Nancy's Bedroom Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Rhetorical Analysis of Truman Capote’s “Nancy’s Bedroom” In the passage, “Nancy’s Bedroom” from the novel, In Cold Blood, the author, Truman Capote, creates a vivid description of Nancy’s bedroom to help the reader connect with Nancy. Capote portrays a descriptive view of her bedroom to convey her personality. He uses many rhetorical strategies to create a feeling of sorrow and reveals the femininity and innocence of young Nancy Clutter. He uses figurative language throughout the passage to represent Nancy’s femininity and her typical teenage life. Capote uses varied sentence structure and devices to provide descriptive knowledge about Nancy. He also creates multiple tones throughout the passage to show the innocent content of Nancy’s character. He uses these strategies to show that …show more content…
In the first paragraph, a polysyndeton is used in “pink or blue or white,” yet simple, it slows the pace and creates effect, as if the reader were in remembrance of Nancy. He continues with the use of parallel structure. Capote also uses the repetition of ideas to show their significance. In the first paragraph, young Bobby Rupp, was mentioned three times. The author uses short, verb phrases such as “swinging a bat, dribbling a basketball, driving a tractor, wading in bathing trunks” to create emphasis. The last sentence of the passage contains the sentences Nancy writes in her diary on the last day of her life. She writes “Jolene K. came over and I showed her how to make a cherry pie. Practiced with Roxie. Bobby here and we watched TV. Left at eleven.” The author inserts these short, choppy sentence fragments to emphasize the ordinariness of Nancy’s teenage life. All of the devices Capote uses provide background information that helps create a sense of innocence towards Nancy, making her murder more ironic and