Quotation:
“The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call ‘out there.’ . . .The land is flat, 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.” ( Page 3)
Commentary:
This quotation encapsulates the serenity of the Kansas plains and instills a certain comfortable and friendly environment, in which gruesome crimes are unlikely to happen. In describing the land as extensively beautiful and “out there”, Truman Capote is setting an environment of an isolated small town, where not much ever happens. This sets a contradictory theme for the rest of the book, as a small community of neighbors and friends turn on each other after a series of murders take place. In describing the town of Holcomb, Kansas, Capote uses strong imagery to set the tone for the small town as “calm before the storm.” Furthermore, Capote compares the unique grain fields to that of ancient Greek temples, indicating that the story contained in this novel has a larger significance as an inside look of timeless human themes such as murder and hatred and how these have existed for all of humanity.
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Quotation:
“But afterward the townspeople, therefore sufficiently unfearful of each other to seldom trouble to lock their doors, found fantasy re-creating them over and over again- those somber explosions that stimulated fires of mistrust in the glare of which many old neighbors viewed each other strangely, and as strangers.” (Page