He spends several pages familiarizing the reader with the town of Holcomb, Kansas. This move is crucial, especially when contrasted with his unconventional choices for the traditional narrative timeline as the book progresses. As Capote introduces the reader to the Clutter family, with a particular focus on Herb, he sets the groundwork for the conflict. With necessary background information in mind, the reader first confronts the conflict with the words, “...he headed for home and the day’s work, unaware that it would be his last” (13). It is this moment, that the reader experiences the first sense of satisfaction. This is the

Many people say the documentation of the murder of the Clutter family is Truman Capote’s best work. It started out as an article for The New Yorker, and evolved into the non-fiction novel; the first of its kind. Capote traveled to Kansas with friend Harper Lee to research the killings. In the course of six years bringing this narrative together, Capote began taking drugs and drinking heavily due to the dark nature of the book. Truman Capote tells the true story of a family murdered in In Cold Blood, through character analysis and symbolism to prove nature is a stronger force than nature in shaping a person’s character.

It was Capote's use of stylistic devices that the novel memorable to Swanson. Capote not only vividly recreated the events leading up to the murders, but he also described in "meticulous detail and diamondlike prose" the "dozens of lives destroyed or altered" in the process (33). Capote carefully chose each word he recorded, enabling his readers to encounter the same feelings of despair, grief, and fear the characters experience. But Capote's greatest gift was his "ability to listen" and then composing what he heard into a symphony of voices, sounds, and silences (33). Swanson heard the voices of the Clutter family pleading for their lives, the sounds from the "roar of a twelve-gauge shotgun", and the subsequent silence of "an upright, accomplished, and much-admired" family's removal "from a quiet community" (33).

For centuries, men and women have murdered each other for greed, lust, revenge, etc. However, in 1959, Truman Capote traveled to Holcomb, Kansas to discover the other side of murder. Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood, offers a close examination of the horrid murder of the Clutter family. He explored how two men of different backgrounds, ethnicities, and personalities joined together to kill an innocent family for riches. Capote provides different points of view through each of his character’s eyes for his readers’ better understanding of the murderers. The use of juxtaposition compares and contrasts Dick to Perry, the murders. Capote succeeds with using juxtaposition to reveal the murderer's how he perceived them.

Next, Capote puts the fiction tool of symbols to use. Overall, the way he webs together the facts creates a pattern of violence that is part of American life (Hollowell 83). He also has "selective repetition of certain images, landscapes, and atmospheric details [to] create a cumulative impact" (Hollowell 83). Through these symbols he provokes the reader to come to one's own decision on moral interpretations and meanings of events.

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.