...Everyone comes from a different environment. What influences us in becoming the person we are or meant to be? There are several things that influence our life from utero to birth and then form birth to death. Some are the environment around us while some from the natural aspects like our features which we inherit from our parents. Whatever we do, good or bad, it helps form who we are. Family, education, financial status, are some of the factors that come into play when we think about how an individual is molded into who they are. Or is an individual born with these qualities? Are cold blooded killers naturally born as killers? The environment where you grew in may have a great effect on you. It influences the way you behave and respond to situations. What shapes us and how we...
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...Holcomb, Kansas, is a village containing approximately three hundred citizens. The square town is with described with having rivers, stations, horses, fields of wheat, a bank, and a school. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, an image of the town of Holcomb is presented throughout types of style such as, diction, imagery, syntax, and tone. In order to communicate a Western way of speaking used in Holcomb, Truman Capote mentions the town as, "out there," and says the pronunciation of the Arkansas River as "Ar-kan-sas." Throughout the town there are a few signs which cause a ghostly presence there. For example, "—Dance—but dancing has ceased and the advertisement has been dark for several years," and "HOLCOMB BANK," which later on said,...
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...In the 1960s, a time when American views towards crime and punishment were relentless, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood was a shock to society as it challenged the prevailing attitudes towards criminals. Throughout the era, society often demonized criminals and thought that they were unworthy of a second chance. The belief of the time was that these individuals were inherently evil and deserved only the harshest punishment: death. In the context of these perceptions, Capote began his novel about the brutal murders of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas. While conducting his research, Capote got to know the perpetrators of the crime, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. Instead of condemning Smith and Hickock as irredeemable monsters, Capote chose to give his readers another perspective on them. By strategically choosing how to...
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...The concrete dictionary definition of a protagonist is the leader of the story. Many people would say Perry Smith, the murder of the Clutter family is our protagonist; however, we would need to include Richard Hickock because without him, this novel and crime wouldn’t have happened. There can only be one true protagonist in a story. This is why Truman Capote the author and controller of In Cold Blood is our protagonist. This novel that very obviously is biased. The reader can only view the story through Capote’s eyes. Capote was especially opinionated on two things, capital punishment and the felons themselves. It is very apparent that Capote is against capital punishment. He places several anti-death penalty statements and uses this book to...
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...In Cold Blood is a non-fiction novel written by Truman Capote. Truman Capote was born in New Orleans in 1934. His birth last name is ‘Persons’, but his stepfather adopted him and took his last name. Growing up, he was largely neglected by his parents and bullied by schoolmates. Truman was a very good student in subjects that interested him but failed in all other academics. Although, many of his teachers had recognized his excellent writing skills. During his teen years, Truman got a job at The New Yorker. He attempted to get his own works published, but they would not publish them and he quit. After many years and some hit novels later, Truman read an article of four mysterious deaths in Kansas in 1959. Truman and his friend, Harper Lee, went...
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...Bad things happen to good people because of the ill intent of others, their actions, or chance. In In Cold Blood, the Clutter family’s murder served as an event of the result of the ill intent of others. The murderers, Dick and Perry, planned a “‘sure-fire cinch’” by stealing from the Clutters and leaving “‘No witnesses’” (Capote 233). Their plan resulted in the misfortune of the Clutter family. The bad things that happened to Perry and Dick also resulted in the murder of the Clutters. Unable to provide for his family financially, Dick resorted to criminal activity. Perry's parents vastly affected him. His happy life changed when his mother started physically abusing his mother, who took to drinking and infidelity. Ending up in orphanages and...
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...There is a great possibility of two distinctly opposing personalities, one moral and upstanding and the other evil and heartless, residing in people. Although one personality dominates the other, the opposite personality reveals itself during certain circumstances. The suppressed personality could possibly be the real personality, and the personality that is displayed the most is a mask a person wears that was shaped by environmental factors. In Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood,” the character Perry has opposing thoughts after murdering a family: ‘“know what I think...I think there must be something wrong with us. To do what we did”’ (108). These opposing thoughts of his surface to keep him and every other person humane as possible. Genetics...
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...Human history has always been tainted with crime and wrongdoing. Thus being said, the severity of crime has varied and likewise, the punishments for crime have varied. In the case of murder, there has always been the question of the morality of capital punishment and whether or not the criminals who committed the murder have been sound of mind. In his novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote uses diction, imagery, and tone to convey his central message that criminals such as Dick and Perry belong in a mental hospital, not on the Death Row. Truman Capote utilizes diction to persuade his audience to share the same view that he has on capital punishment. Capote’s target audience, particularly during the trial, is those who work in the judicial system...
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...Truman Capote’s novel “In Cold Blood” was a very monumental step in the genre of real crime, mostly due to his extreme narrative take on this true story. The story in which an average farm family were brutally murdered by two men for a shameful amount of money. These two men are none other than Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. Both being main focal points in Truman Capote’s way of making a true story into a narrative. He uses these two as something to relate to, making the reader understand them and feel more compassion for them. Slowly twisting the truth to make the reader depict the image of two normal men incapable of doing such a misdeed. With all of this in mind I believe Truman does this to make you very confused about the two. Making the readers opinion become the central reason why this novel is considered a narrative because without there would nothing be guiding the narrative....
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...In the enormous first chapter of In Cold Blood, Truman Capote writes with large purpose in his diction. The descriptive setting and character set up provides a different approve to the development of context. Capote begins the story writing about the accounts of two peoples, the Clutter family and Dick and Perry. Capote's diction for these accounts is carefully chosen to remind the reader of the legitimacy of the book. Typically when things are written about similar horrific events, the characterization of the unjust is harsh and excessively hostile because you are supposed to hate them, but in In Cold Blood, Capote reproduces Dick and Perry and rational people. Yes, he still tells of their unlawful plan but he still describes them as real...
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...In Truman Capote’s novel “ In Cold Blood” we see Capote toying with the idea of true friendship versus infatuation. We see some moments within the text where characters become drawn to another character, in a an unhealthy infatuation, in order to reap the benefits of their union. What Perry seeks from Willie-Jay is validation. He wants a friend that will recognize how rare and artistic he is so that he can continue to feel accomplished and included in world that has labelled him as a criminal and a degenerate. He states “ And only Willie-Jay had ever recognized his worth… had acknowledged that he was not just an undersized, over muscular halfbreed,” (Capote,45). In this passage, we see that Perry doesn’t actually state his “worth” but he does...
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...The Guilt of a Man: Reason of Insanity or Plain Criminal? Truman Capote’s 1965 historical nonfiction, In Cold Blood, perfectly illustrates the lives of two men who committed an unforgiving crime. Set in Holcomb, Kansas, the mid-twentieth century, Capote spends a part of his life analyzing the depths and strategies behind these men’s true nature of their lives in exchange for his determined ambition to find out whether the men were wrongfully dealt with or rightfully executed. In order for Capote to expose the truth behind the men’s actions, he must go and find out the background of their lives’, and whether they were competent when committing this crime, more specifically one man. The wrongdoings of men, Perry Edward Smith and Richard (Dick) Eugene Hickock, must be analyzed to find out their true...
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...In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, a book about two murderers slaughtering an innocent family with no supposed motive, takes place in the small town of Holcomb. Looking deeper into the story Holcomb, an agricultural town, is deeply unified by the close and intimate space shared between one another and the occupation of a similar craft as the ones around. This in return intensifies the progression of the story by making the slaughtering of the Clutter’s much more severe. Producing grain together makes a murder much more somber due to connections established in the process. The Clutter’s have a tight knit bond with most of Holcomb, as with most others in the village because everyone has the common vision of “marriage and agricultural success”(Browder...
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...Truman Capote establishes many significant themes in his novel In Cold Blood. Capote utilizes the characters, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, in order to perceive them as cold blooded killers. In the beginning of the novel, it states “In the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by a blast from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces.” It was apparent that in this novel a frequent and compelling theme revolving around man’s inhumane treatment of other human beings was going to be salient in developing this perplexing story. In Cold Blood manipulates the theme of inhumane treatment to describe the murder that Dick and Perry committed, as well as a basis for character development. The murder...
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...Remorseless. Cold. Vile. The presented illustrates just a few of the words that society uses to label criminals. Although society expects that individuals who commit crimes get thrown into the same pile, a vast difference divides a cold-hearted killer from a misguided individual. The Capote classic, In Cold Blood, explores the contrast between these categories with the duo of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. While Perry may not exhibit the moral qualities of a sensible individual, the fault of his crimes fall more on his need for love and acceptance. On the other side of the spectrum, Hickock fits into the classic criminal mold like a glove. Perry’s fondness of one individual, Willie-Jay, provides more depth to his need for guidance. Throughout...
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