Use integrated linguistic and literary approaches to discuss how Capote presents Mrs Hickock in this extract. Go on to compare how the presentation of mothers elsewhere in “In Cold Blood” and in “True History of the Kelly Gang”.
In this extract Capote presents Mrs Hickock in a 3rd person narrative description of her reaction at the trial of her son, and also how she expresses herself and her feelings toward the matter. This extract is during the trial wherein they describe Dick’s crimes.
Capote describes Mrs Hickock’s grief using verb phrases such as “simulated a smile” which is effective in emphasising how hard the smile truly was. The way in which Capote depicts Mrs Hickock and how she “expressed a need to confide” using the noun “need” in a way that exemplifies her how much of a necessity the talk was to her, which further represents her outlet of grief. Using several adjectives such as “rumpled” and adverbs such as “flimsily” suggest how weak she is feeling at this moment in time. Despite her grief Capote still uses the somewhat cheery adjectives “pudgy” and “agreeable” to describe Mrs Hickock which contrasts her inner turmoil which I feel somewhat represents Capote’s journalistic style at this time in contrast to his fiction style because throughout the extract he generally recounts it as a journalistic point, facts and his own memory of Mrs Hickock and then using those adjectives gives the impression he liked the woman, and was inputting a somewhat opinionated description of her.
Capote depicts Mrs Hickock as a mother using a 1st person dialogue of when she was talking to the “woman reporter”. He uses the adjective “crazy” to emphasise her absolute adoration of dancing alongside “Dick”, and then contrasts that man to her son Dick. “Nobody ever danced with me again until I learned Dick” using the sort of colloquial verb “learned” to emphasise her role as a