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Analysis of Holcomb, Kansas

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Analysis of Holcomb, Kansas
Jeni Veazey
04-08-2013
Truman Capote Truman Capote spent a few years writing the non-fiction book “In Cold Blood.” The book is about a family that was killed in an area where no one would even begin to think something like that could happen. This is essay is an analysis of an excerpt from that book. Truman Capote views this town just the way it is described; small, quiet, innocent. He conveys this in all of the details and descriptions he gives in this essay. He describes the town in a way the reader can relate to and get a clear mental picture of Holcomb, Kansas.
The speaker from this essay is Truman Capote. He tells about the scene of these murders through the language of formal Standard English. He uses a formal language and an educated diction. The essay is told in a third person point of view in a sort of descriptive and narrative mode. The occasion of this story is to be a part of the non-fiction novel. It describes the setting of the town in which the murder of a family takes place. This essay uses the appeal of pathos. It makes the reader feel empathy towards anyone that was close to them or knew them in anyway. The purpose of this essay was to describe the rural town of Holcomb, Kansas. The area is described in a descriptive tone that makes the reader feel like they are actually there. Capote uses such great imagery the reader can actually picture what the area actually looks like and can get a feel of why the situation was so shocking to the people of the area. The area is described is quiet, remote, isolated, and small. The reader gets the feel that nothing bad is ever expected to go wrong in this small, innocent town. Nothing bad has ever happened, and there is no one around that would ever cause such a bad thing to happen to them. As mentioned earlier, this essay calls the reader’s pathos appeal. Capote’s selection of detail leads you to feel sorry for all those involved or had anything to do with the Clutter family. His selection
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