Holcomb, Kansas

American Dream The fabrication of the American Dream clouds the actuality of the dream itself. The fabrication of the America Dream is if, achieved, security, wealth, and happiness to a person are guaranteed. In the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, the Clutters, a family of four achieves the American Dream. In the perspective of two troubled men the Clutter family obtained what the men thought was unobtainable. From their unhinged adolescence two men desired an escape to happiness. The…

The village of Holcomb was far away in Kansas, which made for it to be quiet with a very small population where not many events occurred. Truman Capote had conveyed his message to his readers with the help of the rhetorical strategies of imagery, amplification and anaphora when he wrote, “In Cold Blood”. The use of these strategies helps the audience get to know the citizens and what it was like in the small village of Holcomb. Without the use of rhetorical strategies, is it possible for…

Syntax: Throughout the work, Capote uses various excellent forms of sentence structures to convey certain principles. For instance, begininning on page 97, Capote opens the paragraph with short, concise sentences. In the text, Capote is describing Dick Hickock, and his past experiences as being a con artist. Dick similarly uses these kinds of sentences/phrases as he is conning someone. He uses lines that short, to the point, and without hesitation; Capote does the same to capture his essence.…

In his novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote explores a significant controversy in the American justice system: the death penalty. He carefully describes a dramatic incident in Holcomb, Kansas when four members of the respected Clutter family are killed. When the murderers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, are finally caught after an extensive investigation, they are given the death sentence. Through a historically accurate and compelling novel, Capote criticizes capital punishment by humanizing Perry…

Maddie Entine Hosseini: • His first book, The Kite Runner, focused on men and the male perspective. To get the full 360, he decided to write a book from a females perspective. He wanted people to hear both male and female sides of his native country, Afghanistan. • He took a trip to Afghanistan. It wasn’t a trip intended to be about “researching a book” but to educate himself on the culture and lives of the people. About a year later, he began to form A Thousand Splendid Suns. He compiled all…

Hickock recruited Perry Smith after he is led to believe the Clutter’s small ranch house bears a safe containing $10,000 by his former cellmate in the Kansas State Penitentiary, Floyd Wells (Capote 161). The duo plan to invade the home, clean out the safe, and retreat to mexico, steadfast in their decision that “anyone they encountered would not live to bear witness,” (Capote…

Part I: Capote began the account by describing Holcomb,…

While Perry Smith and Dick Hickock’s murder of the Clutter family from Holcomb, Kansas in 1959 shook the nation, the graphic reports of the murder scene resulted in tremendous anxiety and the devastating loss of trust amongst families. A nationwide hunt for the cold-blooded murderers began, but the lack of clues from the crime scene stumped the best of investigators and encouraged a growth of uninformed, panicked claims about what the criminals were like. In the nonfiction novel In Cold Blood,…

Dick and Perry's lives in the Book, “In Cold Blood,” were portrayed as cold blooded murders in Holcomb. The murders they committed were lethal, brutal, and some may dare to say inhumane. The killing of the Clutter family is the main focus of the book, and although you clearly can justify the fact that Dick and Perry deserve to die for what they did, Truman Capote, the author of the book seems to think that the capital punishment should be stopped and was not necessary on behalf of the murders, I…

The Clutter family was a well-respected family that lived on a large ranch in Holcomb, Kansas. The head of the family, Herbert William Clutter, and his bedridden wife, Bonnie Clutter, had four children, two of which (Nancy and Kenyon) were still residing in their home (Capote, 1966). Unfortunately, the four were murdered during a break in on November 15, 1959 (Capote, 1966). The killers, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, drove 400 miles to the Clutter house with the goal of breaking in and…