Holcomb In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood Essay #2 Although Capote portrays Holcomb as a quiet, safe, little town, he displays that Holcomb was the 7th victim in the murder; therefore he exhibits that even the most safest of places can succumb to evil. Capote employs symbolism amidst the devilish acts committed against the Clutters to establish that not only Clutters fell to evil that night, Holcomb fell at the feet of evil that night as well. As Herb’s past hunting partners send off their friend through the burning of their tainted possessions, Capote goes into depth on the details of the fire: “How was it possible that such effort, such plain virtue, could overnight be reduced to this--smoke, thinning as it rose and was received by the big, annihilating sky”(Capote 79). As the Clutters past possessions are reduced to “thinning” smoke, it represents how Holcomb is also “thinning” due to the wide stretched horror that this evil has brought about. Capote works to emphasize the shift that occurs in Holcomb. It emphasizes that evil has enslaved this perfect town of Holcomb and has

As Dewey arrives into a diner Capote provides insight into what this case is doing to him: “In fact, during the past three weeks Dewey had dropped twenty pounds. His suits fitted as though he had borrowed them from a stout friend, and his face, seldom suggestive of his profession, was now not at all so; it could have been that of an ascetic absorbed in occult pursuits”(Capote 149). Capote provides us with a very vivid representation of Dewey’s figure to indicate that this case is destroying him from the inside out. With this idea of Dewey falling apart readers can draw a parallel between him and Holcomb in the sense that Holcomb is “losing weight”, Holcomb doesn’t fit into its “suit”. This evil has murdered the very idea of a “safe”