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Alliteration In Capote's In Cold Blood

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Alliteration in Capote’s In Cold Blood
There are tons of little syntactical tricks and ticks Capote uses to keep his voice on the page without the first-person “I.” This voice, which once read won’t again be unrecognizable, is built of many miniscule elements that when read in whole illustrate the fundament difference between non-fiction and creative non-fiction. In voice, there’s none other like Capote’s, and in In Cold Blood it’s present from the first word to the last. It’s no small challenge to insert voice, let alone an appropriate one, into a story that already belongs to others, as is the case with a crime story. Capote shows us that not only is voice is possible in a journalistic murder mystery, it’s as necessary here as it is in any other form. And, this salacious story is ever so much better because of it. Certainly, Capote’s imagery and description are as breathtaking as they are surprising …show more content…
There are countless other ways, more obvious ways maybe, to convey any of these ideas, which, incidentally all occur on just one page. But the chasm between an event that makes your heart race and one that makes your heart hurry, is vast, and that chasm turns a phrase into a lyric – a statement into a song. The pacing that all this alliteration creates makes In Cold Blood feel like it’s being told in the murmurs of the townspeople behind newspapers and in hair salons. We want to lean closer, to catch every implied hitch in a breath. The repetition of starting letters and sounds replaces the dry or hyperbolic language we might be inclined to associate with crime reporting, and it’s delicious. Our narrator is whispering this story to the reader; he’s there on the page, and as seemingly small as something like alliteration may seem in the context of a full-length work, it’s not. Capote’s generous application of same-sounds in paramount to the tone and pace that make this such a voice-y

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