...In the non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote (1965) gives his own narrative of the Holcomb tragedy in which a family of four living out on a secluded farm were slaughtered with a shotgun by the collaboration of two individuals for a seemingly few dollars. In this novel, Capote gives a thorough character description of the two murderers, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, as he recreates their experience (much as he sees it as it would be from their eyes). He gives accounts preceding the event, through it, and eventually into their trial and execution. From the descriptions Capote provides, a psychological analysis of the mental states of Hickock and Smith can be asserted. Richard Hickock can be seen as possessing significant traits of psychopathy, while his partner Perry Smith is seen with traits similar to that of a life-course persistent offender. Through the described personality characteristics and brief histories of Hickock and Smith, this essay will address this assertion with the two in question as individuals themselves, within their relationship to each other, and also as other characters see and analyze their psychological well being. The reader gets to “know” Perry Smith very well throughout the novel and acquires the sense that Capote feels sympathetic to his situation as compared to that of Hickock. Smith, introduced as much the loner type, is described by the narrator and the character Smith himself (in a letter to a psychiatrist) as growing up in a low...
Words: 1128 - Pages: 5
...In this clip, the cinematographer Conrad Hall discusses a shot from In Cold Blood where the lighting took an particularly expressive function. This shot is a particularly fine example of the expressive power of lighting. This clip is taken from the documentary Visions of Light. Herbert Clutter inspects his ranch on the morning of November 14, 1959. That same morning, on the other side of Kansas, Perry Smith meets up with Dick Hickock. While the Clutters go about their daily business, running errands and baking cherry pies, Hickock and Smith are tuning their car. After a long drive, they pull up to the Clutter home with a shotgun and knife in hand. That morning, the bodies are discovered by Susan Kidwell and another of Nancy's friends. Initially, the police are baffled. Bobby Rupp is a suspect until he passes a lie detector test. Alvin Dewey, the KBI agent in charge of the investigation, thinks that the killer must be someone close to the family. Rumor sets the small town of Holcomb on fire. Hartman's Cafe is the center of numerous theories. Meanwhile, Perry and Dick have returned to Dick's hometown of Olathe. Dick passes some hot checks, and the two flee to Mexico. Perry has always dreamed of finding sunken treasure in Mexico. While the investigation in Kansas begins to methodically follow up dead end leads, Perry and Dick spend some time entertaining a rich German tourist before they run out of money in Mexico City. While packing to return to the states, Perry goes through...
Words: 1317 - Pages: 6
...The book I chose to read and do my book journal on this quarter was In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. I really thought that this book was much longer than it really should have been, although it was still a fairly interesting book. The idea that someone you have never met and never heard about could rob and kill everyone in your house is a rather unnerving notion. In this book there is really only one part that I cannot figure out. Towards the end of the book Al Dewey one of the men responsible for catching Perry Smith and Richard Hickock the two men who were responsible for killing the Clutter family. Well Al had been working very hard on this case devoting almost all of his time to solving it. After they finally caught up with the killers and arrested them Al was very excited that he might be able to get back to his normal life again. Later on in the book he said that he didn’t feel that the case was finished, even after he watched Hickock and Smith hang. He then went on to say that he didn’t feel it was over until much later. He then went on to (yes I know that this paragraphs looks too big but it was all part of the same idea) describe the event I will give a brief description here. Al was in the cemetery weeding his father’s grave, when he decided to visit the Clutter’s grave. All four of the Clutters had been buried together in one mass grave with four headstones on top of it. When he arrived at their grave he saw Susan Kidwell, someone who had been very good friends with...
Words: 1054 - Pages: 5
...Truman Capote’s non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood, was a breakthrough in literacy in that it was accredited as the first non-fiction novel. There was a lot of controversy when the book was first published because of the incredibility of the work. This could be expected in that time, because people where not familiar with the concept of non-fiction novels yet, but this is where the beauty of this style of writing lies, the recreation of the truth. It would have been impossible for Capote to have documented the occurrence fully, because he only read about the murder after it had happen, after all, this was not what he wanted to do. Capote got a lot of criticism for the book, because of him bending the truth, putting in scenes that never happened and his ways of gathering information, but people still saw the talent that went into creating the non-fiction novel. Truman Capote will forever be recognized for this novel and the contribution he made to literacy. In this essay we will be discussing the strengths and weaknesses of In Cold Blood when it delivers facts and the credibility of the work. We will also be discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the novel when Capote bends reality and ad some parts of fiction. Capote never intended for In Cold Blood to be a documentary of the multiple murder that happened in the small town of Holcomb. When Capote published his novel, people where not familiar with non-fiction novels. People knew of the murders that had happened and started...
Words: 1242 - Pages: 5
...Crimes and Punishment Character Analysis of Perry Smith In Cold Blood, a novel written by Truman Capote in 1966, tells the story brutal 1959 murders of Herbert Clutter, a successful farmer from Holcomb, Kansas, his wife, and two of their four children. In his 1966 novel Capote relates in detail the true and horrific murders of four members of the Clutter family in 1959 Holcomb, Kansas, but more specifically focuses on the murderers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, and their motivation to commit such a cold blooded crime. Out of the two, Perry Smith is the most complex character who displays a natural ability to kill, but who also has been shaped to become a murderer, making a more “likable” character than his co-murderer Dick Hickock. In the first part of his novel entitled “The Last to See Them Alive”, Capote gives the reader hints that Perry Smith is indeed born a natural killer. When he was jailed in the Kansas penitentiary, “Perry described a murder, telling how simply for the hell of it," he had killed a colored man in Las Vegas - beaten him to death with a bicycle chain” (Capote 54). After hearing the story his future partner in crime Dick Hickock “became convinced that Perry was that rarity, "a natural killer" - absolutely sane, but conscienceless, and capable of dealing, with or without motive, the coldest-blooded deathblows” (Capote 55). Perry Smith certainly proved to be “that rarity” when he cold bloodedly killed with a single shot in the head Nancy, Kenyon, Bonnie...
Words: 684 - Pages: 3
...In Truman Capote’s non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, the Clutter family’s murderers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, are exposed like never before. The novel allows the reader to experience an intimate understanding of the murderer’s pasts, thoughts, and feelings. It goes into great detail of Smith and Hickock’s pasts which helps to explain the path of life they were walking leading up to the murder’s, as well as the thought’s that were running through their minds after the killings. Perry Smith was a short man with a large torso. At first glance, “he seemed a more normal-sized man, a powerful man, with the shoulders, the arms, the thick, crouching torso of a weight lifter. [However] when he stood up he was no taller than a twelve-year old child” (15). What Smith lacked in stature, he made up in knowledge. Perry was “a dictionary buff, a devotee of obscure words” (22). As an adolescent, he craved literature and loved to gain insight of the imaginary worlds he escaped into, for Perry’s reality was nothing less than a living nightmare. “His mother [was] an alcoholic [and] had strangled to death on her own vomit” (110). Smith had two sisters and an older brother. His sister Fern had committed suicide by jumping out of a window and his brother Jimmy followed Fern’s suit and committed suicide the day after his wife had killed herself. Perry’s sister, Barbara, was the only normal one and had made a good life for herself. These traumatic events left Perry mentally unstable and ultimately...
Words: 1007 - Pages: 5
...Truman Capote’s use of form in his novel In Cold Blood really grabs the reader’s attention. His manipulation of form makes the reader feel as if they are part of the investigation that occurred after the unforgettable night at the Clutter house. He places the information that he gathered from the research in the book in a very interesting sequence that leaves the reader in a state of confusion. The way he jumps from the investigation to the killers within the book adds a sense of dramatic irony but never gives away why or how these cruel men murdered the family. What confuses the reader even more is that Capote leaves us feeling sorry for one of these vicious men, Perry. How Capote utilizes form makes the reader build an emotional attachment towards the killers. The reader begins to develop sympathy for Perry because, as you see in the movie Capote, Capote favors Perry and does not want the world to see him as some malicious monster, yet as a human being. The way Capote opens this novel is by introducing the family and the killers. This gives the reader a feel of each character, but only to a certain extent. This allows you to know what kind of family the Clutters were and strive to figure out why someone would kill them, or possibly rob them and it somehow turn into a mass murder. But as you read this fascinating story, you are left with no type of possible reasoning behind the killings. Why would someone kill a family that appears faultless? This is what the whole grieving...
Words: 1386 - Pages: 6
...The town of Holcomb is the perfect place to set the stage for murder. In the opening of “In Cold Blood”, Truman Capote paints a picture of Holcomb that is nothing more than a dull, boring, and desolate small town. He develops his view thought specific detail selection which depicts visual imagery, a detached and repetitious tone, accompanied with a specialized sentence structure. In a town that is as dreary as Holcomb, no one would ever expect a quadruple murder. Through his details, Capote attempts to place Holcomb as an extremely desolate and lonesome a area. He refers to Holcomb as a place that “other Kansans call ‘out there’”. He also depicts that the small town is surrounded by rivers, prairies, and wheat fields which gives the reader a feeling of loneliness. Several times he mentions the decaying paint among the “aimless congregation of buildings”, which shows how he views that Holcomb is dull and unchanging. Capote also uses broad terms to describe the inhabitants. He has them all “barbed with a prairie twang [accent]”, and wearing trousers and “boots with pointed toes”. He focuses on the superficial and outward appearance of all of the townsfolk of Holcomb, while describing one specific towns person as “[she] wears a rawhide jacket, denims, and cowboy boots”. That is another way of saying trousers and pointed toe boots. He never really develops any unique insight into any of the inhabitants. This overgeneralization proves Capote’s view that Holcomb is one-dimensional...
Words: 818 - Pages: 4
...In Cold Blood Truman Capote I. The Last to See Them Alive The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call "out there." Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, a ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them. Holcomb, too, can be seen from great distances. Not that there's much to see simply an aimless congregation of buildings divided in the center by the main-line tracks of the Santa Fe Rail-road, a haphazard hamlet bounded on the south by a brown stretch of the Arkansas (pronounced "Ar-kan-sas") River, on the north by a highway, Route 50, and on the east and west by prairie lands and wheat fields. After rain, or when snowfalls thaw, the streets, unnamed, unshaded, unpaved, turn from the thickest dust into the direst mud. At one end of the town stands a stark old stucco structure, the roof of which supports an electric sign - dance - but the dancing has ceased and the advertisement has been dark for several years. Nearby is another building...
Words: 124288 - Pages: 498
...Throughout the start of the novel Capote introduces the Clutter family and characterises them, giving the reader an emotional attachment to them, even though the reader knows that the fate of the Clutters results in their brutal murder. The last character we read about before the death of the Clutter family is Nancy, during this time, we learn more about her as a person, giving us more of an emotional attachment to her. Nancy’s death is quite ironic ‘she set out the clothes she intended to wear to church the next morning’ it’s ironic, because the reader knows that she won’t be wearing it to church the next morning, because she will be murdered during the night – ‘it was the dress in which she was to be buried’. This end focus simple sentence creates sympathy for Nancy, because instead of wearing it to church the next day like intended, she wore it to be buried. We are shown just how selfless Nancy is in this extract ‘the midnight hours were her ‘time to be selfish and vain’. The fact that Nancy thinks that having a miniscule amount of time to herself is selfish and vain shows just how selfless she is because she’s always busy caring for others instead of caring for herself, and is seen as a motherly figure, ‘invariably the last of the family to retire’ this continues to show her selflessness and how she is a motherly figure as it implies that she is still awake after the rest of her family doing household duties and helping out other people. When thinking about Nancy...
Words: 720 - Pages: 3
...One of the most important aspects of a non-fiction book is that it be truthful. In fact, that is one of the only criteria. Truman Capote's In Cold Blood has raised some serious thoughts on whether or not it can be trusted in the literary world as completely factual, as Capote himself stated. It is extremely important that authors who state the work they have written is true, that it is, for the most part, unbiased and as factual as possible. One of the few pros of spicing up a true story is to make it more interesting. Audiences want to read a story that has a flair. In Cold Blood has recieve rave reviews since its' release in 1965. "Conrad Knickerbocker called the book, 'a remarkable, tensely exciting, moving, superbly written 'true account''" (Source B). However, even with kind literary reviews, Capote is still accused of false information, as examplified by the quotation marks around "true account."...
Words: 456 - Pages: 2
...In Cold Blood is a captivating novel about the murder of the Clutter family in 1959, described in great detail by Truman Capote. The story is an in-depth account not just of the murder of the Clutter family, but the murderer’s escape, the police’s chase, and the witnesses and townspeople’s trauma. The Clutter family was a happy, church-going, basic family in Holcomb, Kansas, and they were brutally killed one evening by Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, who fled to Mexico immediately after the deed was done. Alvin Dewey lead four special agents in the hunt for the killers until they found Floyd Wells, a former inmate of Dick who told him about the Clutters. The police found Dick and Perry in Las Vegas after Dick stupidly started writing large checks...
Words: 516 - Pages: 3
...Cheyenne McDermott Mrs. Albuquerque AP Language and Composition 11 September 2014 In Cold Blood “The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of Western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there.’ Not that there's much to see—simply an aimless congregation of buildings divided in the center by the main-line tracks of the Santa Fe railroad” (Capote 1). This lonesome, boring landscape was home to a town of people used to the normalcy and monotony that came with their everyday small-town life; until one day, when it all changed. It is November 1959 when the Clutter family is brutally murdered by two previously convicted cons, Perry Edward Smith and Richard Eugene Hickock. Not much was known about the mass homicide outside of the small Kansas village until, after 6 years of hard research, Truman Capote published his tell-all book. In this true story, Capote provided information that depicted the sad and pathetic lives lived by Smith and Hickock up until the murder and gave in depth details about the crime that could be known only by those who committed it (via multiple interviews). Initially, Capote opens the novel describing the small town and goes into detail about the Clutter family’s last living day. By doing this and revealing information about the family that was killed, Capote is taking measures to ensure his readers are sympathizing with the grieving townsfolk and those who knew the Clutters. By showing the readers that two men brutally...
Words: 1177 - Pages: 5
...Truly successful authors have the ability to convey their view of a place without actually saying it, to portray a landscape in a certain light simply by describing it. In the opening paragraphs of In Cold Blood, Truman Capote does just this. Through his use of stylistic elements such as selection of detail, imagery, and figurative language, Capote reveals his own solemn and mysterious view of Holcomb, Kansas, while setting the stage for an imminent change. Beginning in the first line of the passage, Capote selects the most boring details of life in the small town in order to portray its character. He draws attention to the physical isolation of Holcomb by referring to it as the place that "other Kansans call 'out there.'" In addition, he speaks of the parameters of the small town, pointing out that it is enclosed on all sides by rivers, prairies, and wheat fields. He describes the town as remote and unaffected, desolate and boring, continually mentioning the old, peeling paint and "irrelevant signs" that dot the landscape. Capote also gives the village a feeling of laziness in his writing, describing it as an "aimless congregation of buildings" and a "haphazard hamlet." He obviously feels that the town lacks liveliness, that it is bland and unchanging, simple and average. Almost looking down on the village and its inhabitants, the author characterizes the people in broad categories and focuses on their outward appearances and superficial similarities instead of delving more...
Words: 885 - Pages: 4
...In Cold Blood Truman Capote I. The Last to See Them Alive The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call "out there." Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, a ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them. Holcomb, too, can be seen from great distances. Not that there's much to see simply an aimless congregation of buildings divided in the center by the main-line tracks of the Santa Fe Rail-road, a haphazard hamlet bounded on the south by a brown stretch of the Arkansas (pronounced "Ar-kan-sas") River, on the north by a highway, Route 50, and on the east and west by prairie lands and wheat fields. After rain, or when snowfalls thaw, the streets, unnamed, unshaded, unpaved, turn from the thickest dust into the direst mud. At one end of the town stands a stark old stucco structure, the roof of which supports an electric sign - dance - but the dancing has ceased and the advertisement has been dark for several years. Nearby is another building...
Words: 124288 - Pages: 498
