FREE ESSAY ON TRUMAN CAPOTE'S IN COLD BLOOD

TRUMAN CAPOTE'S IN COLD BLOOD

Truman Capote was first introduced to the story of the brutal killing of the Clutter
family "…one morning in November of 1959, while flicking through The New York
Times, I encountered on a deep inside page, this headline: Wealthy Farmer, 3 of Family
Slain" (Capote, 3). He decided to write about the crime committed in Kansas, because
"murder was a theme not likely to darken and yellow with time" (Capote, 3). Capote
promptly headed for Kansas, where he spent six years researching, solving, and writing
about the unforgivable act. Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, the final product of his years
of research, is a masterfully written account of the cold-blooded murder of the Clutter
family in Holcomb, Kansas in 1959.
In writing In Cold Blood, Capote presents the blood-curdling story of the brutal killing
of the Clutter family in a journalistic style, and is able to exclude his point of view
on all of the events; "The most difficult thing in In Cold Blood is that I never appear
in it, but I solved it…The whole thing was done from Al Dewey's point of view"
(Newsweek, 60). Because of Capote's immeasurable talent for writing, he is able to
present factual events, just as in a journalistic article, in a style that seems similar
to a fiction novel. His focus in In Cold Blood is on the facts of the events which occur
before, during, and after the murder of Mr. Clutter; Kenyon, his fifteen year old son;
Nancy, his 16 year old daughter; and, Bonnie, his wife. Capote's emphasis on the facts
can be seen through his thorough account of what the murderers, Perry Smith and Dick
Hickock, took from the Clutter's house, which was about thirty dollars from Mr. Clutter's
billfold, "…some change and a dollar or two" (239) from Mrs. Clutter, a silver
dollar from Nancy, and a radio. Added up, Perry and Dick gained "between forty and fifty
dollars" (246) from their visit to the Clutter's house. 
As well as being written in a journalistic style, In Cold Blood is written in a
documentary style, which switches "…back and forth from the worlds of the Clutter
family, and later of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, to the terrible half-world in
which the two murderers live" (McCabe, 561). By writing in the documentary style, Capote
is able to be specific about the thoughts, feelings, and actions of all of the characters
separately, making each character's situation and point of view clear to the reader.
Throughout In Cold Blood, Perry Smith is presented to the reader as a heartless and
savage murderer, but during his confession, he says, "I didn't want to harm the man. I
thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment
that I cut his throat" (302), which makes the readers realize that it is not his savage
nature that drives him to murder; it is Smith's mental condition that does not allow him
to feel that his actions are wrong. 
Along with being a journalistic and documentary piece of literature, In Cold Blood can
also be classified as a detective story, because of all of the research and detective
work that Capote, himself, did in order to write this extraordinary work, and because of
all of the detective work incorporated into the plot. Al Dewey is the chief detective in
solving the murders and figuring out the murderers. In actuality, Capote's detective work
and research on the Clutter murders parallels Al Dewey's work in the non-fiction novel. 
The combination of the journalistic, documentary, and detective styles of writing in In
Cold Blood is what makes this work brilliant and masterfully written. Through the use of
these three styles of writing, Capote is able to present the factual account of the
detective work on solving the murders; the events before, during, and after the murders;
and personal accounts of all of the characters involved. This combination of styles not
only presents all of the possible accounts of the murders, but it also presents the
events as a story, such as a fictional novel would present its plot. The unification of
journalistic, documentary, and detective styles of writing proves to compose an
unsurpassed form of non-fiction.