In Cold Blood Character Analysis
Cortney Anderson
Michael Thornton
American Lit.
3 December 2014
Paired Novel Assignment 1 The Novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a well-written creative non-fiction book about a true murder case of the Clutter family. The novel touches upon the American values in the way that the American dream is fairly recurrent in the main characters. He explores social conflicts between the murder suspects and the law, how the murder is causing an effect on the close net community it’s set in, nature vs. nurture in the since that if Dick and Perry, the murder suspects, were raised differently that maybe they wouldn’t have grown to become murderers. The main characters, the murder suspects, are constantly in search of the American dream and the deaths …show more content…
of the Clutter family symbolize how that dream can almost instantaneously become shattered. Most of the points around the American dream throughout this book are based upon how the Clutter family lives what is believed to be the American dream. The American dream has since become more and more about the material things and less satisfied with what you have. The Clutter family is killed when Dick and Perry are attempting to rob the place because they heard the family had money and the robbery goes wrong. This shows that Dick and Perry were so worried about the money inside the house than the actual families that lived in them. This says a lot about society because money has become increasingly important and it is only a piece of paper. With the American dream bigger is always better but with that comes the saying, “mo’ money, mo’ problems,” and the people inside this book truly believe this. The friends of the families are also upset because Capote is making money off of it as Bob Rupp says to the Associated press in an interview, “They made a tremendous amount of money off our great tragedy.” In the book we find out that Bob Rupp dates Nancy Clutter who is also killed in the home. In the small town in Kansas where this is set, the dream is to own your own land and provide for your family, but for the rest of the world it seems as if money rules. Even in the small town in you need money to become stable. In this small town the murders truly rattled the community and word quickly got around of the murders. “At the time not a soul in sleeping Holcomb heard them--four shot gun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives. But afterward the townspeople, therefore sufficiently unfearful of each other to seldom trouble to lock their doors, found fantasy re-creating them over and again--those somber explosions that stimulated fires of mistrust in the glare of which many old neighbors viewed each other strangely, and as strangers.” (Capote 5) According to Capote the American dream leads to nothing more or less than death in his eyes, no matter how you attempt to achieve it and the book ultimately illustrates how pointless and irrelevant it is to follow it. Aside from American values this is a creative nonfiction, modern book based upon the true story of the Clutter family murders using a narrative writing style switching perspective from the first person, the author’s perspective, the Clutters perspective, and the perspective of the killers, Dick and Perry. With this he tries to make an interesting book in an almost movie form flashing back from the murder to the murderers. In the article “An American Dream and In Cold Blood” the author states, “Capote’s own account of why he wrote In Cold Blood centers on the fact--he wanted to give the nonfiction novel status as an art form.” (McAleer 1) The modern style of this book is the fact that it leaves you often ambiguous, which is a characteristic of a modern writing style. The book doesn’t quite tie everything in a neat bow. It leaves you to think about what might happen next or why things are happening. The ambiguous part in this book is why Dick and Perry chose to rob this house in particular which later in the book it’s said that a friend told them that the family had a lot of money so they decided to rob them, but the robbery goes bad and in an attempt to not get caught they kill the family, which is a lot worse than going down for theft. It was said in the book that Dick wanted to rape Nancy Clutter, but Perry told him not too. Dick is talking to a detective when he says this, “I know it is wrong. But at the time I never give any thought to whether it is right or wrong. The same with stealing. It seems to be an impulse. One thing I never told you about the Clutter deal is this. Before I never went to their house I knew there would be a girl there. I think the main reason I went there was not to rob them but to rape the girl. Because I thought a lot about it. That is one reason why I never wanted to turn back when we started to.” This is another reason that caused the robbery to go wrong inside the house. In this case I think his name fits him. There are prevalent major conflicts that occur in this book.
The most obvious conflict would be between the Clutter family and Dick and Perry. There is also a social conflict between the townspeople because now they do not trust each other. In the book Capote writes, “They shared a doom in which virtue was no defense.” This quote goes to show just how shook up the town is. Perry has an internal conflict he is dealing with. He believes in fate and that he cannot escape it but it’s an issue because he feels that he has no control over his life. In a response to a letter Barbara sends him we writes, “Because one thing is set to happen, all you can do is hope it won’t. Or will-depending. As long as you live, there’s always something waiting, and even if it’s bad, and you know it’s bad, what can you do? You can’t stop living.” This quote shows that Perry feels that he has no control over his life and thus he has a conflict with himself. This book has major American values and social conflicts that many can still relate to today. Overall the book was a great read and was very interesting to know that it is a true story and seeing how Capote interpreted it was nice. The modern time fame provides an interesting style that occurs in the book as
well.
Bibliography
"Kansas Town Still Grieves ‘In Cold Blood’ Deaths." Msnbc.com. The Associated Press, 11 Sept. 209. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.
McAleer, John J. "An American Tragedy and In Cold Blood." Literature Research Center. Gale, Cengage Learning, 1972. Web. 1 Dec. 2014. <http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/denv71300?db=LitRC>.
Michael Thornton
American Lit.
3 December 2014
Paired Novel Assignment 1 The Novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a well-written creative non-fiction book about a true murder case of the Clutter family. The novel touches upon the American values in the way that the American dream is fairly recurrent in the main characters. He explores social conflicts between the murder suspects and the law, how the murder is causing an effect on the close net community it’s set in, nature vs. nurture in the since that if Dick and Perry, the murder suspects, were raised differently that maybe they wouldn’t have grown to become murderers. The main characters, the murder suspects, are constantly in search of the American dream and the deaths …show more content…
of the Clutter family symbolize how that dream can almost instantaneously become shattered. Most of the points around the American dream throughout this book are based upon how the Clutter family lives what is believed to be the American dream. The American dream has since become more and more about the material things and less satisfied with what you have. The Clutter family is killed when Dick and Perry are attempting to rob the place because they heard the family had money and the robbery goes wrong. This shows that Dick and Perry were so worried about the money inside the house than the actual families that lived in them. This says a lot about society because money has become increasingly important and it is only a piece of paper. With the American dream bigger is always better but with that comes the saying, “mo’ money, mo’ problems,” and the people inside this book truly believe this. The friends of the families are also upset because Capote is making money off of it as Bob Rupp says to the Associated press in an interview, “They made a tremendous amount of money off our great tragedy.” In the book we find out that Bob Rupp dates Nancy Clutter who is also killed in the home. In the small town in Kansas where this is set, the dream is to own your own land and provide for your family, but for the rest of the world it seems as if money rules. Even in the small town in you need money to become stable. In this small town the murders truly rattled the community and word quickly got around of the murders. “At the time not a soul in sleeping Holcomb heard them--four shot gun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives. But afterward the townspeople, therefore sufficiently unfearful of each other to seldom trouble to lock their doors, found fantasy re-creating them over and again--those somber explosions that stimulated fires of mistrust in the glare of which many old neighbors viewed each other strangely, and as strangers.” (Capote 5) According to Capote the American dream leads to nothing more or less than death in his eyes, no matter how you attempt to achieve it and the book ultimately illustrates how pointless and irrelevant it is to follow it. Aside from American values this is a creative nonfiction, modern book based upon the true story of the Clutter family murders using a narrative writing style switching perspective from the first person, the author’s perspective, the Clutters perspective, and the perspective of the killers, Dick and Perry. With this he tries to make an interesting book in an almost movie form flashing back from the murder to the murderers. In the article “An American Dream and In Cold Blood” the author states, “Capote’s own account of why he wrote In Cold Blood centers on the fact--he wanted to give the nonfiction novel status as an art form.” (McAleer 1) The modern style of this book is the fact that it leaves you often ambiguous, which is a characteristic of a modern writing style. The book doesn’t quite tie everything in a neat bow. It leaves you to think about what might happen next or why things are happening. The ambiguous part in this book is why Dick and Perry chose to rob this house in particular which later in the book it’s said that a friend told them that the family had a lot of money so they decided to rob them, but the robbery goes bad and in an attempt to not get caught they kill the family, which is a lot worse than going down for theft. It was said in the book that Dick wanted to rape Nancy Clutter, but Perry told him not too. Dick is talking to a detective when he says this, “I know it is wrong. But at the time I never give any thought to whether it is right or wrong. The same with stealing. It seems to be an impulse. One thing I never told you about the Clutter deal is this. Before I never went to their house I knew there would be a girl there. I think the main reason I went there was not to rob them but to rape the girl. Because I thought a lot about it. That is one reason why I never wanted to turn back when we started to.” This is another reason that caused the robbery to go wrong inside the house. In this case I think his name fits him. There are prevalent major conflicts that occur in this book.
The most obvious conflict would be between the Clutter family and Dick and Perry. There is also a social conflict between the townspeople because now they do not trust each other. In the book Capote writes, “They shared a doom in which virtue was no defense.” This quote goes to show just how shook up the town is. Perry has an internal conflict he is dealing with. He believes in fate and that he cannot escape it but it’s an issue because he feels that he has no control over his life. In a response to a letter Barbara sends him we writes, “Because one thing is set to happen, all you can do is hope it won’t. Or will-depending. As long as you live, there’s always something waiting, and even if it’s bad, and you know it’s bad, what can you do? You can’t stop living.” This quote shows that Perry feels that he has no control over his life and thus he has a conflict with himself. This book has major American values and social conflicts that many can still relate to today. Overall the book was a great read and was very interesting to know that it is a true story and seeing how Capote interpreted it was nice. The modern time fame provides an interesting style that occurs in the book as
well.
Bibliography
"Kansas Town Still Grieves ‘In Cold Blood’ Deaths." Msnbc.com. The Associated Press, 11 Sept. 209. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.
McAleer, John J. "An American Tragedy and In Cold Blood." Literature Research Center. Gale, Cengage Learning, 1972. Web. 1 Dec. 2014. <http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/denv71300?db=LitRC>.