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Theme Of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood: Taking Safety For Granted

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In Cold Blood: Taking Safety for Granted What effect does tragedy have on a society? It causes panic and everyone in the area to be a little more careful. During In Cold Blood tragedy happens and in the small town where it occurs panic strikes, as a result the once very close and worry free townspeople became strangers to each other and didn’t feel the safety they once had. Prior to this murder the town thought nothing bad could ever happen to them. In In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, irony, foreshadowing, and symbolism are used to show the danger of taking your safety for granted in small town America. Through irony, Capote shows how the town’s idea of the American Dream, safety and the idea of determining their own fate is taken from them. …show more content…

“In fact, as the most banal cliche would have it, they had been”, “sufficiently un fearful of each other to the seldom trouble to lock their doors” (Coniff 5)(Capote 15). The fact that they don’t have their doors locked and that they don’t care about safety, you get the idea that something bad is going to happen which is foreshadowing. This town should have known something bad was eventually going to happen but they were distracted by their own images of the American Dream. “He Headed home and the day’s work, unaware that it would be his last”(Capote 13). This quote foreshadows that Mr. Clutter is going to die later that day. It also shows how it was just a normal night for them and that there was zero concern for safety at all. “Now on this final day of her life, Mrs. Clutter hung in the closet the calico housedress she had been wearing and put on one of her nightgowns and a fresh set of white socks”(Capote 30). This quote shows that for Mrs. Clutter there was no concern for the wellbeing of her and her family, she didn’t lock the doors, make sure her family was ok like any other family would do. Also it foreshadows that her family will die that night and there’s nothing they can do about it. Truman used foreshadowing to portray the theme of taking your safety for

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Capote’s Style in In Cold Blood Truman Capote, notorious for his fiction works, employed a series of complex literary techniques to further enhance his novels. He is often praised as a literary genius, as his writings are compelling with deep inner workings. This is especially true for one of his most praised novels, In Cold Blood, a narrative nonfiction about a murder-robbery in 1959. In this novel, Capote implements many narrative devices that build suspense and strike fear into its readers.

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Throughout, In Cold Blood, a nonfiction novel written by Truman Capote displays many examples of rhetorical devices. Capote utilizes rhetorical devices to make his audience understand the urgency, seriousness, and setting in this text and dialogue. The two murderers, Perry and Dick drive long and far to Holcomb. Along the drive Dick says, “The bank, that must be the bank, now we turn west—see the trees? This is it, this has to be it.”

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In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote, is a non-fiction true crime. In Cold Blood is about two murderers, Dick and Perry, who heard a rumor about a household possessing $5,000 and they wanted the money. Little did they know there was not any money and they got caught for murder to get nothing in the end. They ended up serving jail time and sentenced to hang till death.

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In Cold Blood Rhetorical Analysis Typically upon hearing about a murder, especially a brutal and unwarranted one, we find ourselves feeling a great sense of disgust for the murderer or murderers who committed these crimes; however, in Truman Capote’s novel In Cold Blood, the lives and experiences of the murderers, particularly Perry Smith, are displayed in a way the makes you feel pity for him as well as the victims. When comparing Capote’s Novel to a typical news article on a similar topic it is easy to see the that Capote's style varies from typical journalism. An article written by Frances Robles and Nikita Stewart titled “Dylan Roof’s Past Reveals Trouble at Home and School,” discusses the childhood and background of Dylann Roof, a twenty-one

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The death penalty has been a controversial topic of debate for years, specifically whether the punishment is ethical and effective. Many have even argued that the criminal justice system has imposed flawed and misguided standards and practices which have caused choatic conditions to seep into American life. Truman Capote’s novel “In Cold Blood” examines the nature of this system by recounting the trail of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, who had been accused of murdering the Clutter family in rural Kansas. Through Capotes vehement opinions about numerous aspects of the process, the narrative includes a stong implicit answer to the central question of whether society actually achieves justice when it imposes the death penalty. Throughout “In Cold

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Page 4-5 Destiny & Fate, Effects on dreams Destiny and fate correlates with the theme that dreams will fail and die. Characters do not decide their destiny. However, they do decide their dreams. A character's fate and destiny affects their dreams. Whether their dreams come true or not, has many contributing factors.

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In Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, there is no hero. The protagonist is not a hero, nor the law enforcement. Heroism becomes irrelevant when searching for justice following a tragedy such as the one seen on November 15th, 1959 in Holcomb, Kansas. Complexity, next to justice, is primary to put into account during the aftershocks . Perry Smith is the protagonist in the novel, not only due to author’s bias but also due to his sheer dynamic, a man disconnected from word to action.

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Murder can be defined as “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another”. How then, are others able to make us sympathize with not only murderers, but people who have committed horrendous crimes? For example, the media is constantly attempting to humanize rapists and even terrorists with phrases like “lone wolf” or “alienated and adrift.” Such phrases make some of us want to pity the criminal. This can be seen when we compare Perry Smith and Dick Hickock from Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.

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We see some more foreshadowing and symbolism in the story when "The empty chairs faced each other between the silent walls, and the music played.... the house began to die" (Bradbury). The music playing and the chairs facing the walls (as an act of respect) symbolized an atmosphere of a funeral which foreshadowed the "death" of the house. Suddenly, nature's fury physically attacks the house: "The wind blew. A falling tree bough crashed through the kitchen window" (Bradbury).

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Truman Capote, the author of In Cold Blood, creates sympathy for almost every character the reader comes across. Through the use of manipulating the reader's emotions and connecting them to each character, Capote successfully pulls it off. There are four main groups that Capote chooses to create sympathy for the murder victims, the murderers, the law officials involved, and the ordinary citizens of Holcomb, Kansas. Truman Capote created the most sympathy for two characters, Perry Smith and Detective Dewey. From the beginning of the novel, Capote showcases Perry Smith a likable character.

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He adds to the idea of personification by letting the readers in on the House’s fear of death in the following quote: “The house tried to save itself. (Bradbury 31)” by shutting its windows tightly to starve the fire and keep it from burning the house down. In this scene, it forgets all other things and concentrates simply on stifling out the fire to save itself. The emotional connection created with both these lines is meant to let the readers believe that life has not changed so much that humans no longer have a place on Earth anymore, even if it is emphasized that Mankind has deserted the planet long ago. Humans’ desires to be remembered are prominent in the human-like traits granted to technology and how they are played with in the

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Many contemporary authors attempt with varying amounts of success to emulate the captivating style of Truman Capote. Through a complex and fine balance between bleak melodrama and noir suspense, Capote’s voice is particularly well captured in his 1966 crime fiction, In Cold Blood. Within the first 5 paragraphs of the work, Truman Capote firmly establishes a notable distaste yet careful curiosity for Holcomb, Kansas - the novel’s primary setting - by utilizing an apathetically negative tone and long-winded syntax sprinkled with vivid imagery of the town’s worst features. Capote’s primary strategy for conveying his point of view on the town is his detached yet empirically negative tone. He displays a lack of attachment for the town, reporting

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How crazy would it be to interview criminals who murdered 4 people in cold blood? Well that’s exactly what Truman Capote did in this chilling book. In the novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote used different rhetorical strategies to create sympathy and influence the idea that there are always two sides to every story. Some of the mainly used rhetorical strategies throughout the novel were imagery, diction, tone, and pathos. Furthermore, Capote also illustrated sympathetical emotion towards both types of characters, the protagonists and antagonists.

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Truman Capote uses variety of language devices to vividly develop Perry Smith in his novel In Cold Blood. These language devices include, diction, similes and symbolism. Throughout the novel diction is used to develop Perry Smith’s character, and suggest reasons for the murder. When Smith explains what happened that night at the Clutter’s family home, he tells agent Alvin Dewey about his moment with Nancy Clutter.

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