In Cold Blood: The Devastation Of An American Dream

In Cold Blood: The Devastation of an American Dream

On November 14, 1959, two men armed with a shotgun and a knife, raided and killed a family of four. This occurrence resonated the community that lived close by (Knickerbocker 1 of 3). By contrasting the lives of the Clutter family and the lives of the killers, Truman Capote creates a harsh view of America and its increasing violence. Spending over half a decade writing the book, Truman Capote moved to Kansas and followed the end of every thread in the murder of the Clutter family (Knickerbocker 1 of 3). Capote wanted to establish that a truthful account can be as fascinating as the most ingenious thriller (Knickerbocker 1 of 3). Published in 1965, the book is a complete and exact interpretation of a middle-American town and the two vagabonds who eradicated the existence of one of the nation's finest families (Levitov 1 of 3).

The characters in the book include the murderers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, and the Clutter family, Herb, Bonnie, Nancy, and Kenyon Clutter. The murderers were social failures and disappointed romantics (Knickerbocker 2 of 3). Perry Smith had the normal existential hatred of the body because he despised his crushed legs (Knickerbocker 2 of 3). Sometimes at night, Smith, who was badly affected by enuresis, had dreams of an enormous bird that would carry him to salvation (Knickerbocker 2 of 3). Smith's accomplice, Dick Hickock, was simply the kid next door that turned out to be bad. The only charming thing about him was when he was writing bad checks to salesmen (Knickerbocker 2 of 3). Capote puts the murderers in their domestic and communal situations and lets their declarations and actions talk for themselves (Levitov 1 of 2). Capote neither pardons nor judges the murderers (Levitov 1 of 3). The Clutter family made particularly heartbreaking victims. Herbert Clutter did not allow any drinkers to work for him on his farm. Mr. Clutter's lovely daughter, Nancy, baked pies and was a dedicated member of the 4-H Club. Her father walked in on her while kissing a boy one time; she could no longer pursue a relationship with the boy since he was a Catholic (Knickerbocker 2 of 3). Mr. Clutter's righteous wife, Bonnie Clutter, was badly affected with cold tremors and anxiety attacks. Mrs. Clutter was the only atypical factor within the Clutter household (Knickerbocker 2 of 3). Kenyon Clutter, the son of Mr. Clutter, was crafty in the basement workshop (Knickerbocker 2 of 3). The family's lives rejected the opportunity of malevolence and in consequence, were fatefully diminished (Knickerbocker 2 of 3). "They had no vices and few faults of any kind. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) later concluded that 'of all the people in the world, the Clutters were the least likely to be murdered.'" (Herisken 356).

To write the book, Capote moved west to the place where the slaying occurred (Knickerbocker 1 of 3). To Capote, the murders in western Kansas insinuated less obvious (Knickerbocker 1 of 3). He managed to not only acquire cooperation from the friends and family of the victims and the Kansas authorities, but he also acquired the confidence of the murderers themselves (Levitov 1 of 2). "Of In Cold Blood, Capote said, 'This book was an important event for me. While writing it, I realized I just might have found a solution to what had always been my best creative quandary. I wanted to produce a journalistic novel, something on a large scale that would have the credibility of fact, the immediacy of film, the depth and freedom of prose, and the precision of poetry.'" ("Truman" 1 of 2). Capote wrote the book devoid of short hand methods, recorders, or any other mechanical assistance (Knickerbocker 2 of 3). "He memorized the event and its dialogues so thoroughly and so totally committed a large piece of his life to it." (Knickerbocker 2 of 3).

To read Capote's work is to advance into a magical and somewhat strange world filled with important characters and fascinating places (Handschuch 3 of 4). In Cold Blood presents the cultural background for understanding America's increasing cruelty and the consequential sensibility of life's futility (Herisken 359). His accomplishment of attracting the reader's attention is obvious on the first page. In only a few words, he takes the reader to the western region of Kansas. "The village of Holcomb stands on the high plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call 'out there.' Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, a ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them." (Capote 3). On the fifth page, Capote writes, "But then in the earliest hours of that morning in November, a Sunday morning, certain foreign sounds impinged on the normal nightly Holcomb noises--four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives." (Capote 5). When the four shotgun rounds are fired, the reader is immediately addicted to the novel ("Cold" 1 of 2).

Impacts from the book affected journalism and the entire country. The book analyzed the austere human and spiritual claims of such abrupt, illogical death for America (Herisken 356). "Violence and death escalated throughout the 1960's and In Cold Blood had helped to explain the human and spiritual impact of such death and violence; it was like being told there is no God." (Heriskin 359). The murder caused tremors throughout America and the effects of the slaying are still felt today (Levitov 1of 2). Capote's book helped demonstrate to journalists the option of using imaginative writing skills while possessing the rules of journalism (Jensen 1 of 5). In the job as a novelist-as-journalist-as-creator, Capote was pursuing a new type of statement. He aspired the truths to bring forward a reality that exceeded reality.

Challenges to Capote's claims of truthfulness in his book started to develop soon after its publication. Critics established divergence linking the book