Sympathy For Murders In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

Words: 499
Pages: 2

In his novel “In cold blood” (1966), Truman Capote explores the murder’s of the Clutter family, an innocent hardworking family from Holcomb, Kansas. Capote manages to give each character a storyline and goes into detail with their personal lives and their surroundings. In doing so, readers notice what some may call bias or sympathy towards some of the characters. In result, making some more likeable than others regardless of their actions. To begin, Nancy Clutter was one of the 2 out of 4 Clutter children who lived in the home. When Capote first mentions Nancy he describes her as “the town darling, Nancy” (pg. 23) instead of just referring to her as the youngest daughter. Capote’s choice of words immediately paints a picture of a nice small town girl who is adored by everyone she comes in contact with and then she’s murdered. Only in the first part of the novel, this quote created more sympathy for Nancy than ever before. Additionally, “...since his wife’s illness and the departure of the elder daughters. Mr. Clutter had of necessity learned to cook; either he or Nancy, but principally Nancy, prepared the family meals” (pg. 27). This shows readers that Nancy was a hardworking who was willing to help her parents especially in their time of need. Capote creates sympathy by showing …show more content…
“No respect for people who can’t control themselves sexually, especially when the lack of control involved what he called ‘pervertedness’ - ‘bothering kids’, ‘queer stuff’, and rape” (pg. 306). Capote uses these choices of words to portray Perry’s disgust at Dick for being a pedophile and his desire to rape women and young girls. The irony in this is Perry is disgustingly against rape and degrades Dick for being a rapist. When in the end he’s the one who kills the whole family. Truthfully murder is worse than rape, and Perry is the true