Point Of View In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

How the Point of View Can Change Everything
Why do we need to know the different points of view of a book? Or why does it matter? Sometimes, if you just leave it how it is, the reader can get confused and not know what is happening in the book, or in other words, they are lost. In the book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, Capote switches the point of view in almost every chapter to keep the reader hooked. At the beginning of the book, he likes to switch from the Clutters and then to Dick and Perry. When Capote switches the point of view in the chapters this opens up, the complexity of the text and how we get to learn more about the characters, with the killings in the book we get to see what each character’s view on the murders and we get to

In the book In Cold Blood, Truman Capote switches the points of view between the Clutter family and the murders Dick and Perry. During the first part of the book, we got to know the Clutters family more than Dick and Perry. After the murders took place We learned more about Dick and Perry we wanted to know what they were doing at the same time the police were investigating the case. At the end of a chapter Capote says, “‘When this is cleared up, I’ll wager whoever did it was someone within ten miles of where we now stand’” (Capote 88). The next chapter switches to Dick and Perry’s points of view, and Dick states, “‘But on the whole it was perfect. We hit the ball right out of the park. It’s lost. And it’s gonna stay lost. There isn’t a single connection’” (91). The first quote helps explain that the people don’t know who the murderers are quite yet and they can not imagine who they could be because they couldn’t think of someone who could do such a thing. Dick thinks at that time he believes that they are home free and that they will never get caught. When Capote switches the point of view between these chapters it helps us understand how the characters think and it gives us a general idea of what the character think and

One major cliffhanger that Capote left the readers with was after the murders of the Clutter family. At the end of one chapter, we are left with, “His legs trembled; the pain in his knees made him perspire. He wiped his face with a paper towel. He unlocked the door and said, ‘O.K. Let’s go.’” (55). At the time we don’t know what they are going to do except for Dicks idea of his “score”. We are left clueless and we are curious about what is going to happen. Later on in the same chapter, we find out more about what they have done, “‘ I thought mauve the child was hurt. It seemed to me the first thing to do was call an ambulance. Miss Kidwell-Susan-she told me there was a telephone in the kitchen. I found it right where she said. But the receiver was off the hook, and when I picked it up, I saw the line had been cut’” (60). At the end of this chapter, we begin to speculate what they have done. This allows the reader to get hooked and want to read