In Cold Blood Corruption

Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood, effectively explores the effects of the Clutter family’s unexpected murder on the small community of Holcomb, Kansas. This unexpected murder had lasting and detrimental effects on the people of the town. Having been in Kansas during the time the trials and court cases had been executed, Capote observed that the murder had destroyed the community’s sense of trust, shattered their image of the American Dream, and prompted them to reevaluate their stance on the death penalty. The sudden murder of the Clutter family played a huge role in shaking the foundation of trust that had been built up throughout the years in the small town of Holcomb. Upon the murder of the well-respected family, many

The American Dream is built on the ideal that any citizen of the United States can achieve wealth and success through hard work and perseverance. In the beginning of the novel, Mr. Clutter is characterized as a man who was “always certain of what he wanted from the world” and “had in large measure obtained it” (Capote 6). Due to the fact that he has succeeded in becoming prosperous, he is portrayed as the embodiment of the American Dream itself. The murder of his family had shattered the town’s perspective of the American Dream, as they are forced to face the reality of fate. The townspeople come to realize that although they are capable of achieving the American Dream, there is nothing that can protect them from their inevitable fate. The people of Holcomb are thus stripped of their false conviction that the achievement of the American dream guarantees both stability and security. Charles L. Crow explores various issues in American culture throughout literature in his novel, History of the Gothic: American Gothic. In discussing Capote’s In Cold Blood, Crow describes the novel as “an attack on the pastoral and therefore on America’s sense of identity and security” (Crow). In this, Crow states that Capote’s novel is intended to criticize the glorified portrayal of rural life as safe and secure; in other words, Capote criticizes the American Dream, and the idea that wealth and prosperity will

Once the two culprits were captured, it was determined that they would be hanged for murder. However, the townspeople were unnerved by the seemingly innocent personality of Perry Smith. In Crime and Punishment in Kansas: Capote's In Cold Blood, George Garrett’s analysis of the novel, he states that Perry is Capote’s “sacrificial victim [who was meant] to ease the reader's reluctant conscience and to appease...the reader's taste for conventional morality” (Garrett, GALE). Perry’s disturbing past urges both the reader and the townspeople to view the culprit’s entire story from a moral standpoint. Thus, this causes them to empathize with him and question whether such a brutal punishment should be inflicted upon a man who may potentially have mental issues. The uncertainty that arises in the minds of the townspeople is portrayed in the prosecutor’s conversation with the newsman after Perry is hanged. The newsman states that he never killed four people in cold blood, to which the prosecutor replies that “hanging the bastard” is “pretty goddamn cold-blooded too” (Capote 306). In this statement, the prosecutor expresses his belief that it is not morally correct to hang a murderer who has had such a traumatic past without testing for any sign of mental illness or