The Criticisms Of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

Axar Patel

Mr. Cronk

English 11H

Dec 20, 2022

The Criticisms of In Cold Blood When one accomplishes or develops anything, it is bound to have criticisms. Criticisms don’t always have to be bad, they can also be good affairs. Authors, engineers, doctors, scientists, and many other people face criticism all the time. An author like Truman Capote, who wrote the true crime novel, In Cold Blood, had many criticisms. In the novel In Cold Blood, the author Truman Capote uses characterization to convey the protagonist and the antagonists unfairly as well as an unique style of writing. In the novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, many criticisms are based on how Capote uses characterization to convey the protagonist and the antagonists in an unfair

He shows progression of the book by going back and forth through flashbacks of the Clutters to the murderers. The author mostly uses direct quotes that are in the form of conversations, such as, monologues or dialogues, as the narrative (Bloom 104). The narrative is created using selection or selected parts of a larger work (Bloom 101). The case described in the novel showed special structuring principles about the killers case (Wainwright 13).

The author had called the book a “nonfiction novel” and a new type of journalism. It has some debat about it becoming a new form of literature (Hollowell 1). However, Capote has never said that he invented narrative journalism (Bloom 120).

“The decision (to write In Cold Blood) was based on a theory I've harbored since I first began writing professionally, which is well over twenty years ago. It seemed to me that journalism, reportage, could be forced to yield a serious new art form: the "nonfiction novel." as I thought of it. Several admirable reporters -Rebecca West for one, and Joseph Mitchell and Lillian Ross-have shown the possibilities of narrative reportage” (Hollowell

"In Cold Blood." Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: Analyses Series: Articles, Osprey, Beacham Publ., 1996, pp. 2092-98.

Bloom, Harold. Truman Capote. New ed., New York City, Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2009.

Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood: A True Account of Multiple Murder and Its Consequences. New York City, Vintage Books, 1993.

Hickman, Trenton. "'The Last to See Them Alive': Panopticism, the Supervisory Gaze, and Catharsis in Capote's (-- removed HTML --) In Cold Blood (-- removed HTML --) ." Truman Capote, New Edition, Chelsea House, 2022. Bloom's Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=18531&itemid=WE54&articleId=47498. Accessed 13 Dec. 2022.

Hollowell, John. "From 'Truman Capote's 'Nonfiction Novel'.'" Twentieth Century American Literature: Truman Capote, Chelsea House, 2022. Bloom's Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=18531&itemid=WE54&articleId=636988. Accessed 16 Dec. 2022.

Wainwright, Michael. "Truman Capote's Contribution to the Documentary Novel: The Game-theoretic Dilemmas of in Cold Blood." Papers on Language & Literature, vol. 50, no. 1, winter 2014, p. 24. Gale in Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A374335422/SUIC?u=nysl_ce_onsrh&sid=bookmark-SUIC&xid=d07f9fb7. Accessed 8 Dec.