Going to Cuba
7 years ago
Thursday, January 31, 2013
In Cold Blood: The Clutters
As an author, you have the ability to manipulate the audience through your diction and rhetorical persuasion. Does Truman Capote want the reader to feel a certain way about the Clutter family and their murders? If so, how is this evident? If not, how does he remain unbiased? Does Truman Capote want the reader to feel a certain way about Dick Hickock or Perry Smith? If so, how is this evident? If not, how does he remain unbiased?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Cooper: capote does try to influence the reader presenting only the data and facts that he wants to present a certain take on the case of Dick and Perry
ReplyDeleteJoeL
ReplyDeleteTruman wants the reader to fell sorry for the Clutter family and he makes this evident when he praises the Clutter family for all their charity work. With perry and dick he remains unbiased saying both unbiased stories of the criminals.
chicaMJ:
Deleteat first he wants you to feel sorry, but when he tells the story of Dick and Perry he is not unbiased, he writes it in a way so you are sorry about how their life turned out. Didn't you feel sorry in a certain point?
Joel
DeleteI didnt feel sorry for them because they made and atrocious crime chicaMJ, they dont deserve those emotions.
Blu: yes they did do a horrible crime but of course it is sad to know that they were raised in such a bad environment. Sometime we see kids in the streets who have no one to take care of them and you just know that they are likely to turn out the same way Dick and Perry did. In some ways, Perry is like a child who will basically do anything you tell him to, definitely has a disorder. But maybe my point of view is just caused because of the way capote wrote the book, in which case it was biased.
DeleteEmmit:
ReplyDeleteCapote certainly does try to sway his readers towards feeling bad for the Clutters. He provides background information on who they were so their deaths can have more meaning and impact.
KyrieS.
ReplyDeleteI agree with "Cooper" because you can see the deeper you are in the book Capote influences you to feel a kind of pity and sadness for Dick and Perry that started out with hate and dislike at the start of the book
Platypus Rex
ReplyDeleteI think the author wants us to feel sorry for the Clutter family. He describes how nice Nancy is, he also describes what a good man Mr. Clutter is and how everyone in Holcomb loves them.
In addition he also wants us to feel sorry for Perry. He explains all of his childhood and how it might have affected him. How he was his father's favorite and her sisters were jealous.
Regarding Dick, he describes his crude nature. How cold Dick is and how he does not care about killing people. Capote describes how unreasonable Dick is and this happens at the Clutter household when he insists on finding a safe after Herb said there was none.
Capote is biased and he wants the author to feel bad for Perry as if it will justify his deeds. He also makes the reader sorry for the Clutters and makes them hate Dick.
foreveralone
ReplyDeleteCapote wants the readers to feel sad for the killing of the Clutters. He shoes them as a good and lovable family that make no harm to anyone, Instead, he shows the Clutters as a family that helps everyone in Holcomb. Capote also wants the readers to feel a certain way towards the murderers. In regards to Perry, Capote wants the readers to feel sympathy for him because of his terrible childhood. It seems as if Capote shows Perry's childhood so that the readers understand Perry's choices throughout the story. In the other hand, Capote shows Dick as a cold and truly bad guy. He wants the readers to don't care about Dick and "hate" him.
El Bis Stek
ReplyDeleteTruman Capote, in his narrative “In Cold Blood”, characterizes Holcomb, Kansas as a dull and trivial town. Capote expresses his views of Holcomb through diction and contrast.
In the passage, Capote’s diction helps the reader to understand his view on Holcomb as being insignificant and boring. A picture of the irrelevant town is also painted when Capote describes different parts of it
Capote also describes the people wearing showing the small, western town style of the village’s inhabitants. Capote’s diction is an important role in expressing his views about Holcomb, and informing the reader of how unimportant the town is.
Capote’s choice to contrast certain aspects of the town also helps to convey the aimless congregation of Holcomb. At first, Holcomb is described as an ordinary town with flat land, being somewhat out there and its people having an accent barbed with a prairie twang. These boring qualities of Holcomb are supported by Capote’s allusions of the depot. After Capote has built this view of Holcomb, he contrasts the town with an unanticipated outlook on the town. He describes the school as modern, the people as prosperous, and that Finney County has done well. The contrast of different parts of Holcomb make you wonder what other things about Holcomb are you not aware of.
Sugar2195: I believe at the start of the story Capote focuses more on the Clutter family and all their hard work to acheive their American Dream. Then the murder happens and you get that strange feeling of how unfair Dick and Perry were with the Clutter family. But then Capote manipulates the reader to pay a close attention to Perry's life and childhood, and the autor trasmits feelings that makes the reader understand and feel sorry for Perry.
ReplyDeleteI think Truman Capote wants the reader to be in constant suspense, he quickly goes through scenes in the book and always mentions it as the Clutter's last day, last meal etc. He uses dramatic irony because we know the Clutters are going to die based on what Capote says in the book. Most of the beginning of the book is this way, full of suspense and clear hints to what will happen.
ReplyDelete- Tribunito
girlABC:
ReplyDeleteTruman Capote focuses a lot on the Clutter family in the first pages but as we go deeper into the story he starts talking about Perry almost as if he was personally involved with him. It seems like if Truman wants us to feel sorry for Perry or at least gives us enough information about his life for us to know were he was coming from, like a justification.
WesliSnais
ReplyDeleteCapote includes a lot of good things about the Clutter family. He mentions their charity and that they are helpful to others at Holcomb. He wants the reader to feel sad about the Clutters death. However, he shows us that Perry had an awful childhood experience and that Perry's family had lack of integrity. Readers tend to feel sad for Perry's life. Therefore, he mentions Dick as a cold murderer which constantly makes readers dislike him.
Nikolay
ReplyDeleteI believe that Truman Capote makes a lame attempt to write an unbiased, non-fiction novel. He does not explicitly provide his point of view, but by the way in which he writes and presents the facts, he tries to make us feel sad and feel pity for the murdered and the murderers.
First of all, he tries to make us see that the Clutters rare a "perfect family." No family is ever perfect, but he tries to depict them as utopic as possible in order for us to feel hatred towards the murderers.
Furthermore, he tries to destroy our previous hatred by presenting a very sad picture of Perry and Hickcock's life because of the way he uses the tone in the novel. It is not an informative tone; it is rather pitiful and sad. He tries to make us take a side, which in this case is for the murderers. He stops talking about the Clutters throughout most of the book and just tries to make us feel sorry for the murderers, especially Smith.
Dudzy
ReplyDeleteCapote was definitely exercising his ability as an author to keep this novel as true as it was while still using language to make us feel a certain way about the Clutters and the murders. He clearly wants us to feel attached to the Clutters AND understand/feel bad for the murders so like that we can learn about the two sides to every situation and to question wether or not the system that we live by is fair.
El "EC"
ReplyDeleteI do feel that Truman Capote didn't just feel sorry for Dick and Perry, but had a special bond with them. In his book "In Cold Blood", Capote tries to describe the murder in a very strange way. First, he makes us feel sad about the Clutter family and then he makes us feel sad about the murderers.
As a reader, without knowing, I start to feel sad about Perry and Dick, since I start to see there human side and how they feel.
lovepizza94
ReplyDeleteTruman Capote does want us to feel sorry for the Clutter family, and this can be seen with the way he describes them as such good and respected people. He also wants us to feel sorry about Perry and that is why he explains in such detail his family and how they lacked love and moral values. On the other hand, he does not feel the same way about Dick and he does not want us to sympathize with him.
coffeelover22
ReplyDeleteTruman Capote is using his ability to manipulate the audience into feeling a certain way of both the Clutter family and the murderers. This is evident because he is telling us each of their background and a little of their daily life. Making the Clutter's look like a happy and normal family who wants to live happy and wealthy.
Even though Capote is making us feel compassionate for the Clutter family he also talks about Perry's and Dick's life. This makes us think that what they did can be justified by how they grew up. If we feel sorry for how they were raised we will feel understanding on the crime they committed.
daddy t
ReplyDeleteI belive Capote doesnt conevey the feelings of the the stpry towards the clutter family but instead towards Dick and Perrys, eventhough its evident that they are true murders, he wants the audience to understand their past, try to convince one to see both sides of the story to not judge a book by its cover is what he wants to do...