In Cold Blood Post #4

April 28th, 2015

Write a review of the book, rating the novel on a 1-5 scale (1 being poor to 5 being excellent).

 After reading In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote, I would rate this book a 4 out of 5. I thought that Truman Capote did an excellent job with laying out the events involving the Clutter case in this book. Capote divided the case into 4 sections: “The Last to See them Alive”, “Person’s Unknown”, “The Answer”, and “The Corner”. Each of these subsections allow the audience to gradually move more about the case throughout the book. The first section sets the scene, describing Holcomb as a quiet, lonely town- a place unlikely for a murder to occur. It also describes the different characters throughout the book, portraying the Clutters as a wholesome and caring family, liked by everyone. The next couple of sections then go on to explain the murder, the motives behind the murder, and the court process. I appreciated the fact that Capote divided the different events in the murder into sections because it created suspense throughout the book. While reading about the murder, I wondered “what motivated the criminals to murder the Clutter family?” Then once I learned about the criminals motives and how they planned the murder, I wondered how the court system would decide to punish the murderers- as the Christians in Holcomb likely were against the death penalty. 

In regards to the punishment that the murderers received, it seemed like Capote was sympathetic towards Perry Smith. Although Perry was guilty for murdering all of the Clutters, he is characterized as a more thoughtful and respectable character than Dick. Perry seems sensitive and is sorry for what he has done wrong. For example, when Perry is giving his testimony to one of the investigators he states:

“ But I didn't mean it. I meant to call his bluff, make him argue me out of it, make him admit he was a phony and a coward. See, it was something between me and Dick. I knelt down beside Mr. Clutter, and the pain of kneeling - I thought of that goddam dollar. Silver dollar. The shame. Disgust. And they'd told me never to come back to Kansas. But I didn't realize what I'd done till I heard the sound. Like somebody drowning. Screaming underwater” (Capote 157). 

When Perry says this, the audience feels sympathetic towards him. Although he might have killed the Clutter family, he truly felt sorry about committing the murder and was only doing so in order to kill Dick- a ruthless and cruel character. It is clear that Perry feels awful for what he did, as he says: “The shame. Disgust.” I thought that it was interesting how Perry  seemed to be a sensitive character, even though he had committed a horrendous crime. When Perry and Dick are executed for their crimes towards the end of the book, I found myself sympathizing for Perry, even though he was a murderer. I thought that it was interesting how Capote could cause readers to feel sympathetic towards a man who slaughtered an entire family. 

Although I liked this book and found it fascinating, I also felt that it was a little dull at times. It seemed like Capote included every single aspect of the Clutter case- and apparently not all of this information was not even accurate. I think that I would have enjoyed this book more if it didn’t give every single detail involving the case- and had provided the essential facts. However, overall I felt that this book was very informative and had interesting aspects in it as well.