Analysis Of Truman Capote s Cold Blood - 1622 Words

The usually quiet and lonesome village of Holcomb resides peacefully until the unthinkable happens. During mid-November of 1959 a family of four is shot in their own home. The brutal death of the Clutters creates a sense of uncertainty and paranoia over the village. Truman Capote writes on the tragic story in his novel, In Cold Blood. When found, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are appointed a trial and face Kansas’s death penalty. However, questions arise about the defendants’ punishment in relation to their mental capacity, specifically Perry Smith’s. Perry deserves to receive special consideration because his childhood causes his mental instability, which allows him to be easily persuaded and not in control of his actions. Perry endures a†¦show more content†¦As a result, making him seem as a malicious and spiteful human being. Green, the prosecuting attorney, goes onto state â€Å"And if ever there was a case in which the maximum penalty was justified, this is it. These were strange, ferocious murders† (304). They claim that others with similar childhoods exemplify the ability to overcome their situation and appear successful in life, so Perry should too. Moreover, they use Perry’s sister, Barbara, as an example of a person, who demonstrates the ability to appear as successful and conquer her childhood. However, it proves to be unfair to compare the childhood of Perry with the childhood of others. Each child and how they are affected by their situation appears as unique. Also, the argument of Barbara’s ability to overcome her childhood is overshadowed by the fates of his other three siblings and the comments she makes about her own future. When reflecting on her siblings doomful fates, she expresses feeling of torment as she â€Å"thought that in time, she too, would be overwhelmed: go mad, or contract an incurable illness, or in a fire lose all she valued-home, husband, and children† (183). Obviously Perry’s childhood deeply affects his mental capacity as well as his siblings. They are all products of their similar upbringing; â€Å"The eldest, the brother she loved, had shot himself; Fern had fallen out of a window or jumped; and Perry was committed to violence, a criminal† (183).The only otherShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Truman Capote s The Cold Blood 2055 Words   |  9 PagesJaswanth Sai Pyneni Mrs. Jiminez AP American Literature Language and Composition 3 August 2012 In Cold Blood 1. Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood. NY: Modern Library, 1965 2. Postmodernist Crime Nonfiction 3. In â€Å"In Cold Blood†(1965), a nonfiction novel, Truman Capote accounts for the murder of the Clutter family, residing in Holcomb, Kansas, and the events that followed. The mode of development includes Gothic themes and motifs to make the audience question the roles of the protagonists and the antagonistsRead MoreAnalysis Of Truman Capote s Cold Blood1868 Words   |  8 Pages In 1966, Truman Capote published a book that created an entire genre. Literary Journalism is a type of writing that uses literary techniques to tell a true story. The journalists who write these books spend years researching their subjects and some even form personal bonds with people they meet through their material collecting. Authors collect all of the information they can find about something they are interested in, and then write a book that is factually accurate, yet is written like a fictitiousRead MoreAnalysis Of Truman Capote s Cold Blood 1500 Words   |  6 PagesIn his novel In Cold Bl ood, Truman Capote writes about the Clutter family murders, which took place in November 1959. Herbert Clutter, Bonnie Clutter, and two of their children (Nancy and Kenyon) are murdered in their Holcomb, Kansas home by Perry Smith and Richard â€Å"Dick† Hickock. Capote s novel, though telling the tale of true events, took on fictional, literary elements, creating a genre of its own: the nonfiction novel. It is through these literary elements that Capote sought for his readersRead MoreAnalysis Of Truman Capote s The Cold Blood Essay1512 Words   |  7 PagesSummary: In Truman Capote‘s, In Cold Blood, the story of the 1959 Clutter Family murder is revealed. The audience is introduced to Perry Smith and Dick Hickock as they tune their car and acquire both a shotgun and a knife to rob Herbert Clutter of his â€Å"vast† fortune hidden, in what they assumed to be, a safe. Little did these men know that Herb’s fortune was hidden in the checks he used in subst itute for money, and by the time they came to this realization, it was too late. What was supposed to beRead MoreAnalysis Of Truman Capote s Cold Blood 1247 Words   |  5 PagesAdriana Reyes Professor Leigh Ann Weatherford English A102 November 22, 2016 In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is an exciting non-fiction novel and also a documentary of an authentic historical American crime. Capote utilizes distinctive voices to recount the story, making a closeness between the readers and the murders, the readers and the victims, and the various players in this event—townspeople, agents, companions of the family. He doesn t simply introduce the actualities of the case, all throughRead MoreAnalysis Of Truman Capote s Cold Blood 1304 Words   |  6 Pages 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. He revels two mass murders who are portrayed and embodied the simplicity of being human. Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood, devoted his life to give his audience every glimpse of the horrid murder of the Clutter family. Not to give a history lesson or a news story, but to present how two men of different backgroundsRead MoreAnalysis Of Truman Capote s Cold Blood1091 Words   |  5 Pagesgets the death penalty while the other gets 15 years. To think that the outcome should be the same, however there are more than one factors that play into a person receiving the death penalty and they are not always considered fair. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, displays a situation where Perry Smith commits a violent crime, and is charged with the death penalty instead of serving years in prison. Some might argue that his crime was vicious enough for him to receive death, but who gave them theRead MoreAnalysis Of Truman Capote s Cold Blood 1616 Words   |  7 Pagesrights to justice afforded to others elsewhere. America purports to have a duty to serve justice, yet the justice system provides little leeway to those whose crimes are not their fault. This notion of unfulfilled justice appears in In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. When Dick and Perry commit murder, the circumstances are such that Perry cannot be entirely accountable for the actions he took. Perry bears no responsibility for the crimes he committed; storied psychological illnesses and pitfalls compromisedRead MoreAnalysis Of Truman Capote s Cold Blood 1585 Words   |  7 PagesMatthew Capps Miss Sibbach AP English III 10 December, 2014 In Cold Blood? One of the many jobs of the jury in 1960s Kansas would include the deciding of the mental state of killers of mass murder trials choosing between insanity, sentencing the murderers to penitentiary, or sanity giving them death. Truman Capote’s novel In Cold Blood shows the withdrawal of sanity through the lives and relationships of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, who hung for the murders of the Clutters, a prominent family fromRead MoreAnalysis Of Truman Capote s The Cold Blood 923 Words   |  4 PagesLang Comp 10 August 2017 In Cold Blood Reflection Paper The novel â€Å"In Cold Blood† by Truman Capote is truly a very intriguing piece of literature. Based on a true story, the events of the novel follow the homicide of a loving family who are brutally murdered in a single night and tensions within the community rise as the real culprits are being searched for. Now the plot of the story isn’t what makes this an extraordinary piece, it’s the tone and mood that Capote uses to describe certain events