Plot / Structure

Capote builds suspense despite the fact that he blatantly tells the readers that the Clutters are going to die. The story begins in a slow paced, step-by-step account of the happenings of the day of the Clutters night-time deaths. This puts the readers into the story, into the Clutters home, and ultimately into their lives. The intricate detail creates an astounding visual picture that seems to mesh with the first few pages description of Holcomb and all that it entails. 

As the story continues plodding along at an almost excruciatingly slow pace, Capote begins to use a montage style of writing. By showing different characters mindsets and reactions with other characters in the same precise detail, the reader begins to feel the tension amongst the entire community of Holcomb, creating a suspenseful feeling.

This same feeling is only escalated by the titles of each chapter of the book. 

-The Last to See Them Alive

-Persons unknown

-Answer

-The Corner

Vague, yet oddly stimulating, these titles increase the suspense all the more. I found myself speed-reading this book section by section so I could find out what happened next. All of these characteristics kept the book interesting, suspenseful, and in its entirety all the more fufilling. The fact that Capote told the reader the end in the beginning just made the suspense grow intensely from that point on. Isn’t that the point of a murder novel?

Sympathy, anyone???

Capote tends to describe Dick and Perry in a more casual format. He doesn’t say “Perry was like this” or “Dick was like that”. The author instead slips in details about their physical and emotional states in places where the reader doesn’t really realize they are there. This, I believe, helps to form the character in the readers own way instead of Capote telling the reader specifically “The killers HAVE to look like this!”. This flexibility is key in the characterization of the characters.

For example:

Dick

 ”No go,” he announced, with a furtive casualness that made Perry suspicious.”    (pg. 46)

“Yes I have,” said Dick, who claimed still to be in love with his honey-blond first wife though she had remarried.”   (pg. 49)

“…Dick was a half hour late…”      (pg. 15)

“She’s a real sweet person, your mother. “  Dick nodded; he thought so, too.”     (pg. 24)

“The eye doesn’t matter. Because you have a wonderful smile. One of those smiles the really work.”     (pg. 31)

Perry

“…he had persisted in courting Perry’s soul until the day of its parole and departure…” (metaphor)    (pg. 43)

“Blue-furred, orange-eyed, red-fanged, a tiger snarled upon his left biceps; a spitting snake coiled around a dagger, slithered down his arm; and elsewhere skulls gleamed, a tombstone loomed, a chrysanthemum flourished.”    (pg. 32)

“Perry was “ashamed” to take off his trousers, “ashamed” to wear swimming trunks, for he was afraid that the sight of his injured legs would “disgust people,” and so, despite his underwater reveries, all the talk about skin-diving, he hadn’t once gone into the water.”

“…his own face enthralled him…”     (pg. 15)

Both

“A cinch,” said Dick. “I promise you, honey, we’ll blast hair all over them walls.” “Those’ walls,” said Perry.”    (pg. 22)

“Both, for example, were fastidious, very attentive to hygiene and the condition of their fingernails.”     (pg. 30)

 By making Perry and Dick seem like “normal” guys, Capote can tend to tug the reader’s heartstrings in the killers favor. Do I feel sorry for them, you ask? Personally, I do. I feel for all of those “normal” people out there who just SNAP. But in all fairness, just because everyone could snap, doesn’t mean that they do. Everyone can control their own actions; though, in Perry’s case, with his family troubles and physical disability, in reading the novel I felt my heart reach out to him. Someone with that much baggage always gets to me. Dick was a whole other story. He was simply a greedy, lying, stupid man. He deceived his poor, innocent parents and used Perry for all he was worth. The fact that both of the men pondered killing the other shows just how much they genuinly disliked each other. I wonder if I would have felt the same way towards them had it been either of the two…

In Cold Blood = “Timeliness”

In Cold Blood has an inherent air of “timeliness”. People have been killing each other sense the beginning of human existence; therefore, the topic of murder is one that can be related to by all persons in our society. The case of the Clutters murders is one that we have all read about countless times. “The innocent family brutally slain for no evident reason” scenario is but all to familiar to us average joes.  Yet, the way Capote portrayed these characters and dipicted the setting was really the determining factor in the timeliness of his novel. His realistic characters placed in his pure, seemingly innocent setting made the grizzly situation seem as if it were all too possible; in other words, as if any small town could house a family destined to this gruesome fate. Giving the reader a feeling of unease, Capote creates the illusion that Dick and Perry are normal men, like those who are your neighbors, friends, and even your family. That frightening, yet relatable quality in the story creates perpetual interest in the readers; also, this tale forces one to put hisself or herself in the places the victims, the detectives, family friends, and the murderers themselves. This place is one that most are afraid to go to… into the psyche of a murderer.