Manipulation In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

“Manipulation is all about reading between the lines and recognizing the lies for what they are” (No Author), Truman Capote wanted to gain the the reader's pity and remorse for Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. At first, capote just wanted to tell the facts of the case to the world but he became attached to Smith. In the novel, In Cold Blood, written in 1965, Truman Capote, a well-known author, asserts that the Clutter family was murdered and that Perry Smith should have the reader's’ pity by using first hand accounts, the murder, and the murderer's story. In “The Last to See Them Alive” section, Capote sets the scene and gives the eyewitness statements of the day leading up to the murder. Holcomb is “a lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there’ (Capote 3). Southwest Kansas is four hours from a major city, so out there is a good way to describe Holcomb. Capote came to Holcomb because he read a small story detailing the crime. He experienced writer's block at the time and then decided that he would write the story in its full length (Plimpton 1966). Capote interviewed Mrs. Clarence Katz, a neighbor, Mrs. Ashida, a friend of the Clutters, Mr. Helm, the groundskeeper, and many …show more content…
He wanted to inform readers of the murders and the investigation. The FBI was brought in and assigned Dewey, Nye, Church, and Duntz. Dewey used to be Finney County sheriff so, he was assigned the lead (Capote 80). Hickock and Smith were already home by the time Dewey took over. Hickock was confident that Smith and him would not be found (Capote 90). While they were confident, people in Holcomb were so scared that they “changed the locks” (Capote 87). Holcomb, Kansas was not used to this heinous crime, they all were scared that it was not a one time occurrence and that the murderer was one of them. Capote thought that this was different then anything that his readers had heard