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Rhetorical Analysis Of In Cold Blood

544 Words3 Pages

Eliana Larkin
Mr. Potts
English 1010
January 31, 2023
In Cold Blood Rhetorical Analysis
Published in 1965, the true crime book, In Cold Blood, takes a dive into the minds of two murderers and their victim's final days. Truman Capote, the author, utilizes numerous rhetorical strategies to create an impactful novel that influenced readers across the United States. Capote captures the true tragedy of this crime by creating a somber tone accomplished with the use of dual perspectives, foreshadowing, and details.
The nonlinear structure of this book plays a large role in the overall purpose of the novel. This structure gives perspective in a case that typically is one-sided. Capote uses this structure to show how twisted it is that the murderers commit a crime that ends the lives of a family while they themselves can continue to live their lives afterward. The story overall is devastating but because of this comparison between the perpetrators and their victims, the author manages to bring out an emotional response from the readers. …show more content…

During the first part of the book, Capote focused on the last day of the family members' lives, while using foreshadowing to remind the audience of what was ultimately going to happen to them. He would allude to the pending tragedy by writing things like “on their last day” or “he was unaware that it would be his last day” to add this suspense. Capote didn’t prolong his foreshadowing but instead made it very blunt and typically placed it in the last sentence of a paragraph. He did this frequently throughout the book by putting surprising or interesting details at the end of a paragraph which could have possibly been an attempt to keep the reader

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