Solomon, Jeff. “Capote and the Trillings: Homophobia and Literary Culture: At Midcentury.” Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 54, no. 2, 2008, pp. 129-165, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20479846. Accessed 21 Feb. 2017.
The Trillings are a couple that have a very powerful voice in New York in the 1940s. Capote sees them at Grand central Station and he “’wanted to know why it was that Lionel had ignored Forster's homosexuality. Now this was not only a bold question to put at the top of his shrill voice in a very crowded car in those days’” (130). Solomon says that Capote “turned his homo sexuality into a marketable good at a time when assertions of homosexuality outside of private contexts were met with censorship, derision, and oppression… [He] …show more content…
Solomon also point out on page 133 that “In Cold Blood is atypical of Capote's work in having a homosexual subtext rather than overt gay concerns.” Many of his other works like Other Voices, Other Rooms, The Grass Harp, and Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the short stories collected in A Tree of Night have openly homosexual characters or themes. Solomon thinks that critics try to cover up Capote’s writing by making him a celebrity more than an author because the people of that time don’t want the homosexuality of his works to show. Despite Capote’s constant desire to speak up for the gays, gay liberationists did not want to associate with him because of his public intoxication and wicked gossip. Shockingly, Solomon says that “Capote's work was as unpalatable as his person to many gay and lesbian activists and scholars, especially those of the Stonewall generation” (134). This is because in his stories he shows …show more content…
She believes that the books main focus is a psychological issues, not the character’s situation or actions. The main character in this book, Joel, is so heavily layered with symbols that his humanity is lost for the sake of the book and his being acts only as a fraction of the self. This individual to Capote, is just a mirror of the mind, which he is trying to expose. Most authors take something confusing and clarify, whereas Capote takes something normal and complicates it. “Characters continually divide into two parts, either in dream or in reality” (517). Young also states that when cognizance of real flesh is taken, it is a bitter acknowledgement. She basically concludes saying nothing in Capote’s book makes any logical sense, and new exciting stuff happens at every random corner. “[This] landscape is also psychic, a mystery”
The Trillings are a couple that have a very powerful voice in New York in the 1940s. Capote sees them at Grand central Station and he “’wanted to know why it was that Lionel had ignored Forster's homosexuality. Now this was not only a bold question to put at the top of his shrill voice in a very crowded car in those days’” (130). Solomon says that Capote “turned his homo sexuality into a marketable good at a time when assertions of homosexuality outside of private contexts were met with censorship, derision, and oppression… [He] …show more content…
Solomon also point out on page 133 that “In Cold Blood is atypical of Capote's work in having a homosexual subtext rather than overt gay concerns.” Many of his other works like Other Voices, Other Rooms, The Grass Harp, and Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the short stories collected in A Tree of Night have openly homosexual characters or themes. Solomon thinks that critics try to cover up Capote’s writing by making him a celebrity more than an author because the people of that time don’t want the homosexuality of his works to show. Despite Capote’s constant desire to speak up for the gays, gay liberationists did not want to associate with him because of his public intoxication and wicked gossip. Shockingly, Solomon says that “Capote's work was as unpalatable as his person to many gay and lesbian activists and scholars, especially those of the Stonewall generation” (134). This is because in his stories he shows …show more content…
She believes that the books main focus is a psychological issues, not the character’s situation or actions. The main character in this book, Joel, is so heavily layered with symbols that his humanity is lost for the sake of the book and his being acts only as a fraction of the self. This individual to Capote, is just a mirror of the mind, which he is trying to expose. Most authors take something confusing and clarify, whereas Capote takes something normal and complicates it. “Characters continually divide into two parts, either in dream or in reality” (517). Young also states that when cognizance of real flesh is taken, it is a bitter acknowledgement. She basically concludes saying nothing in Capote’s book makes any logical sense, and new exciting stuff happens at every random corner. “[This] landscape is also psychic, a mystery”