Truman Capote's In Cold Blood Essay

stable, men of certain races and lifestyles. Although the 50’s and 60’s are often portrayed as ideal decades for all people living in the United States, Truman Capote’s novel, In Cold Blood, changes that mindset because it reveals some of the more controversial ideas of the time exposingthat the American Dream was not for everyone. II In Cold Blood was published…

Truman Capote’s, In Cold Blood, is rich in allusions. Throughout the novel Capote uses allusions to call something to mind and he does this without directly mentioning it. Many of the allusions Capote uses are Biblical references. Early on in the book the reader is aware that someone is going to be killed. Capote is building the suspense early on in the book. He first makes a biblical reference when Mr. Clutter says, “an inch more of rain and this country would be paradise—Eden of earth” (12).…

The novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a suspense filled crime story about two criminals and their devious deeds fueled by their want of money. This horrific quest brings Dick and Perry to the Clutter home where they mercilessly decimate the Clutters and steal their money. This novel also follows Capote’s research on these men looking on their past to somehow clue him to why they were so messed up. The universal theme of family life and its importance is established through the threatening…

expectation is the stereotypical American Dream, which is extremely open to interpretation. This relentless desire for ‘stability’- for this fallacious sense of material comfort- expresses itself in different characteristics. In the novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote analyzes Dick Hickock and Perry Smith; fugitives convicted of murder. They are subjective failures of subjective expectations of subjective justifications. He explains Perry as “an urchin dependent, so to say, on…

accepting society existed back then than today. The town of Holcomb, Kansas in 1959, faced a major crime exploiting how society deals with differences, when the most respected family, the Clutters, were all brutally murdered. In Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood, Capote introduces the psychological state of one of the killers, Perry Smith, by using his family structure, his relationship with the man in charge of this crime, Dick Hickock, and his self resentment in order to reveal…

impaired reasoning and emotional instability and can cause violent behavior”(Schizophrenia). Schizophrenia is also linked with an increase in substance abuse and violence, as can be seen with Perry Smith, the main character from Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel In Cold Blood. Although some may argue that Smith was aware of his behaviors when murdering the Clutter family, his diagnosis of schizophrenia and lack of proper treatment throughout his life should have affected the extent of his…

What constitutes cruel and unusual punishment? To Truman Capote, capital punishment came in direct violation of the 8th Amendment, regardless of the crime.. This was evident when he graphically described the hanging of Lowell Lee Andrews, a cellmate of the murderers in In Cold Blood. When initially written, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood was a revolutionary novel. By exploring the quadruple murder which shocked a quiet Kansas town, Capote brought the genre of true crime to life as well as the…

course, yet it’s important to establish the fact that they are people with thoughts and emotions, no matter how skewed they may be. In Truman Capote's True Crime novel, In Cold Blood, he takes this thought wholeheartedly when describing Perry Smith, one of the two murders of the Clutter family. He uses…

In the book, In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote the two killers, Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, should have both been sentenced to death. Even though Dick never pulled the trigger or assisted anyway in the killing of the Clutter family he never told Perry not to stop. Dick brought the shotgun and had intended on using it but never did. Perry was the one that killed all four if the Clutter’s so his sentencing was more clear cut than Dick’s. They killed them left and on their way back…

Statistics show that more than 30 people are shot and murdered daily. While reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, it states “A tragedy unbelieveable and shocking beyond words, struck four members of the Herb Clutter family late Saturday night or earlier today”. (Capote 70) The Clutter family was the ideal family. Everyone in the town looked up…